bleep blop bloop

Alan, Matt, and I tried to sleep in a little this morning, but all of the orphans died when Lizzie was barking this morning and that made it hard to stay asleep (later they came back to life when i drank some coffee and we got down to work) so we got ready and left the house at about eleven.

















After a brief trip to Home Depot, we arrived at the warehouse where we discovered normal human beings eating lunch. We got straight to work taking the clamps off (and screws out) of the boats and trimming the excess plywood from the edge. For this task we used the router with a roundover bit to follow the profile of the side panel.




The curvature of the deck caused the trimmed deck to overlap an eighth of an inch on all sides, so we used block planes to fair up the edge and long sanding boards to round off the edge. Once everything was smooth, we filled all the screw holes and sanded down the entire deck and the top edge of the side panels so that they would accept epoxy well.

Mike's dad stopped by to have a look at our progress and he brought us some animal crackers, so we ate lunch. Afterwards, I got back to sanding and fairing down the second boat. Matt and Alan began to do the necessary modifications to his Hobie 18 Trailer- basically installing a secondary frame of long 2x4s and carpeted purlins to support the much longer than eighteen-foot Wa'Apa hulls.


After a break for dinner (cooked by my dad, who used a lot of creativity) (it was delicious), we began finishing the deck - one coat of epoxy, which we let cure until it was tacky; a second coat; and quickly thereafter, fibreglass tape on all the seams in the deck surface and along the joint at the gunwales; and then a sort-of-third-coat to wet out the fibreglass.



Sometime in the middle of this process, we ran out of the marinepoxy which Chuck sent us and were forced to use some of the West Systems epoxy Alan had on hand. Our consensus is that we like the marinepoxy better - it's more transparent, smells better, and is less runny. The West Systems stuff (besides being yellow tinted) had an annoying habit of running off the edge of the boat and onto the dropcloth or our feet rather than staying where we put it.




At any rate, we finished the decks about 1:30 AM and cleaned up. We also celebrated with a round of ginger snaps!

Today we listened to (not necessarily in this order): Mon Frere, The Shins, Jump Little Children, The Faint, The Slits, Eisley, The Cramps, Zao, Johnny Cash, and Broken Social Scene. According to the ancient sages, you sand faster when you are listening to loud music.

All Decked Out

So, Mike left us yesterday evening for Colorado to work out his plans for a summer internship doing research for NOAA, rock on Mike! Meanwhile, Matt and I were left to finish beveling the top edge of the second boat and we also spent some time working out and prioritizing what is left to do before we go back to school. Chris got back from Boston last night and is back on the job in Mike's place so we are still one man short but dealing with the challenge. Matt and I drove to West Marine today to buy more epoxy filler in order to be able to work on the decks today. We returned and the three of us started making the preparations for the deck installation. Here is a teaser from later in the day.

We started by installing the mast steps which consisted of an oak plank that rested across the chines just ahead of the second bulkhead. We epoxied in a long stainless steel bolt from the underside of the mast step plank that will later hold on a 3 inch cylinder of delrin which is on the way from McMaster Carr. This will fit up inside the windsurfer masts that we will use and keep the bottom of the masts steady.

We had dry fit the deck panels the night before so it was just a matter of laying the panels out and coating the bottom side with two coats of epoxy before gluing them onto the tops of the hulls with thickened epoxy and holding them down with ratchet straps, rubber tie downs, clamps and screws. We also laminated some 8.5 oz fiberglass onto the underside of the deck panels in the location of the forward and rear hatches as well as the mast step location. This will help the hatches hold the curved shape after we cut them out of the deck later. We used boards across the edges of the deck panels so that force of the straps would be distributed across the edge. This worked very well and we managed to get an almost perfect mate all the way around the hull.

We also packed the bow compartment with scavenged milk jugs, soda bottles and scrap foam from the amas as we could. We epoxied all the bottle caps on and this floatation will keep the boat afloat in the event that both cockpits and both hull storage compartments are filled with water.

A very long day today but rather rewarding seeing the decks in place finally. Tomorrow will be a day of sanding trimming and of course, more epoxy. We are also planning to do all trailer modification tomorrow so we don't get stuck with no way to take the boats home. My hobie 18 trailer will be the workhorse for the boats from now until the EC.

Ama! Ama! Ama!

Today we came in hoping to finish the sanding on all four amas (outriggers). With one down and three to go, we weren't too excited about the work ahead. Mike and Alan did an OK job on the first one using a serrated bread knife and sandpaper - there had to be a better way. I remembered reading that you could use a Stanley Surform (a kind of cheese grater shaped like a block plane, sold in hardware stores) to carve the foam.

We happened to have one, and it made all the difference. The rough shaping of the amas took very little time, since the Surform rips right through the styrofoam, able to take off a good 1/16" at a time or just sand it smooth. Apparently they sell one that's a foot long, ours was about half that. The only downside to the rapid foam removal is the creation of massive amounts of foam particles about the consistency of parmesan cheese, but electrically charged and foul tasting. To remove it, you need to take an air shower - 'wash' yourself with the end of the shop-vac hose.

Mike and I carved all the amas, improving our techniques as we went along. The last ones looked a lot better than the first! Later in the day we patched any holes in the outriggers with expanding foam, we'll do the final sanding tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Alan was working on shaping the hardwood gunwales that run alongside the top of the boat. They needed to be planed and sanded to match the expected contour of our curved deck. To get the angles right, he made a simple jig to support a sanding block. All of the bevels came out perfectly!

Tomorrow we have to run to West Marine for needed supplies - more microfiber filler (we've run out) and epoxy (we'll run out soon). We already dry fitted Boat One's deck (no pictures yet); we just need filler to complete it. These next couple days will be our final push before heading back to school, stay posted for lots of progress!

Matt Hazard

One Messy Day

Today was a day of important progress. We started off by filling and sanding the exterior of both hulls in preparation for fiberglassing. This put a plethora of dust in the air. Once this settled down we moved the hulls to an out of the way spot and then cleaned up all of the wood shavings, dust, and old drop cloths from Sunday.

Next up was prep for glassing the exterior of the hulls which consisted of putting down new drop cloths and vacuuming the hulls to get rid of any remaining dust. We laid out the fiberglass cloth on hull #1 and then began the marathon of stickiness; everything we touched for the next couple of hours remained attached. We were able to put the first coat of epoxy down, with glass, on both hulls in about an hour; then we decided to go back and finish the first coat of epoxy on the bare wood.







Here is a detailed result of our efforts to make these boat the best they can be; Alan really likes this picture. This is the bottom end of the Red Oak stem cap on hull #1 after being glassed.








After the fist coats were done Matt had to leave, so Alan and I decided to tackle the first shaping of an ama. It is an intimidating task to take a long block of foam and turn it into a round, smooth ama. We had decent results with a serrated knife and sand paper. As you can see there were a lot of small foam bits,, the smallest of which stuck to us. Tomorrow's main focus will be on the amas. In addition to shaping the ama we put a second coat of epoxy on the exterior of each hull so that they can be sanded smooth tomorrow.

Happy New Year!

Matt, Mike and I spent the turning of the new year spreading epoxy on the inside of the second boat to seal it up from the elements. Happy New Year! Here are some pictures from Sundays work. Chris is due back on tues. and Mike will be leaving on wednesday for Colorado so it will be a 3 man effort still for a while. Much thanks to Mike's dad who not only brings us food in the shop during the day but also works on the boats. He has been very helpful in lending a hand and we are very greatfull. Thanks!



Today we glued on the stem and transom caps pieces and sealed the inside of both hulls with epoxy. We also spent a lot of time sanding the outside of the hulls smooth in preperation for fiberglassing.





















We also laid fiberglass tape on the inside of the hull at the chines in the two center hull compartments where the occupants will sit in order to add some strength to the bottom panel. Here you can see the outline of the fiberglass. Epoxy fillets kept the fiberglass tape from having to mold aroung sharp corners.

Saturday Progress

Today we glued the bottom onto boat number two and started sealing the inside of boat one with epoxy. First we made large fillets around the bulkheads with thickened epoxy and then we laid the boat on its side so that we could work on the inside side panel easily.

We got two coats of epoxy on the inside panel and decided to call it a night and get an early start tomorrow morning.

Nice Bottom!

Today we got started by planing down the chines so that the bottom will sit flush on the bulkheads and the side panels. Then we glued on the transom and trimmed the bottom panel to the rough shape of the bottom. We glued on the bottom panel and held it down tight with screws. The crossbraces seen across the top of the hull held the sides very rigid and straight and were assembled with all the parts dry so that when we put epoxy on everything and reassembled, everything would still line up perfectly.

Next we started squaring up the second hull for assembly following the same procedure as the first boat. By the end of the day we had the second boat all glued up and curing so that tomorrow we could glue the bottom on the second boat and begin applying fiberglass tape to the inside of the first hull.


We also started shaping the amas to the rough side view shape. Lots more work to do on the amas. Don't forget to see the time lapse video from thursday.

A Big Square Boat

On Thursday we showed up at the shop and decided that we should scarf and glue the tops and bottom plywood sections. To do this we ripped six plywood sheets down to a smaller size and then we pulled out the scarfing jig to cut the shallow angle. After arranging the sheets for each boat we took them inside to start the epoxy gluing. All of this was straight forward after having done this for all of the side panels.

Once everything was curing on the tops and bottoms, finalizing work started on bulkheads for boat 1. This was one of the most frustrating parts of the build because we had to make sure that the whole boat was more or less in a straight line. We eventually solved the problem by adding diagonal cross braces for each section of the hull. At the end of the day boat 1 was curing with the bulkheads and stem in place.

To see all of our work on the bulkheads check out our time lapse video...cool camera Alan! A picture was taken every 2.5 minutes.

Thanks Duckworks!

A big thanks to Duckworks boat builders supply for donating us a 3-gallon epoxy kit to help us finish our boats. Chuck-the-Duck of Duckworks is a fellow Watertriber who finished the Everglades Challenge in 2006. We are very glad to have such strong support from fellow challengers! Be sure to check out the Duckworks website. Look out for more updates in the next few days. Oh, and Merry Christmas everyone!

Outrigger Gluefest

Yesterday we walked into the warehouse and admired the results of our hard work. Two canoe hulls without tops or bottoms laid in front of us, well on their way to completion. So did a pile of unfinished outriggers (amas) that still needed a ton of work before we could even begin the final shaping. Since we only had a few hours to spare (this was the day after Christmas, mind you,) we decided to try and laminate the last set of foam sheets onto the outriggers and call it a day. By carefully cutting up the last of the scrap 3" foam remaining from the previous outrigger work, we managed to add enough foam to create the desired contour - without using any of the 1" foam we had already purchased. This stuff is expensive - the 3" foam costs about $43 a sheet, while 1" costs about $17.

To get the desired 1" of foam we needed on either side of the existing foam-over-plywood outriggers, we ripped the scrap foam on the table saw. This was fast and effective, leaving us with straight 'planks' of foam that we could easily glue in place. The only downside to this kind of cutting is the ultrafine, static-generating pink dust that can easily make a room filling cloud. It sticks in your body hair and eyelashes. We taped cardboard around the legs of our saw and rigged a shop-vac as a dust collector. Otherwise, the dust that coated the table saw controls would have coated the room...

With more polyurethane (off brand Gorilla) glue, we adhered these last sections. Each side of the outriggers got another 4 foam segments. With plenty of masking tape and weight, we laid up one side and went to lunch. After consuming about a pound and a half of tuna, a jar of pickle relish, a small box of alfalfa sprouts, and four fresh sandwich rolls ($9), we flipped them over and glued the other side. Here's one last shot of the drying amas...

With luck we'll begin shaping before the week is out! Thanks for watching us!

Matt Hazard