Skerry build day 15: sanding and shaping

Today I start sanding and sanding and sanding getting ready for the fiberglass on the bottom panels. I've started easy to make sure everything works out and it seems like it won't be too much of a pain. One of the skerry blogs suggested using a cabinet scraper on the glue and that seems to work quite nicely. Now I have a whole routine - start with the rasp on the really chunky pieces, then move on to the cabinet scraper, then finish off with sandpaper.

I also got to shape the bow and stern stems. Seems that my gains were cut fairly well and I didn't sand too far into the ply (with the usual few exceptions). Now the bow and stern have a nice flat cut into them and look fairly smooth. There's a bit more work to be done rounding them over, and I also have to patch a few small holes in the bow, but looks like I should be ready for the fiberglass in about 2 days. I started the shaping with the rasp, cleaning off the edge a bit, then followed up with the block plane. I was a bit skeptical that the plane would work but it did beautifully, probably much better than the rasp would have been able to. I think I'll round everything over with the sander...

Time: 1 hour
Total: 48 hours

Skerry build day 14: cleaning up scarfs

Today I spent a bit of time cleaning up all the squeeze out glue from the mast, rails, and the sprit. I used a mix of rasp, block plane, and hand sander, but if I had to do it again I'd just go with the rasp and the random orbital sander. The block plane worked fairly well at times but also caught up into some of the more awkward grain and ripped some chunks from the wood that I'll now have to hide carefully when I finish the spars.

I also took some time to taper the rails towards the bow and end. Apparently it will look prettier that way. This was quite easy to do with my trusty Stanley No. 4 plane with a sharp blade.

The rails bend in all sorts of funny ways, mostly due to the wood itself but also due to my imperfect scarfing. I was rushing to get the scarfs done and it shows. If I had to do it again I'd spend a bit more time laying them out, and also use more tape to avoid having to do too much cleanup afterwards. In the end, though, I should remember that this will be a boat, not a museum piece. Any imperfections will be OK and probably pale in contrast to the dents and dings we'll be putting into the boat as we actually use it (which I thoroughly hope we'll do quite soon - July maybe?).

Hopefully next week I'll get the outside cleaned up, fiberglassed and epoxied, and the breasthooks + rails in. Should need a full day of work and a couple mornings to get it all done.

I'm hopefully past the halfway point, though now the projects will be less fun and more sanding.

Time: 2 hours
Total: 47 hours

Skerry build day 13: bow and stern fillets

Today I had a chance to play with fiberglass. After flipping the boat over I put in thickened epoxy fillets in the bow and the stern and overlaid them with fiberglass tape. The process worked quite well despite my original fears that the tape will bunch up. The weave is loose enough that once you've wetted the tape with epoxy you can stretch it out smoothly along the boat.

One of the fillets had about 30-45 minutes to 'dry out' and was a lot easier to work with than the second which was still a bit too soft. I'd strongly recommend waiting about 1 hour between making the fillets and laying out the tape. You can use up most of that hour using the leftover 'peanut butter epoxy' from the fillets to glue the frames and patch up any wire holes throughout the boat. I was a bit concerned that the peanut butter epoxy will not hold the frames well enough (the manual recommends 'mustard' epoxy instead). My fears were unfounded - the frames didn't pop out once I removed the wires. I think the mustard epoxy would be easier to shove under the frames (especially in the middle) however I was able to squeeze the peanut butter under as well, though it probably was a bit more work.




Time: 2 hours
Total: 45 hours

Skerry build day 12: more gluing

Today I added fillets at all the chines using epoxy and wood flour. I used a plastic spoon to carefully round over the fillets hopefully saving me some sanding pain later. The process was fairly painless - it just took a while to keep mixing the epoxy between 'runs'. I used about 8-10 oz. of epoxy + filler mixed in two batches. The result (if you can see well) is in the picture below.



I also started painting with epoxy the pieces that make up the rudder assembly. Some parts will never be accessible once I put the rudder together and I need to seal them now. I might go with about 4 layers of epoxy there just in case.

Time: 2 hours
Total: 43 hours

Skerry build day 11: stitches out and more glue in

I finally got to remove the stitches and thankfully the hull did not pop open. A couple of the stitches had epoxy on them and I was worried about getting them out, however the copper wire easily came out once I tugged a bit. Hopefully this doesn't mean the epoxy is not strong enough...

The stitches on the stems and on the frames are still in. After a bit more gluing in a few days they can come out too.

I then added more glue in all the channels, especially where the stitches had been. When possible I also plugged the wire holes. No need to wait, as far as I can tell.

Time: 2.5 hours
Total: 41 hours

Skerry build day 10: gluing at last

Today I spent a fair amount of time tightening up all the stitches to bring the panels together, then gluing the panels together at the seams. Definitely allow about a whole day for this 'simple' step. You can always run into difficulties that take longer to resolve than expected. In my case, the bottom of the boat was not quite lined up with the panels at the garboard. I spent a fair amount of time banging the bottom up and down and managed to fully pop out the bottom at the bow. Quite the pain to put it back in.

One trick I've figured out is to first tighten the stitches quite well, then tap the panels into alignment. The pressure of the boards against each other will allow small adjustments to be made easily. Also, one way of knowing that you've tightened the stitches enough is to press down with your hand on the bottom/panel. If they move with respect to each other you can tighten the stitches a bit more.

The manual says you should have epoxy thin enough to load into a syringe but I found that it's not quite accurate. The first batch of epoxy was so thick that it wouldn't flow properly in the seams (and was a pain to clean up later) however it worked quite well in the syringe. Just aim for the 'traditional' mustard consistency and it should work fairly well. I guess I stitched everything right since I didn't see any runs inside the boat (i.e., the glue found no gaps to run through).

Here's the view from underneath.


Cleanup was an absolute bear. I came back about 1 - 2 hours after gluing the panels and the epoxy had solidified enough to make it hard to simply wipe off with denatured alcohol. A putty knife actually worked much better - I used it to scrape off the solidified epoxy, then went back with the rag to clean up whatever was left behind.

Here's the final glue job at the bow. Looks pretty good. Hopefully it will all hold together once I pop the stitches in a couple of days.


The last chore for the day was to glue together the various long pieces of wood from the kit - rub rails, mast, and boom. I read somewhere that I might want to paint the scarfs with unthickened epoxy so I did that first. The rest went quite well as I'm already quite handy with the silica-thickened glue. Hopefully the glue will hold - I'll find out fairly soon once I attach the rub rails to the boat. I also read some horror stories about the mast breaking under moderate wind conditions - I hope my glue job will hold.

Next I'll take a break for a day or so, then go back to finish gluing the seams and hopefully get started on the rudder.

Time: 2.5 hours - tightening the stitches, 1.5 hours gluing, 1.5 hours cleaning, 1 hour gluing the mast, boom, and the rub rails.

Total: 38.5 hours

Skerry build day 9: more stitching

All panels and the first frame now stitched. Two more frames, some checks, then on to epoxying.



It's all pretty much done now and fairly straight. Next step epoxy.



Time: 4 hours
Total: 32 hours