New Plywood Sidewheeler Building

[fredrosse]

Progress Friday-Saturday-Sunday

Fitted Chine Logs, epoxied and screwed in place.
Attached and epoxied Transom in place
Dressed Chine Logs to match frames
Epoxied sides onto frames

Bottom goes on in a day or two.

[fredrosse]

A few more Photos

[mcandrew1894]

Wow! Thats going fast!

Keep at it Fred...and take lots of pictures!

Dave

[mcandrew1894]

Hi Fred,

Your getting on with the job, and now your into sanding epoxy...messy job.
The dust is light and it settles everywhere. I am really glad to see you using the respirator. A suggestion that will help keep things cleaner in a small shop. Get yourself a large window fan and hang it in the shop over head. On either side of the fan, mount a forced air home heating furnace air filter. Let it run while your sanding. This rig will take a lot of the dust out of the air for you, and it will keep some of the dust from settleing on ALL horizontal surfaces.....you should have seen my shed when I was done....WOW...there was a lot of dust in there!
I have the same random orbital sander and I can tell you the dust bag doesn't catch the dust that it needs too. If you have a shop vac, get the adapter and use it when your sanding.

Keep using the respirator!....try to sand when the epoxy is fully cured. Sanding while the epoxy is still "green" promotes dust with lots of catalyst in it and raises the risk of allergic reactions. Most epoxy boat building ...as I am sure you have learned by now, is preperation...the actual bonding doesn't take long....its getting ready to do it that does...

Just be careful of your health.....Ok Friend?

Warm Regards,

Dave

[fredrosse]

Thanks for the input. Our "Godzilla Sander" has a shop vacuum attached, and it catches almost all of the epoxy/sawdust. That sander is way too heavy to use in preparing the sides and bottom for new epoxy (just lightly sanding the old epoxy application), but I think I can easily rig a vacuum pipe to the orbital sander.

The attachment of the bottom is probably tomorrow, but my full time day job is getting in the way of my boatbuilding schedule!

Then 9 oz cloth & epoxy on the waterside of the bottom, probably Friday or Saturday. Then to cut the hull off the building frame and turn the hull 90 degrees to do the same (9 oz cloth & epoxy) to each side, hopefully Saturday or Sunday.

[mcandrew1894]

Hi Fred,

If possible, you could save yourself some work if you can glass the inside of the bottom panel first before you put it down on the frames...its a lot more work the other way and you run out of room to put it in at the bow/first station area....an area that benefits the most as it is usually unaccessable once the deck is on....

I would do the inside of the sides too, while I was at it.......then for the price of the cloth and your time, there is no question......just a thought
Dave

[fredrosse]

Thursday - Put the bottom on the frame. Lost both my helpers, so I had to do everything by myself, including maneuvering the 4 ft x 20 ft x 5/8 plywood bottom sheet. Thanks to pulleys and a small winch, it was managed. Took me about 20 hours of work total, very hard on this old man.

[fredrosse]

Thursday - Bottom on Pictures

[mcandrew1894]

looking good Fred!

Boat building is messy and hard 'aint it.

don't spare the glass on the bottom and the chines.....

She should be stiff as a church in the water!

Dave

[fredrosse]

Applied 9oz cloth and epoxy to the bottom. The bi-axial cloth had an extra "binding thread" that made the cloth thicker, took over a gallon of epoxy to wet out and fill the weave. A gallon of epoxy onto 70 square feet is more thai I planned for, so I decided to switch to ordinary 10 oz cloth for the sides.