The Pigging Canoes & Stupid Idea

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Little one decided to test it to see whether it would sink...

It didnt until he almost filled it...

Then it dripped from the transom and poured out of the centre joint..

...and out of a cable tie hole in the bow that hadnt been fibreglassed properly.

 

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I used this thing to measure the angle at the top and bottom of the nose...

I took the decking out first lol

I transferred the angles to this piece of wood and trimmed ti to shape with the grinder to make sure the bow wond collapse when I hit things with it.

 

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I had another spare hour and the boat was dry again....

Sooo....

I cleaned up the nose

I took off the rest of the cable ties and ground it to its proper shape..

I had to be careful not to hit the screws with the grinder as they actually damage the tungsten carbied wood cutting grit on its blade.

My resin hardener pot is empty again.
Most people use a little jug to measure out the hardener when making up half a litre at a time. Ive found the mix is more accurate if I use a dripper pot - even if it takes more time, especially as it means the kids cant knock it over - or me.

If you squeeze the dripper upright and shove it into the big resin pot, it will suck up more hardener and refill itself.

When it sorts itself out....

Its full again..

Just a bit more to the nose...

Counting in the drips...

Who left my screwdriver in this state?

How am I supposed to mix fibreglass with it?

Funny how innocent they both get.

Pencil from behind the ear instead...

Er....

Perhaps putting it back behind my ear as soon as I finished stirring wasnt my most clever Idea...

Poxy kids.

 

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Priming the seams...

..And the nose..

...And the line of holes Little one found...

Taping it and getting some resin in my armpit as my arms arnt long enough.

Kids fault of course.

Laying the 4 inch tape...

Just realised Im typing this in a massive hurry to get it done before the resin starts to set....

er....

Its lifting a little on the edge, see where its still a bit white?

If I cant wet it out properly, I will just remove the white stuff afterwards with either a blade or the grinder..
Not nice, but effective.

Other side...

My ear is still sticky.

Got to be a bit careful to blend the tape in nicely on the nose as this bit will get all the abuse.

Hes priming the center slot..

Im going to do this in two stages so I dont have to take all the cable ties out in one go and have it ping out of shape...

We are sealing the botom panels and doing the nose as we have enough resin left and a little more time..

We will carry on painting with it right up to when the resin starts to get lumpy, which is when we must walk away and let it cure.

Out of time again...

 

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We are just about out of summer.

I have another chance to spend another 1 and a half hours on it....

Ive rolled it back over and backfilled the centre slot in the front with some microfibres in resin, and sealed up the nose some more..

The bottom just got another coat of tape, while it was wet as it stops it getting so many air bubbles...

Ive also microfibred around these seams...

 

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Now Im going to have a good go at strengthening the transom.

Ive cut and screwed on some strips...

This ply will help stop the transom flexing..

A slot to allow a motor bracket to go through..

Cutouts for the stripping...

A strengthening strip for the joint...

Trimmed to fit..

Where I want the holes for the screws, by setting my pencil and fingers to the right place, I can transfer this width to the ply without a ruler or measuring it..

THeres the holes drilled.

Im going to cut the strip out of the hole..

Side screw holes..

Its going on..

..and the other side..

Its done..

 

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I need to fix the front of the back half too.

Drilling the stripping to hold the webs...

Levelling them off..

Cutting out the webs

They are rough, but should work...

The polystyrene wouldnt go in with the front webs in, so I cut the corners off the polystyrene to clear them.

That was unbelievably stupid - even for me.

I made the webs to hold the polystyrene in securely, then cut it so it could fall out...

Idiotic.

That ended my time agian.

 

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The next event to me messing up the webbing was at post 1151 on the I like hammocks thread.

 

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It was then too late to sort the boat out as it was getting too cold and fibreglass wouldnt set and I decided to put it on hold for a while.

Its now stood up ready for when it warms up a bit.

Irritating. I hate leaving things half done for any length of time....

However, there is also more than one way to skin a cat, or make it down a river....

 

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I spent some time looking at Pigging canoe plans on line.

I found this...

I phoned the wife and told her that I wanted to meet with her boyfriend and oldest kid.

When we met, I offered them half the timber each for their own canoes, plus my skills and tools to build them.

There were conditions... The boyfriend learns how to swim. lol.

...Oh, and they have the adventure with my kids so I dont have to do it!

They agreed.

Im already looking forward to that half day sitting in my hammock listening to the sea, waiting for them....

 

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I phoned the wife again a few days before xmas and told her I wanted the boyfriend and oldest kid the next day at 9am.

I thought I looked rough. lol.

Looked like they had been arguing all night. But then, they probably had.

 

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Took them to the timber merchants - still havent found a cheaper one.

Picked up 6 sheets of marine ply. Nearly cried at the price.

Drove home.

 

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These two had never done any of this sort of work before - except the occasional gofering for me, when they have arrived at the wrong time.

And this time, I wasnt doing the thinking.

 

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I had printed out those plans on A3 paper, in metric as I know they are both too young to be imperial people.

We dragged the timber into the garden and they set to, working out how to mark it out.

 

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The objective was to cut out one accurate set and then mark all the timber from them and then cut out the lot.

 

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Starting out....

You cant assume the plywood sheets are exactly 8 x 4. They cut them slightly bigger or smaller when they cut them, then they shrink or expand due to water in the atmosphere - thats why doors stick in winter and are too small in summer.

The corners should all be 90 degrees on the sheets. This isnt always so. You actually need to check.

Our sheets were a bit longer than they should have been, and nearly 1mm too narrow. Not much, but enough to make a difference.

We picked one side and one end to to all the measuring from. This avoids these problems.

 

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Measuring off one end....

Whenever you measure and make a mark, you will miss. You will either be slightly too long or too short. The classic is where you measure from a mark on top of ply with a tape measure. If you accidentally flatten the end of the tape, it gets 3mm longer ish.

Anyhow...

On this one, they had to measure 6 points 305mm apart.
Assuming you are only 1mm out on the first one - 306mm, as the tape will hook over the end of the ply, then gain 4mm on each of the others, you end up with

306,615,924,1233,1542mm
instead of
305,610,915,1220,1525mm

That change of sizes isnt much, but enough to make the curve change.

One side was plotted on the correct points, the other with the accumilated errors.

The result was er....different.

 

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The same applies tothe widths.

They use a centreline and all the measurements measured off it.

However, working out the difference from the edge of the board to the centreline, then adding and subtracting from it to get the points to mark cuts down inaccuracies in marking. Doesnt help if you cant use a calculator though, so I got them to both calculate all the numbers and then checked them, then got them to mark and check their marks, then I checked as well.

The old saying goes check twice, cut once..... Its right and well worth doing - especially if you will end up throwing away 6 sheets of timber if you get it wrong.

 

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Marking out the distances from the end...

Last one...

 

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Bearded stepkid did the calculating, while boyfriend marked out the widths, then they swapped and checked each others..

Markings for other side...