There is a ton of waste building any boat but certainly wood/epoxy boats - I’ve gone through boxes of gloves, tons of roller covers, brushes, syringes, plastic etc etc. The only thing I have kept out of the landfill is piles of plastic cups-as per Russell’s recommendation, I use recycled paper coffee cups to mix epoxy… I don’t see a way around it all really and it is important to work clean so the trash can keeps filling up!
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Hi Rob,
Your finish looks great! I’m only about a quarter of the way along. A question on your fillet recipe; Russell suggests using a 2:2:1 mix of 406:407:404. The 407 is a dark red brown and you’d think it would be too dark on the bright finish. Your fillets look quite light, what have you used?
Cheers!
Ben
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Hi Ben,
Nice to hear you are well into your build! I mixed my fillet as per Russell’s recommendation. Yes it is darker but I don’t really notice the difference . Once you glass the fillets it seems lighter but then gets darker again with the final gloss coat. I have attached two photos that show before and after the gloss coat on the fillets. I hope this helps!
Feel free to reach out anytime. I have finished glassing the outer hull and gunwales, now need to fair and attach skeg and gloss coat before last details on inside… then painting outside of hull!
Cheers
Rob
Thanks Rob, much appreciated. Based on that I’ll continue! Keep putting some progress photos up if you get a chance!
Hey PT-11 guys… I skipped ahead and was working on the foredeck. It is going well. I’m getting to the hatch combing etc. On page 169 of the manual it says to put a strip of glass around the edge of the hatch lid. My lid is significantly warped. (See photo, the stiffener is flat.)
I’m kind of tempted to glue the stiffener in place before proceeding with the edges because, well, I don’t know I just assume that the hatch will be easier to flatten without first reinforcing it 
What do you guys think? Should I glue the stiffener on and trust that to flatten the hatch or try something else?
Thanks
Don
I would make sure it is flat before glassing it together. There are several parts and pieces that need to be flat for everything to fit properly-usually pretty easy to do and worthwhile getting it right.
How are you flattening warped plywood? I have a couple of pieces I need to flatten and I have a plan, but would love to hear how others have done it.
Rats, I didn’t take a picture and now my lid is wrapped in dripping fiberglass around it’s rim.
I did a google for ideas. The easiest one I saw was
- wet the concave side of the plywood
- place concave side down
- put a weight on it
- wait
I did that and it worked really quite well. I left it overnight and in the morning the warp was reduced probably 75%. I think repeated it but this time I put the lid ontop of the stiffener. That meant the weight could push the plywood a little past flat. I left it only for about 4 hours and then it was about as flat as I could expect. I used a rock as a weight, probably at least 40 lbs. I put a piece of pressed board between the rock and the lid as it would scratch the lid if I didn’t.
I hope that helps.
Don
I have the same problem, my hatch plywood is potato chipped and now I need to get it flat. Of course, a smart person would make sure it was flat before glassing but not me, I glassed the front and epoxied the back side last week. I wonder if the best thing to do would be to sand down the back side then try bending it like donzo said? Start with a new piece of plywood? Comments welcome. Thanks.
Rob- I am starting to assemble the hatch combing (sill) and I have a question. There are 2 pieces which look like the combing and are nearly identical except for the depth of the channel for the seal. One piece has a paper label “hatch sill” but the channel seems to be too deep. The other piece isn’t labeled but the channel seems more correct. Which is the real hatch sill?
Problem solved! I found this email from CLC in 2023 stating that there was an error in the original hatch and they were going to send me a new one. So I have 2 hatches.
Hi Jay,
Nice to hear you and to learn you are well into your build. Interesting that you have the question. I ordered my PT Spear kit and believe I received one of the first kits. A few weeks after getting the entire kit I received from CLC a replacement hatch part saying that it had superseded the part that came with my kit. I duly used this replacement part and it has worked fine. ( although the seal is not yet glued in as I an not yet 100% finished)
By the look of your photos comparing it to mine it is hard to tell which is the correct one. When I compared the two supplied hatches I received it seemed apparent that the subsequent one supplied was correct. To be sure I would call CLC … they are very helpful.
I hope this helps?
Happy building!
Cheers
Rob
I ordered my kit when they were first available. I got as far as getting the hull shell together then I took about a year off because of some personal stuff going on and I forgot that they had sent me a replacement hatch part until about a minute after posting my message. It’s all sorted out now, all is well. Thank you for your help. Jay