Narfi's Life after EU: Chapter Three - 14' Hiawatha Canoe

Discussion in 'Life, the Universe and Everything' started by narfi, Aug 16, 2017.

  1. narfi

    narfi Lost

    Good points thanks.
    I thought the handles looked close but I did it thinking I wanted the outer section to flex back when sanding the inside curves. I can cut them off and go again if it doesn't work.

    Foam density and thickness I'm just experimenting...... that's the only foam I could think of laying around...... it's pretty hard and was hoping it won't give too much..... you are probably right though...... guess I'll find out. Alot of what I do is gaining experience both good and bad ;p

    Coworker ran the tractor out of fuel pulling a float plane out of the water last night........ it's a pain to re prime once it's run dry. I did the same thing years ago and have never turned the key since without leaning over and opening the cap and looking down the tank. My guess is he won't either.
     
  2. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 4, 2017

    Its been a wet rainy couple of days, probably 50-55 at night and 60 during the day so stuff is a bit slower curing.
    The fairing compound i applied inside yesterday is still a bit soft but mostly cured, however this morning it felt like a film was on the surface almost like dew. Is this something from using the fast hardner? Is there something I can wipe it off with before sanding to prevent clogging the paper issues I have been having? Maybe I'm over thinking it and just need to wait for a hot afternoon to cure it well before I try sanding.... just not sure.

    (It turns out this was the problem, and several other members confirmed they thought the same thing, later I was able to verify by rinsing the surface and sanding fine without any gumming of the paper)
     
  3. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 4, 2017

    Fuzz wrote: And a scotch bright pad. Might need to steal one from the boss. Just don't get caught [​IMG]


    Which boss you talking about?????
    One has dishwashing scotch brite pads.
    The other has sheets of aggressive maroon colored scotch brite.

    I chose option one to start with as that was closer......
    Warm water and a little dish soap and a new dishwashing scotch brite pads I scrubbed the entire exterior down. Then threw out the bowl of soapy water and got clean warm water and einced it all out then mopped it all up and dried it with a couple paper towels.

    It seemed better but hard to tell damp...... water did still bead up on it but not too badly.(I think I read somewhere that was a good test to see if you had it all off?)

    20170804_213334 (Medium).jpg

    Decided to have a backyard camping night. So setup the tent and mattresses while I waited for it to finish drying.

    20170804_213401 (Medium).jpg

    Landon couldn't wait for the fire to be going good before he had a marshmallow in the flames :p
    He is playing pyro now while I type this out on my phone and is tearing up Amazon boxes and feeding them to the flames. 20170804_213510 (Medium).jpg

    After the tent was setup I tried sanding a little and it seems to sand fine now without gumming up the paper.
    I think you guys solved my problem.......

    Thanks! [​IMG]
     
  4. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 5, 2017

    I don't think there is an age where boys/men don't enjoy fire [​IMG]
    I'm looking forward to seeing your progress!


    Sanded a bit before turning in (to the tent) for the night.
    Found that the sticky back sandpaper seems to stick to the foam I used when first applied but quickly looses it's grip and falls back off. Gu3ss I'll try a 1/4 plywood without anything on it for flexibility. Sad thing is while it was stuck on the 1/4" plywood plus foam worked really well on the inside curves.

    I ended up using the rigid board I had made on the bottom and getting the excess wood flour mixture off the inside of the rubrail.
    Hard to see in the picture but with the sharp clean inside corner on the rubrail it is starting to look alot nicer.

    20170805_000119 (Medium).jpg
    I have a LOT of sanding and fairing on the inside..... the excess material in the corners sagged and I've got pretty good ridges to knock down and all the wrinkles on the bottom ends from fighting the woven cloth.

    If I was to do it again I think it would have been wiser to do the fillets and tapes and let them cured then sanded smooth and applied the extra layer of cloth on the inside.... I could have moved it around easier without worrying about shifting the tapes and fillets underneath.



    Added a swing set to the clubhouse next to the boat factory.
    (I think the crookedness is the angle of the camera...... top 4x6 is level)
    Dog did it's part and was pulling stumps and roots. It's insane the strength that thing has and perseverance once it starts tugging on something.
    20170805_234322 (Medium).jpg
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    The puzzle mat I cut up is pretty dense foam rubber.
    I cut a small block of it today to test sanding inside with and really made some progress with it.
    It is stiff enough that it doesn't conform to the low points but is flexible enough I can work it into the fillets between panels.
    I wonder if my sticking issues were dust related..... I scratched the surface and wiped it good before putting the paper on and it seemed to stay stuck.... It is folded up good and tight on the sides as well. 20170805_234356 (Medium).jpg 20170805_234443 (Medium).jpg


    Round two of backyard camping..... Landon didn't last and I was cold this morning took a shower and slept for 3hrs inside.
    Tonight we have blankets over our sleeping bags ..... will see how it goes. 20170805_234512 (Medium).jpg
     
  5. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 6, 2017

    Sanded a LOT today... got the inside done enough for its second coat of fairing.

    20170806_210218 (Medium).jpg 20170806_210259 (Medium).jpg

    My back hurts(sanding and sleeping outdoors both....) but I promised Landon one more night in the tent before we pack it up and give the grass some sun.
     
  6. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 7, 2017

    Figured I would give the fairing compound another day even though I think I could have washed it out and been good to sand....

    Flipped it over and worked on the underside of the rub rails.... lots of glue had squirted out making a mess and there were a couple spots with small gaps from not clamping evenly or thouraly enough.

    I sanded most of the excess glue off and taped up a dam. The thicknesses of the rubrail weren't super even and so I killed two birds with one stone and filled the gaps and evened up the low spots with thinly thickened wood flour/epoxy mix.

    20170807_215207 (Medium).jpg
     
  7. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 9, 2017

    Scrubbed the surface of the fairing material with mild dish water.

    20170809_091203 (Medium).jpg
    Once dry I did some more sanding and started playing around with a buddy's powered hand planer. I was pretty scared of tearing big holes or something drastic with it, but after testing on some scrap a bit I was confident and it turned out pretty easy to take very small amounts of material in many passes.

    I can't finish with that though as he had been using it on aluminum and the blades are in really bad shape. It will be good enough for roughing out the smoothness and levelness of the top of the rubrail though and I'll finish with the little block plane i have coming from Amazon or just a sanding board before I start into it with the router.
    20170809_091233 (Medium).jpg 20170809_091342 (Medium).jpg
     
  8. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 9, 2017

    Nothing much to report today other than I am an idiot.......
    I have been really fighting sanding inside with the curves and small areas inside radiuses etc..... for the most part I have fallen back to using a 4"x5" foam rubber pad and a lot of elbow grease.
    I haven't used the random orbital at all because it seemed to really gouge out too much material way too fast and was destroying the paper pads around the edges really fast any time it hit a corner.

    Tonight it struck me......... the 6" orbital pad is a larger flatter surface than the foam rubber pad I've been using......... I turned the speed down.... I had forgotten it had a speed controller and it was on max [​IMG] ....... I took of the 36 grit paper and put on a 80 grit one. Wow! With finer paper and slower speed it is amazing and fast and spans the lows between tapes on such a small boat quite easily.

    Lesson learned :p

    1/2" round over bit arrived today and I played a little with it on a scrap of 2by lumber but want to experiment more before attacking the rub rails with it. Things like doing it in a couple passes instead of grinding the entire radius all off at once will take me a little experimenting before I feel confident. Besides.... I still need to finish planing the top first.

    No pictures today.... too ashamed :p

    Plan is to finish sanding the interior for this round. Then fit and install the end compartments and breasthooks. I have two 8" water tight screw off hatches comming from Amazon.

    Not sure if I want to install the seats this round or after the next round of fairing..... I know I'll have to do a little after they are installed.

    Questions.... holes at the ends for handles.... just carve a chunk of lumber to fill the end and epoxy it in, overdrill through it, then fill with thickened epoxy and once cured drill the smaller hole through? Since I am making the hatches water tight I want that to be sealed as well..... right or wrong way of doing it?

    How is the yoke attached?
     
  9. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 10, 2017

    Thanks for the info. I'll think about it some more.... trying to wrap my head around it all.

    The plans show the seats starting 28" from center and extending 9" towards the ends, so the seat is from 28 to 37" from the center.

    I set a gallon pail in those locations and say in it tonight. It seems great for the guy in the rear which will usually be me but the front seat seems really close and narrow to the end.

    Would it be ok to move the seats 4-5 inches closer to the center?
    This would make it roomier for the guy in front and bring the c.f. closer to center when it's Landon and I (240lbs vs 80lbs) I don't think it's a big deal now but he has some lanky friends and over all I think a few extra inches stolen from the middle would work out better if that is acceptable.

    What kind of wood is required for the yoke? Is a normal 2x4 ok to use or do I need some special wood? (Sorry I have zero woodworking experience)
     
  10. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 11, 2017

    Tonight I finished planing the tops of the rub rails to "good enough"

    20170811_230057 (Medium).jpg
    then I dug out the router and played with it a little then took a few passes with it at the bottom side of the rubrail.
    20170811_230229 (Medium).jpg 20170811_230142 (Medium).jpg

    Learned (hopefully) a few things. Primarily to be more careful not to gouge out material I want left smooth.......
    20170811_230327 (Medium).jpg

    I will try to take another pass at it tomorow removing about 1/8th inch more. This will hopefully remove that gouge and finish off the couple of areas not cleaned out yet underneath.
    20170811_230412 (Medium).jpg
     
  11. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 13, 2017

    Finished routing the underside of the rub rails and learned a lesson.....
    Even with the depth lock on the adjustment ring vibrates around and changes the depth of the bit. I dug into the side panel a but before I could figure out what was going on...... the worst areas are through the outer layer of plywood but most is just a thumbnail or two. 3/4 of the rail is fine it's just the last 1/4 or so I need to go back and fill.
    Also had one more slip and grind on the front point of the rail I will need to fill as well.

    20170812_235527 (Medium).jpg
    Rough cut the compartment bulkhead and breasthooks.
    20170812_235611 (Medium).jpg

    Gave what will be the insides of the panels a liberal coat of epoxy.
    20170812_235901 (Medium).jpg


    Cut and glued the cross prices for the seats.
    I decided to move them both 4.5 inches toward the center..... hopefully its a good idea and I don't have to cut it all out later.
    20170812_235653 (Medium).jpg

    Decided to go with the damn dam and thickened epoxy for waterproofing where the holes at each end will go for carrying ropes.
    20170812_235730 (Medium).jpg 20170812_235817 (Medium).jpg

    Not shown is the dam that broke and poured epoxy everywhere I didn't want it......
     
  12. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 13, 2017

    Honestly I was very happy with the results of the router.
    The uniform height of the rail once the top is planed/shaped/sanded to a fair (to the eye) look and curve is very nice.

    Sure I'm learning and made mistakes but nothing that can't be fixed easily and the results look great.

    I think that planing the bottom and top each separately would end up with a random hourglass shaped rubrail which would end up bothering my eyes each time I saw it.

    Yes. I will have batons glued to the hull for the seats as well. Not sure if this was the best way to start but after staring at it for to long I decided some sort of progress would be better than nothing..... worst case I learn something and cut it off and try again. After which I won't have lost any ground but learned something and perhaps a better idea....
     
  13. narfi

    narfi Lost

    August 14, 2017

    I overdrilled the hull into the resin dam so I can fill the plywood with thickened epoxy and drill through just epoxy, all the wood protected.
    (you can also see the gouge I put in the rubrail while routing that I need to fill in.
    20170814_102811 (Medium).jpg


    I put tape under where the side braces for the seats will go. You can see that the epoxy had leaked out of the gaps on the main braces, so needed to make sure they got filled. 20170814_102738 (Medium).jpg
    I cut the side braces and glued them in with thickened epoxy. (hard to see the clear tape but it did a decent job of keeping the epoxy from running away)
    20170814_102841 (Medium).jpg

    There wasnt quite enough scrap left for the second seat, so I cut a little more out of a 4th sheet of plywood.
    If I had gone with smaller breasthooks and no compartment bulkheads, and been willing to piece the seats together in 2 peices of plywood each from scraps, There would have been enough plywood in 3 sheets, but I wasn't as careful as I could have been cutting stuff and planning a head, and I did make compartments at each end. So total plywood used will be 3.5 sheets with lots of scraps left over.
    20170814_103617 (Medium).jpg
    Once it was mostly cured, I removed the clamps and gave a good coat of epoxy to all sides top and bottom of the braces.
    20170813_160904 (Medium).jpg 20170814_103750 (Medium).jpg

    At the same time I gave a liberal coat of epoxy to the underside of the seats and a second coat to the inside of the compartment panels.
    20170814_103719 (Medium).jpg

    All was good until after repeated times telling him NOT to mess with the chip bag on the planer, Landon got it off and dumped over all the fresh epoxy. I was pretty frustrated but....... what can you do? Ill sand off the chips today and give it another coat of epoxy.

    20170814_103808 (Medium).jpg

    Took a peak in this morning and all looked good except one side brace had slipped a little, nothing that a little extra thickened epoxy wont fill when putting on the seats though. 20170814_103847 (Medium).jpg

    Lots of little bubbles in the epoxy, what causes that?


    Sanded the chips off the panels and there was still good resin underneath.
    I brushed on another coat of resin and installed the seats and compartment bulkheads.
    20170814_222848 (Medium).jpg

    Getting better with fillets the more I practice. This was with tounge depresses. Over filled the corners then wiped off the excess with the tounge depressor flush with each panel to remove all excess.
    20170814_222944 (Medium).jpg
     
  14. narfi

    narfi Lost

    That catches us up with current times!
    I will try to keep this updated in real time (within 24hrs of doing something) from here on out, feel free to ask any questions, comment or critique the project(s) as I proceed in ignorance, learning as I go.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  15. narfi

    narfi Lost

    Pulled the clamps off. The seats seem nice and secure. Will glass them on later but wanted to get the rubrail fixed tonight.....

    Testing out the seats
    20170815_214001 (Medium).jpg


    Filled the areas adjacent the rub rails where the router dug too deep before I figurefigured out the depth lock was loose. At the same time put what I hope will be a nice radiused fillet along the entire rubrail.
    This is where the router had dug in the deepest. It looks good now as long as the epoxy/wood flour doesn't sag any. 20170815_214037 (Medium).jpg

    This is the gouge in the rubrail I overfilled and will shape back to perfection once cured.
    20170815_214109 (Medium).jpg
     
  16. Jamira

    Jamira Samurai Girl

    I have to admit that I just scrolled through your pictures and read the text occasionally only. In the past you mentioned that you had no experiance with wood so far. Though you don't work with real wood but with plywood instead. I had the same experiance with new materials when I started to work with ABS and PLA. It's a challenge and it's fun, isn't it? I love your project. What I most love is this picture:
    upload_2017-8-17_1-53-5.png

    I miss pictures of me and my son in my old wood workshop (~1986 when he was 9 years old). I'm insanly jealous to you to be able to take photos in such easy way! At my time we had an old b/w camera from my parents (Agfa 1935ish) and a Polaroid camera. But each photo was very expensive with this super device from West Germany. Well, we had a Commodore C64 as well. But that wasn't very helpful with real life projects at this time. And probably it wasn't that bad to communicate straight. From face to face. And saw and sand a wooden part together.
     
  17. narfi

    narfi Lost

    My wife works hard at documenting Landon's childhood. I forget the name of the site she uses (can get it if anyone cares) but she puts together books each year. Hardbound books with an open page of pictures for each month. Each month has pictures of him and what he did that month, and the back is a list of questions she asks him about life and his responses.
    She puts it all together on their website, and they print the book and mail it to her (I think she actually gets 2 copies, one to use and one to store), she can then give the link to the book to grandparents and relatives that want such things and they can also print one if they desire. So we have a book for each year of his life so far plus a few more she has made for bigger vacations or things she deemed worthy of their own volume.

    I had a C64 when I was young and tons of 'freeware' software I would order out of mail order catalogs which I would try to 'reverse engineer' by browsing through the code untill I recognized numbers or words used in the program and changing them to see what happened. (always saving a backup of the original first of course...... usually o.0 )
    I wonder... I must be similar age to your children, yet the experiences so different. It is amazing how we can interact with people from around the world and see a glimps of what they are even as isolated as I am where I am.
     
  18. Jamira

    Jamira Samurai Girl

    LOL! Someone like me, 10000 km away from you, son of a priest, life spent for 35 years under a so called "communist" dictatorship and nearly the same time meanwhile under capitalism. Always with lots of people around. Children are 37 and 40 meanwhile. The 3rd child who decided to commit suicede at the age of 18 would be 34 now. But grandchild born 3 years ago. So yes, I love it too. To be able to communicate to others all over the world.
     
  19. narfi

    narfi Lost

    I was born October of 79, so I guess I was around 9 or 10 when the Berlin wall fell. I have vague recollections of my parents watching the news around that time, but it had zero effect on my childhood.
    I am sorry to hear about your youngest, I am guessing that kind of pain can never truly leave.
    I hope you get to spend time with your grandchild, enjoy the joy of youth and the doting of a grandparent.

    August 16, 2017

    The sealed twist out hatches came. Need to figure out how to make 8" holes now....
    20170816_233506 (Medium).jpg

    Sanded the excess glue off the sides of the seats and sanded to tops off flush with the braces. (I had about an 1/8" overhang by intent so I could do this)
    20170816_233302 (Medium).jpg
    I got more practice with the router and rounded over the tops and bottoms of the seats.
    You can see I couldn't get to the edges so needed to profile them by hand.
    20170816_233335 (Medium).jpg
    Tools I used for working into the corners. Jason should be proud of the one.... :p
    20170816_233408 (Medium).jpg
    It turned out ok I think. The very corners weren't perfect but good enough to fill with a new radius.
    20170816_233440 (Medium).jpg

    Cut out 4oz cloth for the seat tops and used sharpie to mark alignment when putting it back down. Cut the tapes for the seats and compartment bulkheads. This used the very last of the 50yard roll I had bought. Almost exactly enough.... the inside of one compartment was a little short but not bad.
    20170816_233527 (Medium).jpg
    Mixed wood flour glue and filleted the insides of the compartments and a little more on the seat edges to hull and corners to hull, then epoxied the tapes for the seats and bulkheads, then layed down the 4oz cloth on the seats and settled them out. They rolled under the seats pretty nicely over the rounded over radiuses I made.
    20170816_233618 (Medium).jpg 20170816_233722 (Medium).jpg

    Temps were cool and rainy...... I think I ended up using alot more epoxy than otherwise because it was cool and not flowing easily with a brush. In the future for "larger" projects like that I will try to heat the bottles first I think.
    20170816_233633 (Medium).jpg
     
  20. Jamira

    Jamira Samurai Girl

    The sealed twist out hatches came. Need to figure out how to make 8" holes now....
    [​IMG]
    Just open it and draw the inner circle and the probably the points for the screws to the wood. Use a padsaw and try to saw close but always outside the circle. No need for perfect appeareance.
     
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