and a little more painting

The middle section of the boat now has 2 coats of Whidbey White on it.

I think its going to take a third coat, at least, to look right. The dark shades of the wood, and definitely the dark epoxy that Id thickened with mahogany sawdust, are still showing through the paint in several places.

The other news that Im happy to share today, is that I have received both a H.I.N. (Hull Identification Number) and a boat registration number from the state. Soon Ill be attaching the registration number decals to the front of the hull. Id like to find some sea foam green decals that match the bottom paint.

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Blocking

The keyword for the current phase of the build, I suppose, would be "blocking."

"Blocking" is the term to describe the little pieces of wood that you add, here and there, to support or reinforce "other stuff," such as: 

• seats, 
• deck framing, 
• and in the case of this post... the quarter knees.

The blocking for the quarter knees, like the quarter knees themselves, are cut from 3/4" mahogany. This blocking will also provide support for the transom handles Im planning to add later. 

To attach the blocking, I simply used epoxy thickened with #2 silica. 

Blocking for the port quarter knee.

Blocking for the starboard quarter knee.

Starboard side, with the clamps removed.

I used the extraneous thickened epoxy to fill holes and gaps here and there. This is the sheer-to-transom junction on the port side. Here you can also see a cross-section of the overlapping fiberglass cloth on the corner.

I filled in this little gap on the transom, near the motor board. This may be "marine grade" Douglas Fir plywood, but its obviously not made to BS1088 standards. (The outer layer is 1/4" BS1088 Meranti.)

Small gaps filled in around the top of the transom knees.

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Not so shiny now

Here she is, fiberglassed and sanded in preparation for painting...

And, here is the planned paint scheme: Sea Foam Green bottom and accents, Whidbey White hull, and bright-finished deck, transom & seats.

The Important Lesson I Learned About Bottom Paint

Initially, I had chosen Aquagard bottom paint (anti-fouling paint) in teal for the bottom of the boat. I was drawn to the good reviews and "Eco-Friendly" aspect of their paint. However, after swapping e-mails with the very helpful folks at Flexdel, I learned that using anti-fouling bottom paint on my boat would be a mistake. Why? My little boat will live most of its life on a trailer... dry. It will only be in the water as often as Im able to take it to the lake. Anti-fouling bottom paint is meant for boats that will be left in the water for prolonged periods of time. For my use, regular marine enamel will work just fine. That may be obvious to most of the boating world, but I didnt know until I asked. So, if you didnt know, either... there ya go!

So, instead of the Aquagard bottom paint, Im planning to use their Aqua Gloss marine enamel, over their 190 primer. I ordered it last week, so it should be here any day now.

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The Education of the Self Taught Designer

A Rube Goldberg design.  The term "Rube Goldberg" has come to mean any overly complicated contraption.  I think Rube was drawing parodies of products produced in the gizmo enamored society that he lived in.

Someone once said that you cant design a thing that youve never built before.  Experience has taught me that this is true.  What that pronouncement means is that to design a thing, you know ahead of time how each design decision will affect the performance of the finished product.  The rub is that until you actually build a thing for the first time there is little chance that it will actually work.
You can of course go to a school where they teach you how to design stuff and you get the benefit of someone else telling you what works and what doesnt so you dont have to figure it out for yourself.
But as I recently observed with the business of designing kayak paddles,  theres nothing like building something that doesnt work to teach you why you should build things that work.  Building things that dont work draw the border on what is possible.  Stray outside that border and you get stuff that doesnt work.  Stay inside the border and you get stuff the works.
So mistakes and bad designs are important because they provide the designer with a better understanding why stuff that works works.  If everything worked then there wouldnt be a need for designers. Designers, good ones at least have a good mental map of the territory of what is possible and what isnt.  The more things the designer has actually built and failed at, the fewer bad designs he / she is likely to pass off on customers.

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Quarter Knees Attached

With the blocking in place, it was simple and easy matter to attach the quarter knees. Like the blocking, the quarter knees are attached to the hull with only thickened epoxy. At this time, Im not planning to add screws.

The next item on the agenda is to attach blocking for the rear seat.

Starboard quarter knee clamped into place while the epoxy cures.

Port quarter knee clamped into position while the epoxy cures.

Starboard quarter knee, clamps removed.

Port quarter knee, clamps removed.

The next step will be to add blocking here, on the sides of the hull, to support the rear seat.

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Sanding

When we last left off at the previous blog post, it was time for a lot of sanding on the Utilitys hull. That is exactly what I’ve been doing for the last couple of weeks. I’ve done enough sanding, in fact, that I’ve come to a new realization: 

Up to this point in my life, I did not fully grasp the true definition of the word “dust.”

Sanding this boat hull in preparation for fiberglassing it has generated a colossal amount of fine red dust that has covered absolutely everything in my garage. My poor shop vac is trying valiantly to keep up.

In any case, there is still more sanding to be done.

Since it’s now August, I thought I’d post a couple of updated progress photos. All the sanding has revealed a spot on the forward port side where the bottom of a frame did not get adequately faired, resulting in a little “bump” in the plywood. I obviously didnt see this before... perhaps due to the amount of extraneous plywood that was overhanging the side. It’s really best to avoid this type of thing, but there’s not much I can do about it now.

Current state of the hull. Soon it will be time for a little fairing compound.

Frame #2, which is about an inch aft of this bump, apparently had a high spot that I did not catch, resulting in this bump in the planking. Fortunately, it does not feel to the hand as bad as it looks to the eye. Ill fill in these spaces with fairing compound. After fiberglass and paint, I dont believe it will be very noticeable.

This is the shimmed area at the port aft, where I had accidentally gouged the side planking. I think it will look fine once the hull is painted.

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Old Boat Reverse Sheer

I know what youre thinking. That boat was warped on account of that concrete pillar coming out of the cockpit. But not so. The concrete pillar coming out of the cockpit is an accident of framing.  I could tell when I was taking the picture that maybe my framing was not that good, but I was not in the mood to reposition the boat just for a picture.
Anyway, what I am trying to show here, and it may be more obvious if you click on the photo to see a larger version of it, is that the sheer line has gone into reverse, that is, the sheer is higher in the middle than at the ends. And the bottom of the boat has flattened out to the point of almost no rocker. 
The sheer line for the non-nautical is the line made by the tops of the gunwales, that is, the two boards that form the edge of the deck.
This was not a boat I built, but I am sure that when it was built, it had more sheer and rocker and that the downward movement of the bow and stern with respect to the middle of the boat was the result of the nylon skin tightening up over time. 
The other thing I noticed when I build boats is that since both the keelson and the stringers are bent into place over the ribs, they exert a downward force on the ends of the kayak that combined with the force of a shrinking skin will tend to make the keel line of a skin on frame boat more straight over time.
I am theorizing here, but the Unangan (Aleut) builders always built their keelsons in two or three parts and the parts were carved into a curved shape, not bent into place to avoid this kind of downward pressure on the ends of the boat. 

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