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

Originally Posted by Daddles

Oooo, a thirty foot MSD Rowing Skiff

Richard

the list keeps getting bigger NOT the boat (well actually i'm now building 22' and not 19' hmm your right)

Well,

I rowed one yesterday. I am not the most experienced of rowers, though I know the basics. This means it would take me quite a lot of time to assess the boat.

However there were some quite experienced rowers in the group that went boating after my talk at Clint's and they liked the boat too. I trust them more than I trust me!

I suspect the skeg will need some fiddling with to get a better balance cross wind, if anything it is a tad too big now, which is perfect. But take a bit of time to get to know her before taking the saw to the skeg!

MIK

Hi Richard
I hadnt thought about the ventilation, you are right, it will be essential. I will have to make sone more hatchholes
Thanks for the tip,
Tom

Today I remembered I had a boat in the shed.
No damage was done to tools, timber or said boat.

Richard

Smearing goop over stuff today

Basically, coating the framing for the seats, anything uncoated in the middle seat (such as the outside of that plywood water tunnel) and the chine logs.

It's hot here. Not excessively -the thermometer lying on the floor of the boat shows 33C (about 90F) edit: see next post so it's not real hot, but I'm using the West Fast Hardener and it's diabolical - I have only enough working time to slop on about 2/3 of a 1 pump mix, then the mix goes all hot and smokey on me Yes, I'm using smallish pots but I've had 3 pump mixes in them successfully. The epoxy on the boat is hard in an hour!

My original plan was to do the undersides of the seats and then glue them in place, filleting the edges while I'm at it but not with the epoxy going off like this. Not that it matters, I should carefully sand things (outside sealed tanks ) and paint the inside of the middle seat before fitting the seat tops.

Paint inside the middle seat? This is a Mik suggestion. That middle seat is my stowage area and he suggest painting inside it a light colour to make it easier to find stuff in there. Also, unlike the other tanks, the hatches here are large and likely to be left off for periods so a bit of UV protection won't go amiss (though I doubt it's essential in this case).

Richard

Did I say 'it's not too hot' in that last post? I just rechecked the thermometer lying in the boat, and it's 38C (100F)

The last coat has been on for just over 1 1/2 hours and you can sand it ... which is what I'm going out to do now .

Richard

So, today I've coated the remaining exposed timber inside the hull, three times, sanded it ... and blown up my shed vaccuum cleaner (yup, loud pop and big cloud of stinky, electrical smoke ).

Man, what a day. I reckon I've lost 10kg in sweat.

Richard

See what a dangerous thing motivation can be?
Let this be a lesson to us all.

AJ

Originally Posted by b.o.a.t.

See what a dangerous thing motivation can be?
Let this be a lesson to us all.

AJ

With all the shavings on my floor at the moment, I'm lucky I didn't have a fire ... and there'd be no putting it out

I can't believe that epoxy though. An hour and a half from coating to sanding. Good thing I didn't try to do fillets today.

Richard

That would have been a case of truly excessive motivation!

Originally Posted by Daddles

I can't believe that epoxy though. An hour and a half from coating to sanding. Good thing I didn't try to do fillets today.
Richard

I had the same problem today at 32 degrees using the West fast hardener. Frightening experience! Half way through a 2 pump glueing mix and the mixing pot started smoking!
Gordon

Originally Posted by gsg270

I had the same problem today at 32 degrees using the West fast hardener. Frightening experience! Half way through a 2 pump glueing mix and the mixing pot started smoking!
Gordon

I was only doing one pump mixes, brushing it on like mad (doing fiddly work so I couldn't pour and spread) and didn't get more than 2/3 of a pot on, not once out of the more than half dozen I mixed - everyone of them went smokey on me. Mind you, it was 38 in the shed. I tried mixing and then decanting into a flatter container but that didn't work. Got some lovely epoxy rocks now.

For what it's worth, I've worked through heat waves with the slow hardener without a problem - the stuff acts like super glue so you need your wits about you, but the slow is the answer.

Which is why I went down to the chandlery to buy slow hardener today. The thing that annoys me is that I only bought this pot of epoxy a few weeks back and all they had was the fast hardener. Today I got the last pot of slow (so they didn't reorder very much did they) and had the bloke wondering if I'd mucked up my mixes seeing I was only buying hardener. He didn't even have the grace to blush when I told him why.

And no, I couldn't have converted to Bote Cote because they'd sold out of that too ... so a lot of epoxy is being bought at the moment.

Richard

Howdy,

The problem is using the brush. It slows you down too much as it is the slowest and most inaccurate means of distributing epoxy.

It is by far the slowest. Probably about a tenth of the speed of a roller. A twentieth?

There are places where you can only use a brush, but I rarely use one because of this slowness. Often you can use a roller to get quick distribution and spread the epoxy over the surface then finish with the brush. Or if it really is a brush job (ask yourself the question - don't assume) use smaller amounts, do a rough spread with the brush and get all the epoxy out of the tin then spread it out neatly.

Trim the brush hairs down to about an inch long too - a floppy brush does slow things down an awful lot.

Alliy this slowness with leaving epoxy in a pot and it will go off fast. I try to never leave epoxy in a pot in any weather. I look at it as a cold weather convenience rather than something that you expect to be able to do.

I am stating this kind of ideally, but the secret of hot weather epoxy (including big jobs) is planning and using the right tools and that gives you speed.

After all of that then using slower hardener will help further, but if any of the above is not thought through even slow hardener won't necessarily help.

MIK

Originally Posted by Boatmik

Howdy,

The problem is using the brush. It slows you down too much as it is the slowest and most inaccurate means of distributing epoxy. ---snip---

Mik mate, I was coating chine logs and that seat framing, a brush was the only thing going to get the stuff anywhere near most of the job and believe me, it was a bloody sight quicker than trying to do with either a roller or squeege (they tend to only work on largish flat areas) because I was doing small parts in tricky places. The only downside to a brush in this situation is that you put on too much epoxy but that couldn't be helped and didn't really matter much seeing most of it was in floatation tanks.

I tried pouring into a flat container and that didn't work. I couldn't pour it onto the job because there wasn't a flat area to pour it onto.

The problem was fast hardener on a stinking hot day, nothing else. Sheesh, I've done enough of this sort of work to know how it goes.

Richard