1st Timer Build Log

[bluegrasslover]

I finally got started and have been making slow progress so far. My big problem is that the wood I had that I've been wanting to use was a little wormy. I had to cut and cut to find enough that was clean. The ribs and stems are probably about 10% of what I cut. I did pick up nice new wood yesterday though! That should speed things up a bit.

I've been taking a lot of pictures. Most are probably going to be a little boring but I've always intended on documenting a build like this and never have. I'm going to this time. Maybe something I do will help someone else.

Got the ribs cut and ready to glue up.

Ribs are glued up. I decided to go with Gorilla glue over Titebond III. I did some non-scientific tests on both. I glued up some wood with about 2" of glued surface then after it dried I wacked them on my work bench to see how each reacted. On the GG most of what broke was wood, not the glue. On the TB, it was nearly all glue that gave way. That's serious research there!

That's all for now. I'll update this thread as I make more progress.

Greg
Camera focused on the wrong thing but I was trying to show the good lap joint I did.

Another shot of a rib lap joint.

Here are the finished ribs. I had one of the larger ribs slip a little during the gluing process and it was angled out a little too much on one side. I was able to mark it with the correct one and sand it down to make it right. Lost less that 1/8" of width at the top once completed. It should not cause any problems.

If there was ever a situation to use feather boards, it's the stems!

My first mistake. I'm using 5.x mm luan but cut the stems per instructions for 1/4". My cuts seem to be pretty good so I'm going to glue in another piece of wood to adjust for the boo boo.

 

[rpecot]

If there was ever a situation to use feather boards, it's the stems!

No joke! I've also started building the UJ and those stems were spooky to cut! :shock: I was waiting to make a little more progress before I posted any pictures, but I guess I'll go ahead and do it now...

 

[Jimmy W]

My first mistake. I'm using 5.x mm luan but cut the stems per instructions for 1/4". My cuts seem to be pretty good so I'm going to glue in another piece of wood to adjust for the boo boo.

There is only about 1 mm difference between 5.x mm and 1/4". It seems to me that it would be easier to sand or plane off the extra thickness from the stem instead of gluing in a piece of wood that thin.

 

[rpecot]

it would be easier to sand or plane off the extra thickness from the stem instead of gluing in a piece of wood that thin.

That's what I'm going to do.

 

[bluegrasslover]

Well, it was slow going tonight. First, my tablesaw blade dulls out on. So, I started jointing some new wood I got for the bumpers and I'll be damned if my jointer knives didn't dull out. I have other saw blades but no knives. Definitely not my night.

 

[bluegrasslover]

There is only about 1 mm difference between 5.x mm and 1/4".

Hmmm...I guess you're right. I must have done something else wrong even though I feel confident about my measurements. The rabbit joint portion of the stem where the sides attach to the stem have to be 10 mm at least. No matter, I glued in some wood and it looks great and I feel much better about it.

 

[bluegrasslover]

Damn cold weather. I couldn't even get into the workshop tonight, the locks are frozen solid!

 

[bluegrasslover]

I finished gluing up the rub rails last night. I'm not the happiest about the scarf joints as they are not the tightest joints I've ever made. Hopefully, they will be fine. Progress has been slow lately. I'll have to get the epoxy and cloth before I put the sides and bottom together. Since I haven't ordered it yet I guess I'll work on the chairs.

 

[rpecot]

I finished gluing up the rub rails last night. I'm not the happiest about the scarf joints as they are not the tightest joints I've ever made. Hopefully, they will be fine. Progress has been slow lately. I'll have to get the epoxy and cloth before I put the sides and bottom together. Since I haven't ordered it yet I guess I'll work on the chairs.

Last weekend was more destructive than constructive for me. In addition to my problems with the plywood, I had troubles with my rub rails as well. The first one seemed to glue up well and the second one I had so much trouble with, when all was said and done I had cut it about an inch too short. Not too bad I thought, I'll make it work. Then I dry fit my rails to the boat, only to have the first one come apart at the joint. :roll: :twisted:
So to hell with it all. I went back to Lowes and bought a new sheet of luan, then over to Home Depot to buy some more rails. I made a simple jig like the one George linked http://wayneofthewoods.com/circular-saw ... guide.html and the cuts came out much better. I glued them up yesterday. We'll see how this pair holds up this time around :shock:

 

[oldsparkey]

When you guys say .... GLUE.... Are you talking about the normal off the shelf stuff or using some of the epoxy as the Glue for that piece. When I mention Glue in my builds it is Epoxy I use to glue it together and it holds. Never have had a problem with anything coming apart.

The normal off the shelf glue is specified ( when used ) in my builds but .... GLUE .... for me is the epoxy since it is what holds the boat together and all I use .........till it is glassed.

Chuck.

 

[rpecot]

Titebond III

 

[keith]

Titebond III

russ what kind of wood, not treated i hope. later keith

 

[bluegrasslover]

Oh what a difference a little sanding makes. The rub rail scarfs actually look great. There is one that isn't great though.

A question about the rub rails. There are some slight twists along the length of the rub rails. Is this going to be a problem? I would think that once they got glued it would be fine. The twists are not that bad.

 

[rpecot]

Titebond III

russ what kind of wood, not treated i hope. later keith

Nope. Home Depot's finest :roll: red oak.

I think my problem, as Chuck had eluded to in the other thread (sorry to high-jack this one ), is that I may have used too much clamping pressure and starved the joint of glue.

 

[gbinga]

Oh what a difference a little sanding makes. The rub rail scarfs actually look great. There is one that isn't great though.

A question about the rub rails. There are some slight twists along the length of the rub rails. Is this going to be a problem? I would think that once they got glued it would be fine. The twists are not that bad.

Hard telling how slight is "slight" (I'm not poking fun - it's just a hard thing to verbalize and wouldn't show up much in a picture, either...)

I can tell you that mine weren't perfect. Ripping a couple of eight foot pieces, then scarfing them to a sixteen foot piece, then you have to plane and/or sand them... they ain't gonna BE perfect unless you have a huge shop and more machines than Norm Abrams. Wrapping them around the boat will take out a lot of kinks. You can clamp them on dry and get a pretty good feel for what they are going to look like.

George

 

[bluegrasslover]

Sorry for the poor picture quality on some of these...

This is the "fix" I made to the stems. It turned out better than I expected.

I used my tenoning jig to cut the scarfs for the rub rails. The gluing face probably isn't as long as it should be but I had to stomp a test board to get it to break so I went with it.

Some shots of the scarf joints on the rub rails. It's hard to tell in the blurry picture but these turned out to be really nice.

I worked on a scarfing jig for my router last night to scarf the sides and bottom. I'll post some pictures of it if it proves to be worthwhile.

 

[bluegrasslover]

Well, after screwing around trying to build some kind of scarf jig I finally decided to just go with fiber glassed butt joints. I put on my first fabric tonight on the side butt joints and it wasn't too bad. I'll have to wait to see how it turned out though. The hardest part of the night was getting the fabric out of its packaging without messing it up. What a PITA that was. I mixed up 2oz of resin with 1 oz hardener. I had no idea that this little bit could go so far. I did mess up something (it wouldn't be right not to). You would think I've never done any kind of finishing before but I started spreading the remaining resin on the sides after completing the joint and realized I never wiped down the surface. That really showed up when I was using the soft rubber spreaders to thin the resin on the wood. I got lines where dust built up on the spreader. Big dummy. It's not really a huge deal since I'll be glassing over that anyway.

 

[bluegrasslover]

Gluing the sides to the stems. It was a real joy doing this by myself. I left the stems a little proud to sand down flush later.

 

[rpecot]

It's starting to look like a boat! Congratulations. After the ribs comes the fun part - the rub rails. At least, they've been "fun" for me :evil: :twisted: :evil:

Keep up the good work!

 

[bluegrasslover]

Oh crap...If the rub rails are more a pita than the ribs then I'm not looking forward to them. I spent an hour tonight just trying to bevel and line up the ribs tonight. I'm using 4 instead of 3.