Canoe :-(

[catsittingstill]

I put little pieces in the stems yesterday.  There was a big old bubble at one end when they finished curing.  Normally the fix for this would be to sand it off and put on a patch, but it's deep in the bow where most of my tools won't reach.

I went to the feedstore this morning and bought a syringe and a needle, thinking I would inject epoxy into the bubble and fill it that way, only to discover that the bubble wasn't deep enough for the opening of the needle to get all the way in, so the epoxy I tried to inject only dribbled onto the outside surface of the fiberglass.  On the bright side, the fiberglass weave was not fully plugged with epoxy, so I did manage to massage a little in with my finger.  I didn't eliminate the bubble entirely but I reduced it a lot.  It will have to do.

The needle was a goner but I rinsed the syringe with acetone and I think it will be good for another couple of uses.  The needle was only 10 cents anyway.

I also put on the big piece of interior fiberglass that covers the middle 90% of the boat.  This was harder than I remember it being last time.  The Wee Lassie II has a vee bottom, and every time I used the squeegee to drag epoxy up the sides it would lift the fiberglass cloth away from the keel line.  I kept having to drag epoxy up and massage the cloth down in alternate movements.  This kept me busy, so I was glad I didn't try to fiberglass all the way to the ends, which are tricky.  A lot of bubbles and wrinkles tried to form at the sheer (where the gunwale will go) and I thought I got them all out, but when I went back to check after it cured, I have several small ones on the starboard side I'm going to have to sand off and patch.  Plus, most aggravating of all, there are two bubbles near the keel on the port side near the bow.  They don't cover much surface area (maybe 1 1/2 fingers worth) but they stand up pretty tall and I don't know how I missed them when I was smoothing things down.  If I had caught them in time I could have fixed them, but they either weren't there or I didn't see them when I finished up.  One bad thing about the white pine is that it's harder to see bubbles against the lighter colored wood.

I don't think it will hold up the boatbuilding process--I expect to be able to patch them tomorrow and put the end pieces on the same day.  It's just irritating.  Then I need to put one more piece of fiberglass at the very top of each end, and maybe add a little more epoxy to fill the weave.  So maybe on Tuesday I'll be ready to do the through-holes and put (one of) the gunwales on.

Comments

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear it's being irritating. Will the bubbles affect how she moves, or just how she looks?

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Since they're on the inside, they wouldn't affect how she moves in any case... They will affect the strength of the hull if they're not patched, because the strength and stiffness depends on having a layer of wood between two layers of something that doesn't stretch (fiberglass-epoxy). Removing them and patching the resulting holes will fix that.

They will affect the looks very slightly--if you know what to look for and where, you will probably be able to spot the patch, especially since I wasn't planning to add extra epoxy to completely bury the weave of the fiberglass.

I'm mostly grumpy because of the extra work involved--especially since they're in an awkward, hard-to-reach location that means I have to do all the sanding by hand.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

That does sound crankymaking, but I'm glad there is a fix available, and that it will deal with the hull strength issue even if it will leave a slight visual scar. As a mass of scars myself (four major surgeries will do a job on the body), I can testify that they don't affect true beauty one bit, they just add character. I'm sure she'll be a lovely boat anyway, in the end.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I believe that--but there are days when it's harder than others.

I just discovered this morning, while sanding, that I also have a *lot* of bubbles at gunwale level. They will be hidden by the gunwales, but I think I still need to patch them because they reduce the hull strength otherwise. She will basically need a whole strip along each gunwale as well as patches on the other bubbles I saw.

Grump!

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

Grump indeed. Sorry to hear it! I can understand she's feeling bubbly at the thought of getting finished and into the water, but she isn't supposed to bubble literally!

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

Well, the easy part is nearly over - now you will be attaching the gunwales, thwarts, seats, decks, etc. At any rate, I found those to be the most fussy parts on my boats. That's what comes of being a perfectionist trying to make those highly visible parts look good. I envy you, though - building is great fun, and really satisfying.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I keep telling myself I won't worry too much about how it looks. We'll see how *that* goes. :-7

Sometimes building is fun. Fixing the problems is satisfying--once they're fixed.

By the way, did you attach gunwales with glue, or screws?

[boywizard.livejournal.com]

I didn't leave any metal in either of my boats. In the first one, I did use staples to hold the strips to the forms, since I painted the boat and the holes left by the staples were hidden. The gunwales were attached with screws until the epoxy set; I then removed them and plugged the holes with dowels. For boat two I used clamps (lots and lots of clamps [fortunately in the five or so years between boat projects I had accumulated quite a few of them]) on everything, even though I also painted this boat.

I would have preferred to finish boat two bright, but... My building space was 11 by 12 feet, and the boat was a sixteen-footer. Serious problem, solved by constructing the boat in three pieces, and joining them with pseudo-scarf joints. This made for distinctly ugly spots, which I had to hide with paint.