Building the Expedition Wherry, Part V

Stitch and Glue boatbuilding is pretty much what it says.  The stitching needs to be finalized and then it's time to start gluing.

This entry includes many hours of epoxy work.  Plus, unless you're very organized unlike me, you have to wait for the epoxy to cure in order to get to the next step.

We left off when the boat was all wired together.  It took me a couple of hours the next day to tighten all the wires and make sure the boat was straight and true.  I also wanted all the joints to be pretty consistent as to which edges were touching each other.  But, in the end, I was pretty happy with it.

The tools of the trade: MAS epoxy, mixing containers, cheap throw away brushes, stir sticks, plastic spreaders, and various widths of filet makers (see the stick on the bottom left of the photo with two different radii of half ovals).

After I mix up some liquid epoxy real well and stir in an amount of sawdust to make it the consistency of peanut butter, I spread it between the wires and into the seams of the planks and frames.  The "secret" here is to use as little epoxy as possible but still glue the boat together pretty well.








The photo above and the one to the left show what it looks like as I epoxy between the wires.  Subsequently, I took out all the wires!!  The gap in the epoxy is where the wire was holding the boat together.

After I took out the wires, I used epoxy to fill in where the wires were.  I also lay "cloth" in between each frame and spread unthickened epoxy to fill the cloth.  You can see the excess cloth in the photo over the boat gunnel on the right.  The rest turns a pretty wood color since it turns the white cloth clear.  Pretty neat, huh?

Now I've epoxied cloth between each frame.  When you epoxy cloth, you put a second coat of unthickened epoxy over it to fill the weave of the cloth.  What a nice color!

Time to turn the boat over and do the outside.  The plank plywood is maybe 4 millimeters thick - it needs the epoxy cloth inside and out for strenthening. 

The day I did this, it started raining when I was halfway done spreading liquid epoxy on the cloth.  I had to quick move everything in the garage. 

I moved it outside again to cut the extra cloth from around the gunnel.  You can see the extra cloth.  Luckily, a razor knife makes short work of getting rid of the extra.  But, either rasp or sand down the edge if you don't want to cut yourself.  It's wicked.

Now for the keel and the inside decks.