Day 4

Today was much more successful than Wednesday when I found out I had destroyed the bottom plascore. First today, I went and picked up my nice new 3m Professional respirator and filters so I could do some sanding and get ready for laminating the side panels. After getting setup in the shop, I took the weights and boards off the side panel joints. As suspected, everything went great and they all were in excellent shape. I pulled the finish nails out of my sac boards and set the panels up on saw horses to make work easier. Finally I got to use my new sander as well as my new respirator. I worked with the sander to smooth out the joints and make everything flush and perfect so that none of the joints will show up in the finish. After doing both sides of both panels I readjusted them on the saw horses in the middle of the room and prepared the shop for this weekend when I will glass both panels!

(Ready for sanding!)

(Unsanded scarf joint, notice cured 'peanut butter' epoxy)

(Nicely sanded scarf joints)

(Side panels ready for fiberglassing!)

OOPS!...another day another dollar (Day 3)

Oh boy, yes, lets just say Wednesday was not the greatest of days.....Well everyone makes mistakes, yep even me, and last week was my day to do it. After arriving at the shop today excited to see how the bottom had dried, I noticed somthing bad. I had forgotten to put down plastic under my boards weighting the joints!! Yep, just as bad as I had thought, the boards were glued extremely well to the bottom. After trying to carefully pry and break them free, I eventually ended up giving up after breaking a huge hole in the bottom and leaving three boards permanantly fixed to the plascore. After thinking through the situation I decided my only option was to get new floor panels. After talking with Jason from MBB, I had a new set getting ready for shipment. After that, I decided I better make due with what I could for the day and decided to glue up the side panels for the boat. I started off by wetting out the scarfs with clear epoxy and then used the 'peanut butter' to glue both sides together. After getting them in place, I used 1" finish nails to tack down the sides to keep them from moving, and I placed PLASTIC down, then my boards and weights. This was a great sucess and everything went very smoothly. I can't wait to see how they turn out!

(Large hole in Plascore due to no plastic between board and joint)

(Clear epoxy on left used to pre-wet scarf joints and 'Peanut butter' epoxy on right used to glue the joints)

(Scarf joints on side panels wet out with clear epoxy)

(After thicken epoxy was used here is the final side panels glued and weighted for drying)

Day 2

It is all here!!!!!.....almost. Well this post is a little delayed so read it as if it were last Friday. Today a shipment from System3 epoxies came with everything on the list except for the biaxial tape that is back ordered, hopefully it will be here soon. That was ok however becasue I don't need it right away anyways. I started off today by breaking down the crate the kit was shipped in and taking all of the nails out of the two sheets of particle board so i could use it as a sacraficial layer under the bottom of the boat. After getting my sac boards down I covered them in 3mil plastic and stapled it all down nice and flat. Then I assembled the two plascore pieces making an almost complete bottom section. With this boat I have chosen to use the honeycomb plascore with kevlar bottom.
Not only will this reduce weight but it will also create a much stronger bottom with more resiliance to rocks and other impacts while rowing. As you can see here, the plascore comes pre-scarfed with the key joints. After piecing them together you create a nice bond that will hold well with the epoxy.
After piecing together the main halves, four side pieces are added with a butt joint to create the width needed for the bottom. All pieces are glued together using epoxy thickened to a peanut butter texture by adding wood flour (Below)



After all pieces are set, tacked into place, and glued, boards are placed over the joints to keep them flat and weight is added to secure the bond.


(Weight added to secure epoxied joints)

Day 1

Today I was able to finally get my hands dirty. I cleaned up the shop and began to organize things the way I want them. The CNC kit arrived last week so I was eager to rip into it and get my hands on the soon to be boat. After a few hours of unpacking and sorting I finally had everything checked off the list and sorted for later use.

Before

After(Its hard to show, but the wood has been sorted and placed throughout the shop)

The epoxy still hasn't come so I couldn't actually get any construction done today, but as soon as it does come, I will definitely start working on the boat. Once again thanks to all you have helped to make this possible, and I hope that more of you will continue to follow my build and help in any way possible. Last week I got two very generous sponsorships from Bob Ladd of Shenandoah Harley Davidson, and Peter Viano of Viano General Contracting. As always thanks again to Auger Building Company for giving me such a wonderful place to work in. I hope everyone is ready to start checking more frequently as I update you all with my build

Caleb