What a long strange trip its "being"

Due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to move the Plug/mould thingie today. I was hoping to do it next week after I got the Bog on, (for extra strength), but it ended up being fine.


Here she is all strapped up and ready to go. 260lb all up weight.



With the help of my Co-worker "Clark", I was able to get the mould in the air without hurting myself. It's nice to have steel beams, foam, and ratchet straps around. I did pop one of the bow frames lifting it (look at the bow strap in the pic), but epoxy and a clamp fixed that right up.



I was a little worried about the strength of the Forester's roof rack, but it held up like a champ.



My Little Sister Sarah was in town for the holidays, she was happy to help, and I was "thankful" to have her.


On the road, 12 miles (5 on gravel) and 3200vft to go.


(Blogger only gives you 5 pics per post, so I've continued on in the next one)

Today, continued...

After driving real slow for 45 minutes, we made it home, the mould didn't move, shake, bend, or fall apart like some people said it would (where is the "sticking tongue out" emocon when you need it?). One piece, safe and sound. After it was built I thought I might have gone to beefy with the frame structure, now I'm glad I did.


Home at last, in the garage. Now I can work till my hearts content, weekends, till the wee hours, after work, whenever, that and I can finally start eating dinner with my wife and kids again.

ooooohhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm.............

Sanded some on the port side, still a ways to go till I think I'll be satisfied enough to start bogging. I know it would fill and smooth everything but I want to get the wood down closer to perfect before I just start slathering everything. Its times like these where being a perfectionist (ocd) pays off..........or not. I am really starting to enjoy my sanding sessions (insert "karate kid" joke here), I can just get into it and turn my mind off, it has turned into a little vacation for me.


Here is what it looks like in "full view". It kinda has that "you'll probably spend a lot of time being wet" look, or that "went so fast I can't get the smile off my face" look, not sure which one yet...........I'm sure both.

Enter Sandman

Started sanding the strip area on the starboard side today, with the 80grit sandpaper it went pretty fast. The colored mottling is from exposure of all the different ply layers, in reality the surface is as smooth as it gets. After a couple more intense sanding sessions I hope to be able to start with the bog (slang for fairing compound).


Here is the rotary air sander I've been using for truing the flares, its old and beat up, but still works great. I'm able to get into the curved area's because of the thick foam pad. More sanding tomorrow.

Halleluia...........

The last pile of staples. Done with them till I start the deck and foredeck moulds.


After I pulled the last of the staples I scraped all the sharp protruding edges off of the strips that didn't quite line up. Scraping is a lot faster then sanding, (and for getting Glue blobs off nothing is better). I've never tried it on plywood before, but it worked like a champ. I didn't have any curved scrapers around, so I made a couple out of some junked brass plates.


Here's what the stripping looks like after the edges are smoothed out. I haven't touched this area with any sandpaper yet and its already pretty fair and smooth.


My co-workers and I flipped the mould after work so that I could reinforce some area's from the inside (thanks fella's). If the strips have a decent sized gap between them, or cover a steep angle sometimes the glue doesn't hold to well and those area's are weaker. Worked well, those area's don't flex anymore. It also gave me the first look of what the hull shape looks like right side up. Smooth and sexy right?


This is a pic of the inner workings of the mould, the strips look cool I think. Makes me want to build a cedar boat someday (when I'm old and don't care about extra weight, maybe a thistle or something). The whole structure is very sturdy, which is good, because the Vac is like two atmospheres of pressure. Tomorrow I need to trim some things and try to cut and install the aft Vac deck.

Like pulling teeth

Still pulling staples, looks like that's what I'm going to be doing on Monday as well......this is some of yesterday's work.

I'm giving up stripping........

I finally have all the strips in, the skin is done. I do still have to mount the decking in front of the bow and build a little extention off the stern to stick the vacuume tape to,( thats the plan for tomorrow). Besides that, looking good.


Here's a little closeup of the stern stripping, had to cut some crazy little shapes to fill the holes back there. (I'll post some good overall pics once I get the staples out and the vac decks made.)

So Close

I didn't get quite as far as I wanted today, still have to cut out some little shapes to patch into the spots that are left. hope to get it finished tomorrow.


Port side


Starboard



Very shapely. Staples, sanding, bog, sanding, bog, fairing, Durabuild, polish, done........

upper decker

I mounted the decking today, all that's left is gluing a couple more strips on each side. Then a million staples to pull, and onto the bogging and fairing. I love the shape of the flares, I think the over all look right now is "fast". Hope to have all the skin on by the time I leave tomorrow.

More staples........

Mounted four more 3/4'' strips per side, my technique seems to be improving, to bad I'm almost done stripping. After I plaster the whole thing with Bog it really won't matter how pretty the stripping was (or in some spots, wasn't).


My buddy Mark Peterson helping out with some glue and staples, he was also nice enough to trim the strips while I laid things out. Thanks Marky


This was one of the parts I was a little worried about, its where the sides go from strait to flared, so there is this crazy little twist that I was a little unsure of. I used a 1'' strip, then a 3/4'' strip, then 1/2'', back to a 3/4'' that I trimmed into a curved wedge shape so that it would continue the line coming from the stern. In the end it worked out great.


And here's where we are now, almost done with the skin, and just when it was starting to get really fun. Should be able to finish up this next week and move onto slathering plasticy balloon goo on it.

Here we go again

First off, yes those are 70's era safety glasses (couldn't find my ultra hip modern ones), and I do know the winter beard is coming in nicely. The important thing is that big pile of strips laying on top there, should be plenty to finish skinning this bad boy.........

(Thanks for the pic Jake)

So smooth

I had a chance to pull all the staples out of the bow yesterday and start sanding things a little, looks pretty good


Here's what it looks like from the stern, the sides are trued up and it has an actual boat shape going.


The bow close up.....


You can see here the dual tunnel shape that's starting to happen, its not perfectly symmetrical yet, but more sanding and the bog process should fix that.


An inspirational shot of this mornings sunrise from my front porch, symbolic of the first day of the post Bush presidency.

Take a bow........

Finished with all the ply strips on the bow yesterday. So If I can get some more strips cut to finish out the gunwales and mount the flat decking, I could move on to the real fun, sanding, bogging, and fairing.