Dec 30. Foam Under the Decks

Remember that discussion about flotation built into in boats and how much safer they are? Today we put the flotation in. The decks and bulkheads were already sealed compartments, but if water ever got in there (and it would), it would never get out, and that would be a real problem. So I fill that void with a two-part polyester closed-cell foam. 

First I drill 1" diameter holes reasonably close to each of the corners. 

Then I mix up a cup of the two part foam and pour it into the void through the hole. Don't miss. Once in the void it heats up and expands about twentyfold or so, and takes about 10 minutes or longer to solidify so the next pour can be made. I spent a few hours doing this because the flotation compartments are a third of a yard or more each. The above picture is looking down into a hole to see the foam about half filling the compartment. 

Finally. The compartment is completely full to the top. 

I then cut the excess blobs off after the foam has completely hardened and easily sand it smooth. I'll lay a small swatch of fiberglass over each of those to protect them and it's now pretty impossible to sink this boat, even if it gets cut in half. 

Dec 29. Sheer Strake Support

Remember how the scarfs on the sheer strake broke when being installed. Here I have finally reinforced those scarfs (not "scarves"). Next time I will look for a 16 ft piece of ash so no scarf will be necessary. 

Fillets taped. Note the greenish hue of the resin. I ran out of my usual resin and another 5-gallon can is on order ($220), so I used a can of Bondo I had on hand. Bummer. Now I'll have to paint the inside of the boat, except for the ash and oak, which will be varnished. 

Fillets glasses on the rear deck. Green. Ick. 

Dec 28. Fit and Fillet the Decks

Fitting the decks and the bulkheads is not easy (there it is again). They are cut oversized with a bevel and nibbled down with a skill saw a little at a time and then fit-checked in place until the piece fits correctly. At least 20 fittings and shavings were necessary to get the front deck right. The bulkheads are less sensitive. 

The rear deck fitted and ready for a fillet. 

The filleted front deck with sticks holding wedged tightly in place until the fillet cures. Glass tape to follow, just like the boat corner seams. 

View from the front of all the decks and seat backs in. 

View from the back. 

Next up is filling these new enclosures with foam. I'll explain more next time. The blog is now caught up with the actual work. 

Dec 20. Install Front Seat

Here is a close up of the front seat installed. You can see the 100  3/16" holes I had to drill all the way throughout the 1 1/2" piece of oak. I had to make a small drill jig to get them all in the right place and mostly straight through. It took a couple hours and a couple cordless drill battery recharges to get it done. Next time I should use a wall plug. 

You can also see the rabbet for the edges of the rope seat, hand-chiseled to round in the corners. That's love. 

You can also see a partial seat-back slot, but not shown is the vane on the bottom of the fore-and-aft piece that helps support the lower tongue of the seat back. Very solid. Pic later. 

Here is the whole thing. Note the color difference between the oak and the ash. Other than the plywood, all the wood you see that is not golden-orange is ash. And it has a coat of plastic on the ribs supporting the seats. Not much difference on the ash when finished. 

I have to take a week off from working on the boat for a family trip to San Francisco. But before tomorrow's flight, I had time to cut the seat backs and the fore and aft decks from the remainder of the 1/2" plywood. The bottom football shape is only 12' long, leaving a 4' X 4' piece for the rest of his stuff. You can barely get all this stuff out of it, and only by cutting the decks on the diagonal out of a square shape. Note the diagonal grain below. 

Here the seat backs are resting in place (they are never tied down), and the front and rear decks are not yet exactly fit. Lots of tedious nibbling will go into that. 

The back deck is not actually in the plans. I decided to put it in as an enclosed box for flotation foam, and as an extra seat, though we should discuss that. 

This is a somewhat small boat, probably fully loaded with 3 people either in their seats or with an angler standing at the casting station. Adding another person in the stern will most likely overload this boat. The books often recommend walking all the passengers around major rapids to lighten the load and make the boat more maneuverable. Running through a rapid with someone on this rear seat will probably be a very bad idea. 

Plus, the guide books all suggest that ideal distribution is 3 people in tandem -- two anglers casting simultaneously from the from and the rear, and the oarsman low in the middle. But those boats are usually 16' or larger. This one probably can't handle three in tandem. Plus there is little room for a rear casting support, so the rear angler would have to cast from a sitting position. 

I put that "seat" in for the flotation. I've built two boats of this size previously. One with foam floatation locked under the thwarts, and one without. I did a swamp test on both boats. The one with floatation rides with the gunwales 3" out of the water when fully swamped and will stay that high even when a body gets back in, allowing effective bailing. The boat could even be flipped to right side up by one person in the middle of a lake, with the righted boat ending up only half swamped. The one without flotation was basically done when swamped. The only way to get things going again was to drag it to shore and tip the water out. Not an easy proposition. 

This boat is intended to navigate rough water, and will likely ship a lot of water at times, so I'm putting in flotation so the boat will still act something like a boat when swamped.

The front deck loosely fitted. 

The front deck is supported by the forward angler thigh support cross member, as shown in the plans. What is not shown is the bulkhead I intend to install under the deck for the foam compartment. This boat could break in half, and each of the halves would still float. 

Dec 19. Install Rear Seat

Here is the rear seat installed with all of its rope-seat groove and channel pieces on. 

The oarsman rope seat will be 1/4" no-stretch nylon rope strung athwart, back and forth over the top with turn-arounds at the bottom center pieces. There will be two long bolts that hold those two center pieces against the tension from all these rope turns. 50' of rope required. 

I hear that these rope seats are somewhat uncomfortable, but their intent is to let your bum dry off after a good soaking going through rapids. See, this boat is meant for some rough water. I can't wait to see that now, but I'll probably be scared later. I could have bought and mounted padded, folding boat seats at $100 per, but I opted for the authentic look of wood and rope. My ass will probably be sorry later. 

Dec 17. Seat Details

I spent a couple hours fitting out the rest of the small but not insignificant pieces of both the front and rear seats with the help of my friend, Mike. Sorry I have no pictures. The front has three seats spread out over one big (eventual) 1/8" nylon rope weave. There is really just two side-by-side seats or one centerline seat, but that means fitting out three seat locations. Most of the work is putting in an addition back rail on the seat with slots for moveable plywood backrest a. These rests must be supported at an angle of 14 degrees and that entailed a 1 1/2" bevel cut the length of the assembled seat. I needed help with that one on the table saw. Mike played catcher. 

Pictures later. 

We did spend what I now realize was First Flight Day polishing a 1946 Cessna 140 that Mike is purchasing. Here are a couple pics of that. Dang! The thing looks better than new!

Dec 16. Front Seat Frame

The front seat frame was easier -- fewer fore and act members. But I forgot that it was actually tougher due to the rabbet in the inner edge of the seat frame. 1/ 2" X 1/8". I chose to do this on the table saw in pieces prior to assembly. I've never been a fan of the router. It was a bit of a tough cut because is was not the entire length of the side pieces, which means running only the middle through the saw and chiseling out the rest to a rounded corner after the fact. The picture barely shows it, but later pics show it better. 

Here is the assembled front seat frame resting in place just after assembly. That ensures a level fit later -- let it cure where it will be mounted later. I put a few screws in the bottom to help assembly and prevent the shear loads from breaking the assembly later, but there are few enough that some clamps were needed to get tight glue joints all around. 

Another pic at an almost uselessly different angle. 

Dec 15. Seat Risers and Rear Seat Frame

Every time I complete something I say "That was not easy."  In almost al cases it's due to the weird angles and curves. Nothing is even close to straight on this boat. Here's another example. The seat risers are screwed to the ribs to provide a place for the seats to be solidly mounted. But the flare of the sides is 25 degrees and there is about 1/2" of curve of the side over the 3-rib length of each riser. The easiest way to build the risers is to cut all four of them out of a single block that is something like 1 1/2" x 2" x 34". Rip that piece on a 25 degree bevel that yields equal trapezoids, cut them to length, then nibble about a quarter inch of the ends at the mounting locations on the ribs. These are at various angles depending on fore or aft. 

Oh yeah. I forgot to describe how to find the mounting locations of the seat risers. The plans only show where the front of the front riser should be. You have to set up the boat on its intended water line so that a level can be used to determine the rearward locations of the risers. That way the seats will be level when the boat is level in the water. As I said before. It's not easy. 

Here's the front right seat riser, mounted solidly with #10 screws. 

The plans say to cut the back of the riser to a curve that is 1/4" per rib. I chose to just notch the ends a quarter inch with the table saw. Play it by ear. Small adjusting cuts, followed by small saw adjustments and then fit it again until you get it right. 

The risers went surprisingly well so I moved on to the rear seat frame. The frame I ended up with is exactly the size described in the plans, but I chose to make it out of 3/4" oak glued up with alternating tab lengths over each other, instead of the solid 1 1/2" stock specified in the plans, which obviates the need for drilled dowel joints. Theirs is probably stronger due to the solid 1 1/2" inch pieces running the full width of the beam, but mine required no dowel joints and used common stock thickness. We shall see. 

Side note:  you may have noticed that I used oak for the seats instead of ash. I did this for s few reasons: 1) they were running out of good-grained 4/4 ash in the building supply I go to and I didn't want to wait for the next shipment. My fault. 2) ash is fucking hard. And 3) oak is half as much money. 

It makes the boat look a bit mottled because varnished oak is golden orange while varnished ash is, well, ashen, but such as it is . . .  

Dec 13. Transom Knees and Breasthook

Not easy work. These are tough, hand fit, compound bevels, and you better have a sanding table handy for fine tuning. 

Quarter knees fitted with long screws through from the outside of the sides and transom. You can also see the shape I chose for the upper edge of the transom. A nice, gentle rounding. 

The breasthook was harder yet. I hacked it out of a large block of myrtle wood, which is my signature. I always make the breasthook of my boats from myrtle. It only grows in the U.S. on the coast of Oregon, the place where my parents grew up and most of my extended family still resides. It took some time to cut the proper bevels through sometimes 3 inches of myrtle. I got the side bevels to fit correctly and left the top proud for shaping to match the top sides after installation. It's a little thick, but I like the curviness. The tops of the seams are now thoroughly reinforced. 

This picture was taken later in the build cycle because I forgot to take a breasthook pic at the time of completion. Please ignore the completed seats. They were not completed yet. 

Dec 12. Sheer Strake

Not much to it. Install a sheer strake, exactly the same dimensions as the rub rail l, inside the ribs. It's a bit harder because the bevels on the back must be rounded to match the inner seams' fillets. Then the length must be 3" short of the peak. And it's a scary pain bending in inside the sheer. These scarfs broke also, and I'm a little worried that the plywood side are supporting the sheer strake and rub rails, rather than the reverse, as it should be. I'll install a reinforcement later. 

Here you can see that I had to knock a chunk out of the spreaders because I measured their length at the middle instead of the top edge of the 1x4. I fit the strands dry and then decided to apply the glue with them in place without removing them because I didn't want to go through that again. 

I like the look of this design, especially at the forward and rear of the sheer strake where it lapses off the ribs and folds in against the inner sides, which makes it look more light and lithe than most wooden drift boat designs. 

The screws through the strake into the ribs are quite long and you better pre drill the ash accurately and thoroughly prior to to fastening. It's starting to look tough. 

Dec 9. Rub Rail and Ribs

The hard part not shown here is the decision of what species of wood to use for the scantlings (all the little piddly pieces of wood that reinforce the basic boat). The plans recommend ash or oak, which are $8 and $4 a board foot, respectively, which is the difference between maybe $400 and $200 total for this boat. Ever since reading the Canvas kayak book by a guy named Putz, who described his choice of materials as "use cheap materials and rebuild the boat in 5 or 10 years", I've completely gone that route unless impossible. But I'd never worked with ash and the boat was turning out so well, I started going for higher end materials and work. 

It turns out that ash is fricking hard! I had to rip the rub rails to 1 1/2" by 5/8", just thin enough to bend without too much difficulty. By the end of all those rips, especially the 1 1/2" thick one, the brand new, sharp table saw blade was burning through the ash more than cutting. 

I couldn't get ash in a 16' length, so I had to scarf up four pieces into two. I usually scarf skinny pieces by using a block plane on pieces clamped overlayed and offset to the proper scarf angle, but the ash was so hard that I had to re-sharpen  the plane a couple times to get through it. Then the scarfs turned out weak because I again couldn't get the joint tight enough and full of resin. Dammit. They broke on installation so I fixed them in place after a bit of swearing. 

Here are the rub rails installed. Should have cut the ends at the peak at a higher angle. It'll be hard to fix in place. 

On older drift boats, the ribs are a full U-shape and placed in position prior to skinning with plywood. Here the ribs are necessary only to make the flared sides more rigid, and to give a place to mount the seat risers and sheer strakes, whose inboard distance due to the ribs provides extra longitudinal strength. I pulled an awesome radial arm saw trick to cut the 60 degree end of two of the ribs with one cut, but I'll tell you about it over beers when you ask me later. 

I forgot to mention it in this blog title but I also put in the transom reinforcement today. Not an easy board to fit with compound bevels on each side and then rounded. And don't forget the slight bevel along the bottom edge too. Close enough. Glue and screw it in place. 

Here's a shot to show the ribs and curve of the side to advantage. 

Dec 8. Taping the Top of Outside Seams

You can't flip the boat over until the shape is completely stabilized by the seats and the deck. To help the seams hang tough that whole time, we tape the upper part of the outer seams. 

Here is the shaped and taped stem. I think it's a bit sharp but we'll see how well it holds up. 

Here's a feeble attempt to show the pretty shape, but since I can't get more than 2 feet from the boat due to the tiny size of the shop, this is the best I can do. 

Ditto. Fish eye. Bad perspective. Yada. 

Dec 7. Inside Seam Fillets

A fillet is a rounded layer of putty made from thickened resin that is placed in the inside corners of the seams instead of a chine log -- a long trapezoidal stringer of wood, which is very hard to cut and bend. Plus a fillet is a lot cleaner and easier to sweep out. 

My mixture is about half and half microspheres and talc. Microspheres are small glass bubbles that are used to add tiny air spaces to the resinto make it lighter. Talc is just an inert thickener, but straight talc can add a lot of weight. 

We just cut a small piece of plywood to a 1 1/2" radius or so and use it to screed the putty to shape. It's a messy job, but if you are careful and clean up the edges prior to curing, there will be much less sanding later. 

After the putty cures, cover it, and another inch beyond on each side with tape. In the above pic the tape is placed and still dry prior to wetting out with resin. 

Dec 5. Stitching

Well, we've done all that we can do prior to stitching, so we might as well stop procrastinating and get to work. 

Oh, one thing I was glad we did, but we have no pictures of is that we clamped the sides together and shaved all the edges even with each other. Some edges were as much as a quarter inch off, and that would have caused asymmetry problems later. Glad we checked that. It's not in the instructions to do so. 

Here's Ken under the boat doing the hard work of poking wires through the seems for me to twist up. Here we are nearing completion at the stern (start by sewing the stem together and then wedging the bottom in). It's not easy. You have to bend the sides around the bottom as you go. It's not easy. I meant to say that twice. We had to use a Spanish windlass (look it up) to get the sides in. A couple more twists every few stitches. You can see by the above picture that the sides are straight up and down at this point. No flare. And the bottom is flat. Like a hat box. This I didn't expect, and it works, but I was worried the shape would not work out. 

The stitching process took 5 hours, at the end of which I was saying to Ken: "I'm not sure this is a very efficient process. I don't think I like it."

Five minutes later, after just the two of us rolled the boat over its side to right side up, I placed the stem and stern on a couple of low benches and when we pressed down in the center of the boat with about 20# of pressure, the thing popped open like a flower to the most beautiful shape. Boy was I wrong. This is an awesome method. In less than a week we had a basic boat shape. 

Here and above you can see the spreaders we placed in their proper locations. We cut them prior to beginning the stitching. They're in the plans. The spreaders stay there until the shape is solidified by installation of the seats. 

Transom ready to install. 

Transom wired in. This was tougher than it looks. The trick to get it to work easily is to screw a couple small sticks on the sides vertical (see, in the picture they are sticking up) and use a long clamp to pull the tops together while the sticks keep the sides straight. Otherwise the sides arc and bend. Impossible to wire. 

Notice that my bevels on the transom are not exactly correct. Not to worry: the fillet will take care of that. 

Dec 4. Prepping for Stitching

Prior to stitching the whole thing together, the sides must be shaped more accurately. A nice curve must be cut into the stem, and the other end must be cut for the raked transom. All of the othe marks for location of the internal ribs and front deck and seats are placed on the sides at this time. I gotta earn you -- It took me 3 tries to get the measurements on the sides right. The author implies that you start measuring from the stem by showing the offsets starting a 0 from there, but when you do that, the height of the peak is 1" too tall. It works out better if you start measuring from the transom end, but that is drought with peril also because you are then measuring backward from 183". It took me three times a multiple remarks to get it right. 

Here are the sides cut and marked (multiply). 

Here is the transom, cut out with close-to-accurate bevels, and a little oversize on the top because I'm not sure the final shape of the transom top yet. 

Ready for stitching. 

Dec 3. Fiberglassing the Bottom

Same deal as yesterday. Except we glass the TOP of the bottom. Also, not shown: I glassed a small tape onto the other side of each scarf joint prior to bending. Just a bit more insurance. 

Dec 2. Fiberglassing the Sides

Prior to stitching the sides to the bottom and bending, this designer instructs us to glass the outside of the sides and the top of the bottom. This makes them bend more evenly and be less likely to brak during bending. 

6 oz fiberglass is used on the sides, and I gotta say that it's a pretty big layup -- 64 square feet. That's why I was glad I had the 5 gallon bucket of resin, half leftover from a couple of previous kayak projects. It's also a lot of stink. My eyes were watering pretty bad. 

Here are the sides all done and curing. Note that I pulled the and old "wet and glue in one coat" trick again. So when the the weave started to look a bit dry in spots where the resin soaked into the bare plywood, I went over it again with more resin. That's the wrong way to do things. 

You can brush, or use a roller to put on the resin through the glass, but I like to use a squeegee. That way I just pour out a bunch of resin and then just push it around. It's quicker. 

Here is the aforementioned starved scarf joint from last night's layup. I had to break it apart (easy since there was little glue) and reglue it tonight prior to glassing the bottom tomorrow. 

Dec 2. The Plans

It's about time I show you the plans so you have a better understanding of what I'm jabbering on about. 

Jaunty little thing isn't it?  You can see that this little boat has extreme rocker and flare, which will make it bob like a cork and turn on a dime, and the extreme bend in the sides gives it a huge beam to length ratio. You can see it has an oarsman in the back with two seats forward and a stand-up angler station in the peak. It is the perfect boat with which to fly fish western rivers.

Definitions:

Rocker -- the bottom has a lot of rocker when it is low in the middle and high on the ends, like a rocking chair. 

Beam -- the width of the boat at its widest point. 

Flare -- the outward angle of the sides. 

Transom -- the small piece of wood in the back. 

Drift boats are unique in that the rower sits facing the stem (front as you go down the river) of the boat and rows to slow the drift of the boat down the river. Most row boats have the rower facing the stern of the boat. 

Another side note: traditionally, the length of drift boats was measured by the length of plywood required, which would make this a 16' boat. But government agencies require overall length, which, with the extreme curvature of the sides is 14'. 

To get that cool shape, the designer provided us with this simple method of cutting out the sides and bottoms from the plywood while flat, which is much easier than the normal method of "lofting" used on wooden boat construction. Remind me to explain lofting some other time over beers. 

So we cut a diagonal line on the 3/8" by 16' sheet of plywood to get the basic shape of the two sides, and we cut a football shape out of the 1/2" by 16' piece to get the bottom. The small transom comes out of whatever is left. 

The location of everything that goes in the boat is marked on the sides right now.