Eureka Canoe - Page 4

bitingmidge · #46 30th Nov 2005, 09:02 PM

Thanks Graeme, I'll look into it! (which is probably code for I'm too lazy to do anything....)

Started filleting tonight, but have to leave soon so almost have it half done.

Not back till Friday night so I hope I can get the balance done then.

The pictures show why I cop the rubbishing from all those macho boatbuilding types for masking off. Filleting is just another one of those jobs that I've never been very good at.

Well I've been really really messy, and I'd rather spend an hour masking all the joints than three hours sanding off the crud. You can see from the pics how much is normally left, but I usually make the brew a little sloppier than most, try to keep the mess on the tape, then peel it all off before the epoxy's gone off.

I wish it wasn't too early in the job to be pleased with it, but with one and a half seams done, they're tidy enough!
Cheers,

P

Slavo · #47 3rd Dec 2005, 05:48 PM

G'day Midge,
I read about using peel ply from the kayak building forum run by Nick Schade. One of the threads is http://www.kayakforum.com/cgi-bin/Bu...es/read/114628

A couple of other threads talk about using a thick plastic film

Quote:

Basically you lay down the glass and epoxy, cover with plastic film and roller off the excess. The film keeps the glass from floating off the wood and reduces the telegraphing of the weave on the surface

Both techniques look like they would work on the inside of a S&G canoe/kayak and other have mixed success with the outside as there is a bit of technique for convex and compound curves.

bitingmidge · #48 3rd Dec 2005, 07:22 PM

Thanks for that. I have read the whole thread, and there in the fine print on two posts are "it's best to use with a vacbag" and "if your squeegee technique is good it's hard to see the benefit".

I agree with both!

I think the only advantage it would give without a vac bag is that you would end up with a smooth surface. You'd potentially use a lot more resin though and therefore have a much more expensive and heavier project.

Having said that, if I ever do another foam boat, or lightweight layup for some reason, I'd vacbag first and think about peelply!

Thanks for the info.

cheers,

P

bitingmidge · #49 4th Dec 2005, 11:29 AM

A little more progress:

All the inside seams are filleted. Only some have been sanded which explains why some look white and some look dark in the photos!

Marking out for the bulkheads can be a bit tricky, particularly since I've changed the dimensions slightly because of those inside chamfers on the panels, so I set up a stringline from bow to stern to give me a point of reference.

I stuck a bit of tape on the stringline to mark the location of the bulkheads, then it was a pretty simple matter of checking for plumb and square using a framing square.

Bulkheads are masked and about to get filleted in, note that the fit isn't exactly joinery tight. It doesn't have to be, and at this stage it's better not to be accidentally putting a different shape into the hull. Bog will fix!

Cheers,

P

bitingmidge · #50 4th Dec 2005, 02:19 PM

.... and then of course it's the one step forward and two steps back!!

I filleted the first bulkhead, all fine.

Cleaned off the tape, looked great.

Then I accidentally knocked the bulkhead out of position :eek:. In the past I have used blocks and hot-melt to hold them in place while stooging around, but not this time.

The end result was a badly deformed fillet, with lots of slump and yuk!!

So, patiently

waiting until the epoxy was sort of dry to touch, but not firm, I worked it with wet fingers to get it back to some semblance of where it was supposed to be. Not perfect, but it will only need a bit of sanding to bring it to acceptable.

Pics show before and after fix-up.

......3 hours later......

It hasn't been a day for filleting. When I had a motorbike there were days when I took a bus, because I just got that feeling..... well today, I shouldn't have mixed a batch of epoxy!!

Four simple fillets, three of them stuffed up in some way or another!! Best was the other end, I decided to fill in time while the bog was going off, but sanding the seams. It seems that the harmonic motion was such that it moved the bulkhead by about 8mm at the base, I had only taped it to the temporary cross member!

Fortunately I found it in time, cut the green bog away with a Stanley knife and managed to rescue the situation. It's amazing how a simple one hour task can take all day!

Cheers,

P

bitingmidge · #51 6th Dec 2005, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

I hope to finish the real one by Christmas (!) and probably will get it done before the dust extraction system at the rate that is happening!

That's what I wrote in August 2004 in the first post in this thread!
:eek: :eek:

Well it still holds! I still hope to get it finished by Christmas (forlorn hope though that may be) and the dust extraction system won't be done till well after!!

I must stop making these rash promises!

cheers,

P (sanding fillets at the moment)

Daddles · #52 7th Dec 2005, 12:36 AM

Ahh Midge, if ye had used the one pure poxy instead of that horrid abomination ye chose, ye would not be having this trouble.

Of course, I might just be bull####ting because the evil-ex has been evil tonight and I'm feeling frisky, but I wouldn't do that would I ...

Richard
thank god for girlfriends who know how to massage

bitingmidge · #53 11th Dec 2005, 09:57 AM

Nothing wrong with the poxy, just the bloke using it!

Soo yesterday I ripped down the gunwhale and inwhale planks (they aren't planks but that sounds sooo nautical doesn't it?), bought a new saw blade, fixed my bike, washed the cars, and made a template for the deck beam.

There isn't actually a deck beam in the plans, I just decided I'd like two of them to trim off the edge of the deck where it cantilevers over the bulkhead.

For a bloke with my incredible skill (none) and with a nice bandsaw in the corner of the shed, this shouldn't be any bother at all, despite the double-compound curve.

So I marked the first bit, made a nice curved cut, then the second cut, then the third, and all was looking good except the bandsaw started to bog in the 20 year old oregon (douglas fir). :eek: :eek: In the middle of it all was a pocket of fir resin, which proceeded to coat the blade and smear all over the piece... clearly I wasn't going to get any use out of that one!

Never mind, the practice was good. So I marked and cut the second, only to find that on final planing, I exposed a nail-hole I thought I'd missed and a shake appeared with a crack right across the piece!

Never mind, the practice was good, and I've got a nice template now. (Not that I need a template, but I have one anyway.)

Today, I'll do two more. (Or fifty at this rate!)

Pics show:
1) Shed setup for ripping down long lengths on the TS. Note "fences" clamped to router table and workbench - very handy things.

2) Gratuitous shot of my patternmaker's vice in action, with the lovely Veritas Spoke Shave doing it's own thing, while I go for a cup of tea.

3) Template in place!

Cheers,

P

bitingmidge · #54 11th Dec 2005, 11:27 PM

A whole day and not much to show for it either! I'm hoping that something I did today will make things easier down the track...

Cut the new deck beams and made them a lot lighter, since I am definitely of the "if it breaks it wasn't strong enough, if it doesn't break it's probably too heavy" school, and this was an addition to the plan... (150 grams each if you are wondering Mik!)

The photo doesn't show the really nifty rebate I cut, but the deck will finish flush with the top of the beam, and only 6mm of the beam will be visible at the end of the day.

I was getting round to pulling out the router to do the rebate, then I thought, "It's Sunday afternoon, and that's a bit anti-social, besides there might be a power cut or something and besides I'd have to build a special curved fence adn...." So I pulled out my Dad's trusty, Record 045 and gave the blade it's first sharpen in 40 years, fiddled and fussed and made a curved fence bit, and generally stooged around for a few hours, then cut a slot to create the rebate, finished it with a chisel and touched it up with one of the Veritas collection because I could.

That goes some way to explaining the lack of progress!

I did get to glue on the deck support "inwhales" and make a jig to cut the curvy bits on the inwhale spacers, but that's for the next post!

Cheers,

P

bitingmidge · #55 18th Dec 2005, 12:03 AM

There won't be any progress this week, I've been away on business, pranged a hirecar, been to a wedding and have Rupert the Pom coming to visit tomorrow on the Oz leg of his grand adventure.

So I thought I'd post a pic of my Inwhale Spacer cutting jig. For those that don't know about these things, the Gunwhale is a stick that glues on the top of the outside of the boat (a bit like a border really) which stiffens the outside edge.

An Inwhale does the same thing, except on the INside, which I imagine goes part of the way to explaining why it's called an Inwhale. The Inwhale SPACER as its name implies, spaces the inwhales off the hull a little bit, and that gives a slightly stiffer structure because of the beam action it creates, but more importantly, lets you tip water out without having to turn the whole boat upside down.

Really clever builders (like me) like to put a nice convex curve on each end of the spacers instead of cutting them square, and as there are 25 per side on this little boat, one could easily become tired of cutting them by hand with a fretsaw.

My solution, is to build a little jig out of MDF, to hold the blank timber, and cut the pieces to the radius of choice using a forstner bit. The MDF is glued with a blank bit clamped in tight so that it's a press fit, and no other clamping is needed.

In the photo, you should be able to spot my pencil marks for the lengths I need, and a spacer cut and sitting there ready to be levered out with a screw driver (I chisel a rebate in one end of the jig to make it easy to get the screw driver under the part.)

The second photo (the reddie-yellow one) is the same, it's just that I took it with the wrong white balance and thought it looked pretty cool!

Next progress is probably after Christmas now..... so have a great one and look in on Boxing Day!

Cheers,

P

bitingmidge · #56 18th Dec 2005, 09:52 AM

As an aside, Michael Storer has decided to issue his paddle plans as a free download from his website.

I suppose I should really start a new thread about canoe paddles. I haven't started building mine yet, well not for this boat anyway.

New thread it is!!

cheers,

P

Boatmik · #57 22nd Dec 2005, 09:49 AM

Howdy Midge,

Thankyou hugely for both creating and keeping this thread updated. A valuable resource for people wanting to see how a Eureka goes together.

Looks good to me - and I even like most of the changes you have made!

The Eureka was drawn up to be a really simple boat to build - if I was building I would not be bothering about the "inwale spacer jig" but would be cutting them square - so I could get the boat under the Xmas tree at the end of the week!!!

But (and a very big BUT) all the mods make the boat reflect your interests and thinking. I am really excited by the fact that no two Eurekas will end up exactly the same - of course there will be the occasional one where I go omigawd, but 99.99% will still reflect the simplicity of the design and work damn well on the water - AND THEY WILL ALL BE BUILT IN A STYLE THAT REFLECTS THE BUILDER.

The only areas where I would suggest a different direction are that I would have gone with glassing the seams (looks neater, a shade better structurally - but the fillets will be OK) and the bevelling of the hull panels where they meet - to remove material from the panels throws the joining tolerances out and makes other aspects of assembly a fraction more difficult.

But it looks like you have gotten away with it!!!

Thanks too for sharing the FREE PADDLE PLANS link
http://www.storerboatplans.com/Paddles/FreePaddle.html

So once again ... thanks for keeping this great thread going - I'll have to visit again (oh no - he says) to have a look at the finished beestie (curved inwale spacers and all) and take it for a paddle on the river.

Cheers and thanks
Michael

Just Fantastic.

bitingmidge · #58 22nd Dec 2005, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boatmik

The Eureka was drawn up to be a really simple boat to build - if I was building I would not be bothering about the "inwale spacer jig" but would be cutting them square - so I could get the boat under the Xmas tree at the end of the week!!!

Yeah, but where's the fun in that, it was going to be ready for Christmas last year if I read my first post correctly!!?

Actually one of the great things about the Eureka is that it's SO simple, it should only be a few weekend's work at most, but you know me!. I've been away for a good deal over the last few months, so a bit of fiddling of an evening is quite theraputic.

Quote:

The only areas where I would suggest a different direction are that I would have gone with glassing the seams (looks neater, a shade better structurally - but the fillets will be OK) and the bevelling of the hull panels where they meet - to remove material from the panels throws the joining tolerances out and makes other aspects of assembly a fraction more difficult.

But it looks like you have gotten away with it!!!

Yep, I made a lot of work for myself for no benefit at all, in fact it was a real chore getting the panels to align exactly. Don't do it my way kiddies, follow the plans!

Thanks for the critique Mik,

Cheers,
P

Boatmik · #59 26th Dec 2005, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bitingmidge

Thanks for the critique Mik,

Cheers,
P

I wanto see you get the mozzies on your posts follow the cursor!!!!!

Mik

bitingmidge · #60 26th Dec 2005, 11:11 PM

Think I'll go to SuperCheap tomorrow and buy some more 3" clamps while they have their 20% off sale!

P