Boat stuff

[catsittingstill]

I have been working on the boat.  Well, not really on the boat; I have been working on the test piece I made to test 1) the old epoxy (which does seem to harden up properly in spite of the hardener having gone all yellow) 2) various colors of wood putty 3) various mixes of sawdust and wood glue.  Today I epoxied it, finally.

1) it takes longer than i remember for the epoxy to become non-tacky.  I don't think this is a problem, but it's something to remember

2) I'm not really happy with any of the putties, and I think my favorite sawdust plus glue mix is white pine plus epoxy but I will have to test some more grooves on the other side to be sure.  I am not psyched about the fumed silica recommended to me to make the consistency smoother, as it's a fine-particle hazard and I would have to wear a mask.  Temp / humidity in my boatshop frequently runs 85 degrees / 75 percent and I'm worried my glasses will fog if I have to wear a mask.  Raka has something called "phenolic microballoons" which might serve the same purpose, but I don't know what their hazards are.  On the bright side they're inexpensive.  And being able to use the remains of the old epoxy means this will be an inexpensive boat.

3) Anywhere I did not thoroughly sand off the white glue I mixed with the sawdust looks smudgy.  Since the rest of the wood fairly glows, this is something I will have to check for carefully before epoxying the boat itself.

4) The plugs are going to show more than I thought; there is a faint dark line circling each of them.  Plugs that disappeared when the wood was unfinished show clearly now.  These could be "bruises"--places where the fibers were compressed and then spring back when they drink the epoxy.  A couple of the plugs go all the way through to the other side; I can check if wetting them down and fine sanding makes a difference with this.

4) This is going to be one gorram beautiful boat.  All this fussing around with putties and dookie schmutz is basically settling whether it's going to be just very beautiful, or very very beautiful.  it's going to be much blonder than Patience, but I knew that.  But it glows...

Picture tomorrow when I can put the test piece in the sun.

To do for boat:
Order fiberglass / fumed silica? / phenolic microballoons? from Raka.  It's looking like 60 bucks so far, mostly for the fiberglass.  If I need more epoxy that will be another hundred. 

Get chalk.  Just plain blackboard type chalk.  Blanc & West didn't have it; try Leepers Hardware, Walmart, Lowes, in that order.  If none of them have it, Amazon should.

Comments

[technoshaman]

Aircraft homebuilders use microballons all the time on composite surfaces to give the epoxy a little more oomph or to smooth out divots, etc. It's good stuff, and as you say, it's cheap.

[catsittingstill]

I have ordered some.

Now the tricky part will be to persuade myself not to begin the project until they arrive and I have time to test them out.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

YAY Boatmaking!!!

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

:-)

[spiritdancer]

A couple of other places to check for chalk: Kmart, Staples/Office Max/Office Depot, Walgreens/CVS, and your local grocery store. Basically, any place that is having back-to-school sales right now :)

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestions. We have a CVS in Jefferson City--and of course we have a couple of grocery stores. I hope I will not have to drive in to Knoxville for this.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

An N95 mask will protect against silica gel particles; I suspect fumed silica is about the same consistency. Some N95 masks even come with outflow valves for comfort; I suspect that might also reduce or eliminate the fogging problem. These are at Home Depot, but 3M is a national brand, so I suspect you can get this product or something comparable at most hardware and home-improvement stores.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the suggestion; I will see if our Lowes or Home Depot has them.

Hopefully I will need to wear a mask only for the few minutes I'm mixing.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I found one. Thanks for the tip.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I hope this one will get a song too, when she's finished and named!

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

She already has a name; I'm going to call her "Constance" :-)

I don't know if she will have a song or not. It would be neat but I'll have to see if anything comes to me.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Your boat names make you sound vastly more Puritan than you actually are. (But I like Constance; I have a cousin named that, who breeds top Newfoundlands.)

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I hadn't thought about that. I was mostly thinking of the qualities that *I* need to finish the boat :-) Sort of self-encouragement.

My brother suggested (after I told him Patience's name) that I should call the next two "Persistence" and "Passion" but I thought those two names only sound good as part of a trio. And "Persistence" by itself or "Passion" by itself would sound weird. Whereas "Constance" is unusual but not weird. I also toyed with "Constancy" as in "Be not to constancy untrue..." but I don't think that works as well.

"Audacity" would make a great name. If I ever had a daughter--which is pretty unlikely at this point but if--I would be seriously tempted to name her "Audacity." However it strikes me as kind of different from the canoes I make, which are flatwater canoes, for seeking out tranquility, mostly. "Audacity" might be a good name for a river canoe but I'm not very interested in running rivers.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

I think Joy would be a lovely name, and true to your pattern of what you need in yourself in order to finish a boat. "Every act of creation is an act of joy?"

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

That's a lovely name, it's true. And very appropriate for what I would hope to get at the end of the process.

The making of a boat itself has its ups and downs and is not always joyful :-7 But still, it's a great name.

"Hope" would also be a good name.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

The making of a boat may not always feel joyful -- I'm guessing you don't always feel patient when you're in the process of making it either. But without some joy in the process at some times, it won't get finished at all. "If you don't love what you're making, it will never come to pass." I'm sorry if I'm being annoying by quoting you to yourself, but I really think you got it right about how things get made... no matter what the thing. :)

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

So many schools have redecorated with whiteboards that just plain old chalk may be an increasingly rare product. Will the colorful "sidewalk chalk" not work BECAUSE it is colored?

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I don't have any reason to believe that sidewalk chalk would not work. I just thought 1) plain would be cheaper 2) I don't want "lumber crayon" or anything fancy that might have wax or grease in it because that might be hard to sand off.

Boatbuilding

[mjmallory.livejournal.com]

Hi.
I've enjoyed lurking here on your journal. I'm a fan of your music and I've watched your boat posts here with interest for a while.
In 1982 my wife and I started on a Bruce Roberts design 34" sailboat from plans. It was an Airex-cored fiberglass design. We got thru the basic construction OK, but the finish work killed us (after about 4 years , it boiled down to either sell the hull or get divorced, so we sold the hull). However, I do have a suggestion: get the micro-ballonos. The difference in sanding time approaches an order of magnitude.

Re: Boatbuilding

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Hello and welcome!

A 34 foot boat is indeed ambitious and I can imagine that the sanding would be an enormous job. My last canoe was 15 feet and this one is a smidge under 14... and it still seems like rather a lot.

I'm not familiar with airex but it sounds like it might somewhat resemble polyuranate foam? A rigid but soft plastic foam that comes in sheets?

I made a drum box out of that stuff, (as a core between two layers of fiberglass) once as a proof of concept for a more ambitious plan to make an instrument case. I haven't made the instrument case yet, but I'm young. Well, not old, anyway.

Thank you for the advice about the microballoons. I did in fact get some. However I wasn't using them to fair the hull--just to mix up a little epoxy-plus-filler to fill small holes and putty a few cracks. So the sanding was pretty minimal. They do darken up the mix nicely, which proved to be very helpful for puttying next to the butternut. In general the books advise to putty with a darker color than the wood--that lighter colors stick out more.

I will keep your advice in mind when I'm puttying the inside of the boat, however. It will be harder to sand the inside because it's just plain harder to get into the restricted curves and angles, especially at the bow and stern. Making the sanding easier there will be very valuable.

I am sorry you had to sell your hull, but it sounds like it was the best choice. Fortunately a canoe is well sized for solo work so it hasn't become a point of strain between me and my husband :-)