Another OZ MK2 PDRacer build in Sydney "Wood Duck"

**AlexN** · 26th April 2013, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by Sumbloak

Hey I reckon it'd look awesome if you finished it with slates. That would add a real touch of class when it was on the boat. :D

They wouldn't need bog or sanding either. Just nail 'em on.

See Photo # 7 below (in this post)

Originally Posted by Sumbloak

<snip...>

...your insistence on filleting all internal corners, regardless of whether it is structurally necessary or not, seems to be creating a lot of boring and grotty work for you. If you only used fillets where they were really necessary, things would go faster and you would enjoy the job more. :)

See my new (partial) list of rules in my last post, # 3177, p. 212, especially Rule 7...

Originally Posted by Boatmik

<snip...>

In the end people can only do the boat that matches their psychology. It's a mess of wants and needs, hidden desires and past experience - we are all in the same boat (haw).

But it seems if I keep at people hard enough that they really have to justify changes then the end results are pretty good.

A couple of stories ... no ... just one ... don't want to bore people to death.

Read this about an old boss of mine from the slipway days.

Clients needs are met and mine too.

MIK

See my preceding post with my list of rules- which rules are not unlike segments of the Storer Guide to Building Plywood Boats(TM) ;). This "project" has been mostly my own creation - with the exception of the sheer-line copied over to the bottom edge of the side panel - and as such all the faults are mine own, including that I have been making it up as I go along: virtually nothing has been planned. I might have finally learnt my lesson about glue and fillets with this project. One can only hope... Your linked anecdote provides an interesting perspective, although in my opinion i'm just plain stupid.

Cheers,
Alex.

I've been able to give my poor little bleeding fingers a rest today, having finished the glue-shaping torture yesterday evening. Said fingers are not Happy Little Vegemites at all - which serves their stupid "owner" right.

Having got the glue removal done, I vacuumed the structure and added the final bits of glue-filler to patch various large holes found during the seemingly-interminable gouging/rasping/sanding process.

Some snaps:

1. Vacuumed clean and ready for the next step: more glue :(. After my whizzo attempt at routering the edges of the plywood end-plates, I had quite a bit of patching to do. Note that I also patched the starboard "skid" - mostly from where the fan fell on it (to the latter's demise as a functional item), but also bits of hangar rash from before the addition of the epoxy coatings

2. The gudgeon cutout patch glued in place, and some extra glue to bog up the other ding and allow for filing in a new quarter-round over the patch

3. The plywood panels' free edges got severely gouged by the router bit. I had the wrong setting on the router's depth gauge: the plywood edges are being re-built here, so that I can re-shape them

4. More edge-rebuilding: I made quite a mess of the vertical edge. Most of the excess glue was removed with a tongue-depressor chisel after taking this snap

5. Rebuilding a roof panel edge. I let the plywood sheet drift off-course on the table saw at the begining of the cut, when there was little sheet in contact with the tablesaw's fence. Simply - and quickly - fixed with the high-strength glue and some sanding. The glue has been slapped on and left to gel a bit more before shaping into something more resembling what it's meant to be replacing...

6. Glue-bead after kneading and pinching to shape; more-or-less the shape that I need to finish the thing off quickly with a coarse PG file. The still-soft excess grunge visible here below the bead was cleaned off with the Marples 1/4 " chisel just after taking this snap. And very good it was at removing the grunge, too :)

7. Tins of paint for the 'Duckcote: Norglass "Seamist" and "Opal White" Premium Enamel. The "Seamist" isn't really "slate grey" - unless you've got some particuarly light-coloured slate that's just been cleaved. But it is a grey... We bought these paints earlier this year after The Boss and I chose the colours: she chose the "Seamist" for the roof panels. I wanted "Teal", but that and "Shadow Grey" were considered too dark, and the "Teal" was unavailable at the time at my "local" Whitworth's, anyway... To get a better idea of the "true" colour, the Norglass colour card (as a pdf) can be downloaded from this link here

Follow this link to my Flickr account

Nothing more to do today as the glue is still slightly labile: which means follow-up sanding - which will be done mostly with a cork block and not involving my aching fingers holding small pieces of 60-grit sandpaper. Hopefully they won't be aching by tomorrow, and the cuts and abrasions will have had a bit more time to heal over, too. What a nightmare - from which I've hopefully learnt a few things.

**dkirtley** · 27th April 2013, 06:11 AM

Well you could do some trompe l'oeil slates. Possibly even a bit of mural work on the edges.

**Sumbloak** · 27th April 2013, 08:42 AM

Now that would be something. To really top it off, paint the inside like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Puddleduck one-upmanship.

**Boatmik** · 28th April 2013, 12:11 PM

Originally Posted by Sumbloak

Now that would be something. To really top it off, paint the inside like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Puddleduck one-upmanship.

That would be super cool .. because only the ones that Alex told would know the secret of what lay on the underside of the roof.

And at last count that is just coming up to 200,000 views of his thread!

Gosh.

MIK

**dkirtley** · 28th April 2013, 12:26 PM

I've got it. A portrait of Mr. Snappy! That would be too cool.

**Sumbloak** · 28th April 2013, 02:51 PM

Ok, do all of the above, plus turn up a few Corinthian columns. That way you can put the roof up on columns and hang an electric trolling motor off the transom. Hey presto, instant high Renaissance royal barge.

**AlexN** · 28th April 2013, 05:22 PM

Ha ha :).

I must confess that I had to look up Trompe l'Oeil, being the ignorant person that I am...

It could be done fairly easily by making up the image of a single time digitally, coping it n times, then printing onto a vast piece of Contact - and sticking to the roof. Actually, it might be quicker to paint it. Bust as I want that roof out of my workshop and my workshop usable for urgent tasks, neither is going to happen. A hidden Mr Snappy might be the go if I ever get bored enough, but columns seems like too much work: more than the slates ;).

I should add a Rule 0 the the list on page 212:

* 0. NEVER undertake a project that there isn't room to do COMFORTABLY AND SAFELY - unless that's unavoidable.

I've just been vacuuming ready for the next step, having finished with the glue, and it was not only difficult but relatively dangerous. As I have said on a number of occasions, the boat had to be in the same space as the roof while constructing the latter; and I am not going to remove the boat without a nice protective roof to put over her.

Some snaps of the final glue conniptions:

1. First stage of edge-shaping: squaring things off with the long PG block as much as possible before sanding with the cork block and 80-grit paper (front end-plate)

2. Rounded-over plywood panel edge, front end-plate

3. Front end-plate glue-shaping (was meant to be rear end-plate but for some reason I didn't take a snap of that)

4. Rounded-over plywood edge patch, rear end-plate

5. Edge of roof panel re-built and re-shaped; just a bit of rounding-off to do. The long PG block below the roof was used to get a good clean straight edge between the two butt-strapped parts of the roof panel (the damaged area was at the end - or the beginning - of the longer board)

6. Another view of the re-built roof-panel edge: easy with epoxy glue :)

7. Re-built roof panel edge - again

8. Patched and sanded gudgeon cutout slip-up. Once all the paint's on, it won't be visible at all. As it is, you have to look fairly closely to see it

9. Forgotten crack # 1 (Frame 4). I had to mix up a few ml of resin plus some glue powder to fill in a couple of rather large cracks between frame support gussets and frame members that I kept on forgetting to deal with. These didn't require any sanding once I've done the final clean-up (although I did add a bit more glue to both of them before the glue get too much, and tidied up a little bit around them with the sandpaper after setting ;)[/I]...

10. Frame # 4 corner with extra glue

11. Forgotten crack # 2 (Frame 2). I can forget about both of them completely now - well, almost... :)

12. Frame # 2 corner with extra glue

Follow this link to my Flickr account

The next step is to waterproof the interior of the roof...

**AlexN** · 29th April 2013, 07:43 PM

Trudging along...

1. Roof on its side, epoxy side "up"

2. A small amount of "hangar rash", onsidering that I had been jumping up and down (well, walking) on the thing for days and pivoting it from side to side on its ridge cap, there was amazingly little damage done to it: here is a small example where the ridge tape coating has been slightly abraded. There is also a little bit more to the right which didn't squeeze into the frame

3. Filling things in a hurry: some 1:1 "Great Planes" 6-minute epoxy. I made up a very small amount and mixed in some Bote-Cote high-strength glue powder. "When are you going to stick me under the tap?", asks Mr Snappy...

4. Filling a void in the rear end-plate patch glue-line

5. I also missed a crack here, too. The fast-setting filler filled it very nicely

6. Sanded clean in less than 15 minutes from mixing

7. Sanded glue-line fill. Quick and easy - but for very small jobs only, otherwise it would be way too expensive!

8. The next stage: coating various frame parts with BoteCote epoxy - using a 25 mm brush. It took a while... First up was the rear end-plate assembly

9. The interior side of the rear end-plate, after epoxy coating

10. Close-up of the epoxy-coated gudgeon cutout patch, less than an hour after filling...

11. View of the end-plate interior, to check the coating on the bottom stiffening element

12. Front end-plate assembly epoxy-coated

Follow this link to my Flickr account...

More in a bit...

**AlexN** · 29th April 2013, 09:13 PM

More snaps:

1. Interior face of front end-plate, epoxy coated. I also did the butt-straps and intervening bits of roof panel at both ends

2. Frames also coated. This is precisely why I take so many snaps: reflectance difference under flash conditions shows up all sorts of errors. In this case, where I missed with the brush (working upside down and facing the wrong way when coating)

3. Remedying the missed patches on the frames. Note the bare patches on the port side frame...

4. Epoxy-coated frames viewed from the front. Note that the tie-down eyebolt blocks have also been epoxy-coated

5. Epoxy-coated frame # 2. The fact that I've left the manufacturer's stamps on the timber rather than sanding them off suggests what's going to happen to the whole structre: i.e., it will be painted, not varnished!

6. Another view of the structure, from the rear looking forward. The outer eyebolt blocks were coated at the same time as the inner ones

7. Another view: looking down the middle of the roof's interior from the rear end, looking forward

8. Frames nos. 4 & 3

9. The side panels have been epoxy-coated inside and out, including the "skids'" fillets and the upper edge (the edges of which had been carefully rounded over beforehand)

10. Outer port side of the epoxy-coated side-panel. The eyebolt blocks don't show up quite as much any more

11. Interior face of the port side panel. Once again, the camera shows where the wood got missed by the brush - or rather, the "painter". Fortunately, I was able to crib a bit of resin from other parts of the recent side-coating session, and brushed it onto the bare spots

Follow this link to my Flickr account.

But wait, there's more...

**AlexN** · 29th April 2013, 09:45 PM

What a busy little bandicoot...

1. Forward planning... I brushed resin on above (in the operational sense) the side panels where the roller wouldn't reach - plus some allowance either side for clearance of various overhanging objects, before proceeding with the next step...

2. View of the above-side-panel resin coating - from the other side

3. *** MILESTONE! *** The ENTIRE structure is now resin-encapsulated :)

4. View of the totally encapsulated structure from the other side. It's interesting that the sheet on the port side of the structure has delaminated and bubbled in a few places on both sides of the sheet - this was noticeable once the epoxy was applied in each case (exterior and interior). I don't know whether the epoxy caused the ply veneers to bubble, or whether the epoxy merely brought a pre-existing condition to light

5. Anyone for a sail in Our Royal Barge?

6. It looks too good to paint...

7. Roof panel underside resin coat # 2, photo 1. With the delaminating of the port roof panel, I decided that two coats would be safer than one. This also means that the topsides will get another coat of resin - although it will be WEST 105/207, since I've pretty well run out of Bote-Cote

8. Roof panel underside resin coat # 2, photo 2. I wasn't going to hand-brush the bare areas of panel - it would have taken far too long! And besides, the roller does give a much more even finish than my rather poor brush technique. I rolled both coats on (except where already brushed on), of course

9. Roof panel underside resin coat # 2, photo 3

Follow this link to my Flickr account...

I'm now waiting for the second resin coat to set, which, since I put it on around 5 this arvo, will be overnight now. Then I'll get out the varnish tin ;). Only joking: even though I like the look of the thing in its "natural" (epoxy-coated) state, there's no way I'm going to use varnish on this. Another positive to having decided to give bright finishes a miss from now on is that I'll be saving a bit of money on the hardeners, as both the Bote-Cote and WEST non-yellowing hardeners are a lot more expensive than their standard counterparts.

Actually, what I'll need to do next will be to do a bit of sanding to knock down the raised grain, then have a close look at the result using the magnifiers and see if I can put the undercoat straight on top without another resin coat. Fingers crossed that I can!

**AlexN** · 30th April 2013, 02:26 PM

DO NOT try this at home or at work, kids - it WILL end in tears

.

Remember the second coat of resin in the last post? The WEST-over-Bote-Cote one. Well, IDIOT here put the WEST on wet over the still-too-tacky Bote-Cote:

BIG MISTAKE!

It resulted in:

1. The worst fish-eye I've produced to date (and the WEST resin has never done so for me so far, so that's a Big Achievement);

2. The resin still being mostly tacky this morning.

The problems were in fact evident not long after I TOO HASTILY applied the WEST, but being the optimistic fool that I am, I HOPED that it would sort itself out overnight (whilst really knowing that it wouldn't.

The main problem was of course the difference in viscosities and surface tensions between the two fluids. Blind Freddy could have told me what would happen, but did I stop and think? Hah!

My online "builds" have always been "warts and all" - and this is no exception. Learn from this one, children, learn from it. I had better.

Now I can look forward to many more happy hours SANDING the muck off, not to mention the time (and money) spent waving the Big Hair Frizzler over it to get the stuff to set already, and more of that to come no doubt...

Here's what it looks like:

1. WEST mistake, photo 1. Hand-holding the camera with one hand at a shutter speed of 1/8 sec (i.e., no flash) is tricky, hence the blurry snap(s)

2. WEST mistake, photo 2. This resin is still also sticky, 18 hours after it was applied...

3. WEST mistake, photo 3. Eek

4. The starboard panel has sprung, too: bubble in veneer, starboard roof panel. Above (or to the rear) and to the right of the large lighting reflection

5. Bubble in veneer, port roof panel. This one is about half of the width of the panel. Note also the beeyootiful orange-peel effect in the resin on the roof panel - larvely

Follow this link to my Flickr account

Note the word "hastily" above - it says it all. Note that the WEST resin that I rolled onto slightly parched WRC roof former frames with their initial Bote-Cote coat, after doing the roof panels, has already set hard. What a SILLY GOOSE. Just call me Petunia; see also here; and here for a little bit about the author, Roger Duvoisin...

**jmk89** · 30th April 2013, 03:37 PM

Oh dear, Alex.

**AlexN** · 30th April 2013, 03:47 PM

Hello Jeremy,

Long time no squeak!

See the final links about Petunia in my previous post...

Cheers
a very silly alex...

I've just done the third - and longest - bout of heat addition to the mess so far, and am waiting with trepidation to see if that does any good. I'm probably going to have to end up turning the roof over and work on the top surfaces while I wait for the interior to set - if in fact it ever does. There is, of course, another potential problem: chemical incompatiblity between the two very different brands of resin...

Honk, honk <BOOOM>*

*See links about Petunia. That particular children's tale has a rather unfortunate ending: Petunia comes undone - as does the entire farmyard and all its other inhabitants - when she finds a Big Box 'o Fireworks....

**Sumbloak** · 30th April 2013, 05:14 PM

Ouch. Given how it's behaving (ie: not kicking off) my guess is the different hardener ratios are playing havoc with the cure.

Was the Bote-Cote still wet, or tacky, when you put the WEST over it?

**AlexN** · 30th April 2013, 10:33 PM

Tacky, verging on sticky.

I checked just a few minutes ago and it has hardened up considerably from what it was this morning, so I might be able to start sanding it tomorrow morning. I'm not going to put any more heat on it otherwise I'll do my back in!

Thread: Another OZ MK2 PDRacer build in Sydney "Wood Duck"

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