Canoe today, but not tomorrow :-(
Sep. 24th, 2010 08:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillNo serious problems with yesterday's work. I did a little sanding in the ends to get the rough edges of the new fiberglass and sanded out a little run here and there, but I'm pretty happy with the hull.
Today I put in the through-holes that I made out of ash sometime last month. I used a hole saw to cut six disks out of an ash board, epoxied up 2 cylinders of 3 disks each, then drilled through the heart of the cylinders to make two ash pipes. Not hard at all if you have a drill press.
The hole saw I used to cut the cylinders was 1 1/4 inch diameter. This means the cylinders were about 1 1/8 inch diameter. So I picked up a 1 1/8 inch hole saw a couple of days ago, because you can glue a 1 1/8 inch pipe into a 1 1/4 inch hole but it's messy. Today I drilled a test hole through some scrap plywood and verified that it would work with my pipes, then drilled into my beautiful hull (gulp) four times so I could put a through hole in each end. I put the ash pipes through the holes, drew around the outside to show me where to cut, and cut the pipes into wedges, (the Shopsmith sanding wheel was helpful here) then made a little (1/2 ounce) dookie schmutz and glued them in, almost flush with the hull but not quite. I masked off the inside elaborately beforehand, but thought I'd just wipe the dookie schmutz off the outside. For future reference, it would have been a lot easier if I had just masked off the outside too, and next time I will do that.
I also sanded the bandsaw and ryobi marks out of the bookmatched decks. They look reasonably good, and are lovely and light, but they don't match quite as well as I'd hoped. The grain ran at an angle through the wood, so they don't match perfectly. Oh, well. I think they will be nice and light, which is good because weight at the ends of the boat is hard to deal with, and they will look very striking between the walnut gunwales. I have put them carefully out of harm's way.
Tomorrow I promised to go to a League of Women Voters thing 2 hours away, which means I won't be able to work on Constance. In fact, I'd better go to bed soon, because I have to get up early for it.
I think I might be able to finish Constance in three weeks...
Today I put in the through-holes that I made out of ash sometime last month. I used a hole saw to cut six disks out of an ash board, epoxied up 2 cylinders of 3 disks each, then drilled through the heart of the cylinders to make two ash pipes. Not hard at all if you have a drill press.
The hole saw I used to cut the cylinders was 1 1/4 inch diameter. This means the cylinders were about 1 1/8 inch diameter. So I picked up a 1 1/8 inch hole saw a couple of days ago, because you can glue a 1 1/8 inch pipe into a 1 1/4 inch hole but it's messy. Today I drilled a test hole through some scrap plywood and verified that it would work with my pipes, then drilled into my beautiful hull (gulp) four times so I could put a through hole in each end. I put the ash pipes through the holes, drew around the outside to show me where to cut, and cut the pipes into wedges, (the Shopsmith sanding wheel was helpful here) then made a little (1/2 ounce) dookie schmutz and glued them in, almost flush with the hull but not quite. I masked off the inside elaborately beforehand, but thought I'd just wipe the dookie schmutz off the outside. For future reference, it would have been a lot easier if I had just masked off the outside too, and next time I will do that.
I also sanded the bandsaw and ryobi marks out of the bookmatched decks. They look reasonably good, and are lovely and light, but they don't match quite as well as I'd hoped. The grain ran at an angle through the wood, so they don't match perfectly. Oh, well. I think they will be nice and light, which is good because weight at the ends of the boat is hard to deal with, and they will look very striking between the walnut gunwales. I have put them carefully out of harm's way.
Tomorrow I promised to go to a League of Women Voters thing 2 hours away, which means I won't be able to work on Constance. In fact, I'd better go to bed soon, because I have to get up early for it.
I think I might be able to finish Constance in three weeks...
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Date: 2010-09-25 04:15 am (UTC)Meanwhile, you've been fiberglassing, and so have I. I am making replacement decks for the ones that rotted out on my Shark catamaran. Deck bottoms are glassed (4 oz glass on 3/8 marine ply), now for the tops.
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Date: 2010-09-25 09:48 am (UTC)Before I started building canoes I got seriously into canoeing--at least seriously enough to do it a lot and to read a number of books about it. Several of my books advocated putting your own through-holes in if your canoe didn't come with them, because if you have to pull or hold a canoe against a current (as in towing with another boat, or lining up or down part of a river) the lower the attachment of the line was, the less likely the canoe was to tip over. Through holes were also considered the strongest attachment point for tying down to a car since it goes right through the body of the canoe and can't be pulled off, like a deck.
A strong transport tie-down is kind of a trade-off, of course, because if you get too enthusiastic with tightening down the ends you can break the canoe over the car roof. But I put through holes in Patience and really liked the look of them as well as their strength, so they're my first choice for this kind of thing.
Congratulations on your progress fixing your Shark! Wow--it sounds big compared to a canoe; I'm trying to imagine a deck where the bottom and the top aren't the same piece of wood :-) Or are you glassing both sides of the same plywood?
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Date: 2010-09-25 04:07 pm (UTC)I found a slide of my first canoe; I will post the picture for you when I get it scanned. Not able to come up with any photos of number two, though, which is unfortunate. It was a nicer boat, and my own design. Number one was built from plans.
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Date: 2010-09-29 02:34 am (UTC)I would love to see a picture of your canoe, or canoes if you find any of number two.
I'm very impressed that you designed your own. I don't know that I would dare do that.