Breasthook

In the picture above I have a bunch of 1" wide cedar strips cut about a tenth of an inch thick.  I found that this thickness allowed me to bend them pretty easily around the form without them breaking.  As you can see I have them on top of a sheet of parchment paper ready to be wrapped up after brushing each stick with a coat of epoxy.  Once I had them all stacked up I started clamping them to the form I made from the Glen L plans.

I always put the center clamp on first then slowly tightened the outside clamps until it's tight like below.  Btw, in the background you can see one of the thwarts being glued up.

Before you give it the final squeeze it's a good idea to tap them lightly with a hammer to have them all aligned which minimizes sanding later.

Once that is all set up, the next step is to add a piece of wood to fill in the point of the bow and then bevel it to fit in.

Here it is temporarily clamped in place and ready to be glued in with epoxy. I think this bow will end up being very strong. I'll have to be careful not to T-bone another boat because that boat will have a hole in it!

Interior Planning

Now that the boat is upright it's time to figure out the interior.  We will need four thwarts, (which will be the seats),  a rear bench, a bow breasthook, ten knees and floorboards.

My plan is to fabricate and fit into place temporarily, every part I need for the interior on this boat.  Once that is done I will take it all apart and finish each part individually and have them ready like a kit. This should result in a nice looking interior.

I decided to use laminated thwarts and in the picture above you can see some of the cedar boards cut for the four seats.  After I cleared out the leftover debris from the destroyed station molds I was happy to see that the interior surface of the boat was pretty smooth already and would only need minimal sanding.

The breasthook and the knees are made using the form patterns in the Glen-L plans but you will need to custom fit them to the contours of your boat.  In order to eliminate a lot of trial and error cutting I made some templates from the work by taking a few scraps of wood, setting them in place with a drop of glue at the joint and letting it dry. 

In the next post we'll see how the breasthook and knees are made.

Off the Mold!!!

Today I removed all the screws holding the molds to the strong back and my son and I lifted the boat off and set it down on some moving blankets.  The picture above is after the mold halves have been removed and as you can see, it was necessary to use a hammer to get everything out of the interior. (Leave the floorboard supports of course).

I had to remove the top of the strong back and made some supports for the bottom of the boat by utilizing the forms obtained from the full sized Glen-L plans.  I found the corresponding mold station forms and traced them onto new 3/4" plywood then cut them out to leave a cavity that the boat would rest on perfectly.  I added a moving blanket to make sure that nothing gets scratched.

Now I'm ready to start on the interior.

Varnish!

The day before varnishing I washed it out in the driveway to give it one last check to see if there were any areas that needed attention and everything looked good.

After a couple coats of varnish the shine started coming back.  I let it cure for a day and lightly sanded by hand between each coat.  I used a foam roller to apply a thin coat of varnish and then after a section was covered I tipped it with an almost dry brush to smooth it out. This method works pretty well.

It has been said that, "A man once drank a quart of varnish. He had a terrible end but a beautiful FINISH!!"

After all that scraping and sanding it was a relief to see the shine come back better than ever and now the epoxy layers underneath will be protected from UV rays.

Time to flip it over and get to work on the interior!

Getting ready for Varnish

We need a coat of Varnish!

After two weeks of curing the Whitehall has four coats of epoxy over fiberglass cloth and is looking pretty good but it's not finished yet.  Even though the weave of the glass cloth was almost gone after two coats there is a reason why we continued to add the additional two coats of epoxy, the surface was not ready for varnish and will need some attention before we can get a nice glossy finish.

The slow hardener combined with the cool temperatures sure helped to maintain a wet edge as I applied one batch of epoxy after another but it also meant I would have some runs to fix.

That's where this handy tool comes in.

This is a cabinet maker tool called a scraper and it's made from spring steel. It comes with a very sharp edge that can be used to scrape off runs without damaging the flat surface. In a very short time I had all the runs removed from the boat. Here is a picture of the boat after scraping it.

It's looking pretty rough after scraping and with some sanding the surface will become dull again but smooth!

Before sanding the hull I washed it in the driveway with soap and water to start with a clean surface.  Then I rolled it back into the garage and spent the next few days sanding the hull smooth with 120 grit paper then switched to 220 and finally wet sanded out in the driveway again with 320.

We are now ready to varnish!

Applying Epoxy Resin to the Cloth

Since it will require a fairly good quantity of resin, a project like this will have to be done in small batches that are applied quickly.  I was hesitant to dive into this part of the build but here goes...

Epoxy is a two part system consisting of the resin and a hardener.  The length of time it takes to set up can be extended by using a slow hardener so that is the route I took.

The "pot life" or amount of time you can work with the resin depends on the temperature in the work area plus the hardener you use.  Even with a heater in my garage the temperature was hovering around 65 degrees while I was doing this and with the slow hardener I could easily mix and spread a cup of epoxy onto the glass cloth saturating a section then moving on to the next before the previous area had started to set up.

In this way I was able to do one side of the boat in about thirty minutes by pouring on a little epoxy then, by using a plastic spreader, I would move it around until I had an even coat and the cloth disappeared.

In this picture you can see how the nearly opaque fiberglass becomes transparent as the cloth is saturated with resin.  However, after one coat the weave of the cloth will still be visible so you will need a few more coats.  Try to keep it smooth and even while minding the way the cloth is getting pushed around.

Here's how it looked after one coat and you can see I chose to leave the cloth a little oversized and trimmed it back later.

The Whitehall is beginning to shine after two coats of resin and the weave of the cloth is nearly gone.

Here we are after four coats of resin.  Between coats, the resin needs to cure enough so that the surface is not too tacky but not so dry that you need to sand again.  If you apply the next coat before it dries completely you will achieve a chemical bond but if it becomes too hard then you must sand and go with a physical bond.  I was able to get a chemical bond between all coats.

Next up-preparing for varnish.

Fiberglass Cloth

At first glance it seems a shame to cover up that beautiful wood with anything but don't worry, that 6 oz cloth will practically disappear when we cover it with epoxy resin.

Originally, Whitehalls were painted white with a colored strip along the shear of the boat but I've decided to leave mine with a natural finish.

The cloth comes in a big roll and it will have a few wrinkles as it is spread onto the boat so it will need to be brushed smooth as you see in the next photo.

It's a mess at first but eventually with enough brushing it will get like this below.

Sometimes you will have a hard wrinkle in the cloth but you can usually get them to go away by using a circular motion on the weave.  BTW, the first picture at the top of the page is after the brushing is done and the cloth has been allowed to sit overnight.

Tomorrow I will start gluing it down with a layer of epoxy resin.  It's best to put the epoxy on when it's not too cool out and with low humidity which is not a problem for me because I have a heater in my garage.