Building a skiff

[AKDoug]

I love my bluetooth ear-pro. I have a set of 3M WorkTunes and they've survived an amazing amount of abuse. I wear them constantly while running heavy equipment that don't have radios, as well as on my work snowmobile grooming trails.

I built an epoxy/plywood box for the back of my work snowmobile of the last couple week. It takes forever with a box because you can only work on a couple surfaces at a time. The box holds a second battery for a winch and a container for emergency gear.

I'll paint the lid black as well tomorrow. Once I'm done with this I have enough epoxy left over to finish a 1.5 sheet Portuguese dingy I have hanging from the shop ceiling that my daughter and I started 8 years ago.

[peterb]

This is one of my favorite threads on the forum at the moment.

I've grown up without much boating in my life. I now live in Florida, and boating is large part of the culture. I know nothimg of it. I was looking at rudimentry boat info when you first started the thread. I'm pretty much resolved that I need to build a boat at some point in my life. Maybe not even soon, but eventually.

Don't be intimidated. At the most basic level, you're building a box that needs to be mostly waterproof. Everything beyond that is a bonus. ;-)

Here's a fine example. Not pretty, not elegant, but folks seem to have a lot of fun with them. http://www.pdracer.com/

There are lots of kit options if building from plans seems like a big first step.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

I got sick of looking at the rough spots towards the bow so those got some fairing; I also got to work on the rub rails and spray rails. Now I'm starting to think the whole thing is coming together.







The screws are temporary, of course...they'll be removed and everything will be held together with epoxy.

The rubrails need to be extended right to the transom as well, but that last section is almost straight; I can knock that off pretty easily. The forward 3/4 or so was the part that actually benefited from rails cut to fit the sheerline. The rubrails are 2 layers of 1/4" meranti plywood; the spray rails are meranti 1x2s cut in half. They probably aren't necessary with the reverse chine, but on the off chance I end up with a nice paint job, I thought it'd be nice to have some semi-sacrificial rails for the fenders to go bouncing off rather than the paint. The utility of them would be pretty dependent on me actually doing a good job on the paint, though, so probably a waste of effort.

But I have spent so much time in my big boat tethered to docks loading and unloading that I figured what the hell. Also, maybe I'll manage to get a decent finish on the rails and they'll look nice. It goes with the classic lines, I think.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Quite busy at the moment but the screws are all out and the clamps are off; the various rails are now permanently attached.

I believe this is the first time I've gotten the boat in one picture, although of course the angle and the shorter focal length necessary to get this picture do distort it a bit.

[AKDoug]

Looking fantastic.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Thanks man, it's a process but it's coming along.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

The updates are coming a little more slowly right now but it's not that I'm not working on the boat; I continue to put in about ten hours each week which is around what I've been doing since the beginning. But now everything is slow and not very easy to photograph in an interesting way.

Some of it just feels repetitive but of course that's boatbuilding.

I taped down the reverse chines just for extra wear resistance, and then I slopped on a couple of layers of what I call hard mix: fumed silica, milled glass, and talc. It's extremely hard when cured so six ounce weave and two layers of hard mix should make for pretty tough chines. I squared up those edges with my usual poster board strips.





I was a little worried the skeg or keel hadn't stayed quite straight enough when I was weighting it down so I hit it with the laser level to make sure. I ended up sanding it in a couple of spots with the long board, and putting a little wood flour mix on the on the opposite sides.



Now I'm happy with it.



Then I worked on saturating the spray rails with epoxy, and getting good fillets on them.





Since I had the laser out, I marked out the rough horizontal from the chine line. In reality it'll sit lower at the stern than that, I just want a reference mark for about where I'll graphite the hull.



Other than that, its just fairing. But it's getting close. To be honest, it doesn't need a ton of fairing; I have to say that I'm quite happy with the way the glass lay down. You can see I haven't put much compound on, but so far, most of it is relatively fair and it's smoothing out nicely.

[AKDoug]

Looking good. Lots of fun to follow along. I'm building another set of boxes for a snowmobile tow behind sled to keep my camping gear in. Plywood/Epoxy is the perfect way to do it. My first creation for the back of my machine has been a great success. Good enough for a boat, good enough for what I'm doing.

[mmc45414]

Poor Guzzi gonna need a bath...

[WDR]

I'll say this, I'm gettin an air horn and putting it on a cord for him to wear when he's wandering around the island as a five year old or whatever. You fall in the pond, you fall off a rock, you have a tree fall on you...lean on the horn, I will find you.

Being a parent is like having your heart permanently relocated to the outside of your body...you are just giving the universe a bit mallet to beat you with.

But it's worth it, of course.

FWIW, my daughter is now 7 and she went deer hunting with me last fall for the first time (real walk around the mountains hunting, not sit in a stand hunting). I was never more than 25-50 yards away from her, and most of the time, much closer, but I still found a lanyard from an old streamlight, ran it through a bright orange plastic emergency whistle, and made her wear it, and practice blowing it loudly... just in case we were ever separated for some reason. Every time I was more than a few steps away from my daughter, I'd think about the risk of a cougar or bear suddenly showing up, and a whistle isn't going to help that. She might have been fine sitting on that rock for days by herself, but I made her walk with me to peek over the ridge or whatever, every time, even though the sage was nearly as tall as she was, making picking her way through it tough.

Kids are resilient and tough... and some of the best lessons they learn are by failing and getting hurt. I'm not saying you shouldn't take precautions, but it is important to let go of the reigns sometimes, and let them explore and learn a bit. I'm sure you already know this, and he's very young. But you are right, its a huge thing to be committed to, raising a kid. That "Heart relocated outside the body" bit really resounds with me.

Years ago, my father and I built a small duck hunting boat out of plywood and epoxy/fiberglass, and it was a fun project. My father is a much more dedicated craftsman and woodworker than I, but every once in a while I get an urge to build something like that again. He's constantly working on projects, and I think it's helped keep him young and active now that he's pushed into his 70's. He recently finished building plantation style shutters for every window in his house (a lot of them!)... custom fitting each frame to the window openings, which were absurdly un-square and un-plumb.

I wont clutter up this boat thread farther, but I wanted to drop in and say it is an interesting thing, and I keep checking back to see how things are going.