hull
-
Motor Well, A Mini-Project Unto Itself
Oh, the motor well. Seems simple enough. Build a box that bolts to the back of the boat, upon which the motor clamps. I’ve been working on the motor well since the days of the Troublesome Skegs and before the Boat Flip. Turns out that though this earns only a brief paragraph in the Glen-L…
-
A Big Flippin’ Deal
For months I’ve been wanting to flip the boat hull so I can start working on the topside. This is no easy feat as the thing is 8 foot wide by 20 foot long. It will take at least 12 people to flip it safely and lift it onto the trailer. I originally planned it…
-
Fiberglass Finish Coats
After the fill coat, the texture of the fiberglass cloth was still visible, so we embarked on a series of finish coats. I think we finally put three more coats on after the fill coat. The Finish Coat, the Aren’t We Done Yet Coat, and the Good Lord Please Let This Be The Last Coat. …
-
Fiberglass Fill Coat
At this point, we have the fiberglass bonded to the boat with a layer of epoxy. The texture of the cloth is still quite visible, so we have to add enough epoxy that it is invisibly hidden. Since by now we are grizzled veterans of fiberglassing, the work was not so stressful and only required…
-
Fiberglass Bond Coat
Okay, so let’s review. Fiberglass (of more accurately glass-fiber reinforced plastic) is a composite laminate of hardening plastic goo reinforced with Ziggy Stardust-esque silvery spun glass fabric. We have already applied the “seal coat” and need another several layers before we’re done. I found the Glen-L instructions for applying fiberglass for you. This is pretty…
-
Fiberglass Seal Coat
We fretted over fiberglassing the hull so much, we put off beginning with this step for weeks. We read and reread our instructions from Glen-L, Ken Hankinson Fiberglass Boatbuilding book, and anything else we could find. We went over scenarios and thought of terrible things that could go wrong. We thought it would be so harrowing…
-
Hull Finish Work (or Correcting Mistakes III)
I like to joke that I bring Old World Craftsmanship to my work. Old World like Neanderthal, the fine kind of workmanship you get from precision woodworking tools such as heavy clubs and sharpish rocks. One of the things I like about building is all the layers of increasingly fine-tuned craftsmanship one brings to a…
-
Hull Ends
Oh god, at the end of every work day when we are high-fiving each other, we are always marveling at just how much more boatlike the boat looks. But today, for reals, at the end of the work day, the boat doesn’t just look boatlike — technically if you dropped it in the water, it…