Thread: The Little Black Dog - MSD Rowing Skiff - Adelaide OZ

Originally Posted by tomtre

You have made a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks.

It's called 'hiding from the frustrations of a fruitless search for employment' ... but thanks. I'm rather surprised at how much work is involved - it's no wonder it takes so long to build a boat when working when the opportunity presents ... usually only on the weekend.

Your boat is looking really good. Are you planning to glass the bottom?

Thanks

There's no need to glass the bottom, the boat is plenty strong enough as it is. Nor do you really need it for abrasion resistance because the skeg will keep the hull off the rough stuff. I will be fitting a hardwood, sacrificial strip to the bottom of the skeg and if working off an abrasive beach, you could also fit a couple of sacrificial strips (hardwood again).

I will be glass taping the chines though. This isn't really necessary as the chine logs are wide enough to provide a decent gluing surface (that's from Mik whom I put this question to). In my case though, I'll glass tape the chines to beef up that ply delamination at the bow (see earlier posts), to allow for possibly dodgy gluing from today's effort and to provide a bit of abrasion resistance on the chines.

Richard

She's looking really good and it looks like you put that bottom down on the correct side. I assume you shimmed it nice and level before putting the bottom on. With it in place any twist remaining will be tough to eliminate. On the Goat I found you could tweak it a little when you put the seat tops in but after that it's absolutely rigid.

With a big project like a bottom I put in every screw I think will be needed, dry fit at first. I then backed out about 80 percent of them, leaving them close by right there on the bottom plank. Then go to one end or the other and pull all the screws, prop the floppy plank up and lay on the thickened epoxy then drop it down and screw, then do the other end. There was no drama at all since everything I needed was right there at hand. Even with a set of extra hands I'd do it the same because trying to do the whole thing at once pretty much guarantees smearing the epoxy all over the place.

Originally Posted by MiddleAgesMan

She's looking really good and it looks like you put that bottom down on the correct side. I assume you shimmed it nice and level before putting the bottom on. With it in place any twist remaining will be tough to eliminate. On the Goat I found you could tweak it a little when you put the seat tops in but after that it's absolutely rigid.

With a big project like a bottom I put in every screw I think will be needed, dry fit at first. I then backed out about 80 percent of them, leaving them close by right there on the bottom plank. Then go to one end or the other and pull all the screws, prop the floppy plank up and lay on the thickened epoxy then drop it down and screw, then do the other end. There was no drama at all since everything I needed was right there at hand. Even with a set of extra hands I'd do it the same because trying to do the whole thing at once pretty much guarantees smearing the epoxy all over the place.

Great tip - I am paranoid about building a twisted hull and this looks like a great way to keep everything under control.

Steve

I had my son help me lift the bottom panel onto the hull and that made things easier - no goop smeared everywhere.

I think I've managed the twisted hull routine though - it was flat when I started but I reckon I've moved something along the way (probably fell over a saw horse or something daft). Ah well, she is what she is.

Richard

Like Stephen, I was obsessive about twist, checking for it every time I set up to add a new component. I may or may not have succeeded---I'm afraid to check at this point! It is, as Richard says, what it is.

The bottom adds a whole bunch of rigidity so I not only checked for twist before, I checked again after setting it in place with epoxy. As long as the 'pox is soft you can get some movement. By my recollection there was a tiny adjustment needed so I forced it in place when I put in the seat tops.

I used the bulkhead layout lines as a guide for where to set the long level I used to check for twist. I would jamb the level up against the transom, note where the bubble was, then move it forward to either bulkhead 1 or 2. If the bubble wasn't in exactly the same place I would shim it. Without those layout lines I'm not sure how I would have been able to measure or find twist except by eye-balling it.

Main thing is that most people won't notice twist like you will. Twist is inevitable to some tiny extent.

There will be another chance to get rid of some just before you put the lids on the seats.

MIK

Removed all the nails and screws and was gratified to note that large segments of the bottom remained in close proximity to the sides

Started planing off the overhang of the bottom panel. Man what a job that is. You can't get on the other side of the timber and have to do it one handed, reaching across in front of you. The block plane is doing a marvelous job but I've done nearly half of one side (ie, less than a quarter of the job) and my arm has lost all feeling, swollen to twice its normal size and just hangs limply by my side. I MUST finish this before my daughter arrives tomorrow ... because she shouldn't be exposed to that much profanity

Richard

no photos, my arm isn't strong enough to hold the camera ... or to wind on the digital film for the next photo

How much did it end up being Richard? Or is it glue ooze that is making you get mad. you could take most of it off with a router or a belt sander if it is the glue ooze causing the prob. You could also use a jigsaw set to the right angle to remove it.

MIK

Originally Posted by Boatmik

How much did it end up being Richard? Or is it glue ooze that is making you get mad. you could take most of it off with a router or a belt sander if it is the glue ooze causing the prob. You could also use a jigsaw set to the right angle to remove it.

MIK

It's hard to be exact Mik, because I allowed a bit more on the bottom panel than you suggest. Over most of the boat, there is lots of overhang and your suggested excess is probably generous however, in the middle, I barely had enough, even had to make a small fillet in a couple of places.

I did get wobbly with the cutting there and maybe took off more than I realise but my feeling is that you need to allow more in the middle (right on the join of the bottom panels actually) than you have. The bulkheads were a tight fit there so it's not as though the sides are bowing out a bit. This is the area of maximum flare (of the sides) and so the bevelled edge of the ply sides is at its widest.

The trick'll be to lay a ruler over my boat when you get back and see how it varies from the plans ... though I'll have the skeg in the way by then, maybe I'd better make some measurements before fitting it

As far as cutting back the excess goes - there are all sorts of powered tools that could make a real mess of that overhang, but it's a job where I feel it's better to use the hand tools rather than make a real mess of things ... if you get my drift

No problems with glue ooze, I did a very good clean up job and was cunning enough to attack this job while the glue was still green
First rule of boat building - clean up properly when you glue
Second rule of boat building - do the secondary clean up when the glue is green

Most of it's done now - another half hour and I'll be finished ... I think.

Richard

Cool .... good feedback

Thanks Richard
MIK

Originally Posted by Daddles

As far as cutting back the excess goes - there are all sorts of powered tools that could make a real mess of that overhang, but it's a job where I feel it's better to use the hand tools rather than make a real mess of things ... if you get my drift

I've got a dose of some lurgy at the moment and feel like crap, so didn't feel like planing too much by hand, so I dug out the powerplaner with the idea of taking the overhang back to a mm or two ... and stuffed things up didn't I. Not badly (got the bevel angle wrong near the bow and nearly took too much off at the stern) but it just reinforces what I tried to say above, taking the 'easy' way is usually the 'stoopid' way.

Anyways, here she is in all her asymetrical glory. I'll never get lost with this boat because she'll always turn back towards the boat ramp

Okay, I'll explain. If you lay a string line from the bow to the middle of the transom, at the join in the bottom panel, the centre of the hull is about 2mm off the centreline - that is NOT a problem and a bloody good result. However, aft of there, the bottom sways off to one side so yes, things did move when putting that damned bottom in place. You all know about it now so you can't sidle up to the boat and ask in that fake concerned manner: "is it a bit skewiff?" The only good thing about this is that I only know about it because got out the stringline and ruler and went looking for it.

Now to the skeg. Mik specifies a humungous lump of timber the width of the gulf and just slightly longer than the distance between a thirsty man and the pub. Having just bought some more epoxy and timber for oars and stuff, I'm leery about reaching into my wallet too much (because it's always disappointing). However, lying amongst the offcuts that currently fill Sixpence, was a piece of exterior ply Yup, a piece of **shudder** exterior ply but it is the requisite 19mm thick, it is wider than the required 145mm and longer than needed. The surface is pretty horrid but is hoop pine and sanded nicely just leaving knots and chips and stuff. I reckon that if I do the three coats wet on wet and then add a coat thicked with microballoons, I'll have something that's not going to move, not going to rot and which I'll be able to sand smooth ... enough for a skeg.

I can get away with this (can I?) because I'm doing the skeg slightly differently to the plans - yes, I do have Mik's approval (though he doesn't know about the exterior ply ... yet ). The plans show a hardwood base on the hull with a solid wood skeg glued below that. I'm going to glue the skeg directly to the hull and then run a cap of hardwood from near the bow to the back of the skeg - it's a harder way of building the boat but makes for a bullet proof skeg ... well, it has on Redback which I did the same way.

That's my day. The photo shows the boss inspecting the pocket battle cruiser filling the shed - she's tickled pink because she can stand up underneath it

Richard

Note, the rest of this post is being written by Jan and I take NO RESPONSIBILITY for any of it

Richard

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Richard was wondering if he had any response to his post and if anyone thought his work was wonderful poor delusioned man Jan

Jan,

I,for one ,think Richard's work is wonderful but I have a couple questions for him...

Richard,

What possessed you to get out a stringline and ruler and go looking for something you couldn't tell was there?

Why did you tell us about it? It is unlikely that any of us would be so rude as to question the build even if we were to come alongside (even more unlikely for some of us).

Face it, you do good work!

Bob

this may sound stupid and it probably is coming from me but when fitting you're skeg could you put a slight bend in the opposite direction to the bend in the hull to sort of cancel out it's effects ?