Puzzle joints aren’t perfect. I think where I erred is I tightened my thumb bolt knobs too tight, should have relied on the weight of the bucket more. I’m trying that on Plank 1 Port and Starboard (stacked). We shall see. I cleaned up drips and puddles with a painters tool and a heat gun. I just lightly sanded the puzzles. I don’t want to burn through the veneer. My plan is to deal with it when I fair the inside and out prior to final epoxy/glass. Probably use epoxy and micro-balloons.
I suggest that you’ll find it much easier to get the panels/puzzle joints fair and flat now, prior to assembly. It is harder to sand assembled/curved parts, and harder to get nice flat epoxy coating on non-horizontal surfaces. And remember, if using epoxy with microballoons as a fairing compound you’ll be retricted to a painted finish- just making sure that’s your plan. And even if not per the plan-build instructions (I’ve done a NE Dory, but not the SW, so I’m not sure what your build manual says), I’d suggest putting on and sanding smooth the first coat of epoxy on panels (and MANY other parts) PRIOR to assembly - on most all of the sides/areas that won’t be coated over with glass. It is much easier to start with a nice, flat, no-sags/runs, pre-sanded first coat finish on the various parts/pieces rather than doing the first coat after assembly. You can recover any plugged pre-drilled stich holes in short order with a small drill bit. You quickly can rough up the areas that will become glued joints with 60 grit as part of the assembly process to ensure good joint and filet bonding to the pre-finished parts. Don’t pre-finish the areas to be glassed over so that you get a good glass-to-wood bond. Also, don’t do parts that might be overly resticted from making really tight bends by the added stiffnes of an epoxy coat - but I doubt that applies to any hull lapstrake panels. Finally, if the white spots I’m seeing on your panels are hardened drips of thickened epoxy, a best practice is to keep a sharp metal spatula at hand and clean those up as you go. Avoid letting the drips harden in place, which creates a siginificant effort to scrape/sand them away once hardened. I can’t judge well from pictures, but your epoxy looks very white, perhaps over-thickened. If that’s from cello-fill, don’t add it past the “drippy mustard” thickness described by CLC recommendations. Unthickened epoxy can get absorbed and lead to dry weak joints, but over-thickened epoxy can also lead to a weak joint as it barely penetrates into any wood fibers. Again, these are all just suggestions that I’ve developed in experience from building 4 boats - you get to do things your way.
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Thanks Jeff, much to consider in your post. I haven’t begun stitching anything yet so definitely time to make some improvements.
The #1 planks are in the clamps and have been since yesterday. We’ve had some cool evening weather here in East Tennessee so I decided to double the curing time. I did adjust my approach a little and I’m hoping for better alignment than the bottom board. If they are still not great I’m thinking about drilling a tiny hole (1/16th) at the apex of each puzzle joint. Buttering each piece with thickened epoxy everywhere on the puzzle except the hole an then holding them in alignment with my fingers (in gloves) and then putting a drop of CA glue in each hole at the apex and then putting a tiny amount of baking soda right there. With loose puzzle joints other people have used CA glue and epoxy successfully. Mine are perfectly snug so the only way to use the technique is to make a tiny hole.
Adjusting clamping pressure helped, considerably. I took Jeff’s advice and sanded the puzzle joints a lot. While they aren’t perfect, they are sturdy and nice looking.
Started stitching today. 3-D!!
Love the tool rack on the door!
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Hey thanks Michael! It’s all magnetic stuff from Harbor Freight. It really makes it nice when you need a glove or a paper towel in a hurry! I had to add the little clip because the breeze kept unwinding my paper towels.
I managed to get the starboard side plank on yesterday too but forgot to take another photo. I see a little daylight between that forward bulkhead and the side, I thought it best to just finger tighten the stitches till it’s all together then snug it all up later.
Plank 3 stitched
Used a bike frame clamp to hold the transom while I lined things up and stitched.
Transom Stitched.
Routing detail. I’ve never used a router before. I practiced for awhile on scrap before attempting this. I think It’s quite serviceable. Plank #4 puzzle joints are curing now.
Filets looks very good for a first go, especially that you’ve avoided and/or cleaned up any drips/excess side-line ridges outside of the filet perimeter itself.
Now, next time, if you take a gloved finger dipped in alcohol (put an ounce or so in some small container, and don’t pour any leftover back into the original can) and rub the filet surface after it has reached the “firm but plastic-y” stage you’ll be able to smooth out the grainy-ness and have yourself vitually no sanding to perform prior to finish coating. As you do the smoothing you can press harder or softer as necessary to help with any final shaping, too. The finish coats of epoxy do tend to fill in the porosities, but the roughness remains visible underneath if you don’t do this finger-smooting. That’s why smoothing the original filet is preferable to simply over coating, in my opinion.
You can also try mixing both cellofil and wood flour into your filet goo to develop a “color match” for your okume. I think that looks a little better than 100% wood flour, which always seems to be too dark.
BTW, on my NE Dory I took a syringe of slightly thickened epoxy (had my wife fill one syringe while I emptied the other to keep the process moving quickly) and laid in mini-filets along the interior longitudinal seam of each lapstrake. I rolled the boat partially towards the side being filled so that the fill bead laid in nicely with less tendency to drip towards the keel if the seam got over-filled in any area. This worked very well to protect the raw edge of the plywood and made subsequent sanding and finish coating of the inner hull easier (and nicer looking). You’ll need to walk around the boat prior to doing this and fill all stitch holes with mini-dabs of well thickened paste to prevent your seam-fill epoxy from running through the stitch holes. Dabbing from the outer-hull side of the upper stitch holes and inner side of the lower stitch holes will make sanding off the dabs easiest. I think this extra effort is worth the results. It will also prevent any potential drip-throughs when you go to lay in the larger (per plan) longitudinal lapstrake filets on the outside of the hull..
Thanks Jeff, A lot of wisdom imparted here, I’ll try to use it!
The build manual would have me flip the boat once these frame fillets are done and do the seams in the planks, then flip it back and glass the sole and first plank. Any reason I can’t just do the fillets between the sole and the 1st plank inside the boat and put the glass down first. Then flip the boat and do the underside?
Frame Fillets are done. Some of them are a little gnarly. I think I got a little carried away when I was doing the epoxy tack welds and this made it harder to get smooth fillets over them. One advantage of the SW Dory design is most of this will be in storage lockers or flotation chambers so out of site out of mind. What do you all think. Glass interior now, or flip the boat, do seam fillets and then flip the boat and glass the inside?
You learned the lesson about making tacks too big, and the interference caused with laying in the filet. I recommend CA tacks wherever possible - wherever there isn’t a whole lot of stress on the joint. CA tacks go in soooooo much quicker and neater. I haven’t built a SW Dory, but seems you could filet and glass the lower inner hull prior to doing the outer lapstrake filets if you don’t see anything that “interferes” with doing things in that order. The one thing that will be a must-do if you elect to do the inner hull first is to check the hull form for trueness and do the “winding” procedure prior to laying in whatever filets you are completing on the lower inner hull. Maybe the build manual had you do this step prior to completing the frame filets, but even with those in I think the hull is still twistable, so I’d do the check. You’ll be permanently establishing a greater portion of the shape when you do the bottom, and thus want to make sure there is no twist in the hull. And because (if I understand you correctly) the upper strakes will still be wired (only), once you did the flip to complete the lapstrake filets you’d want to do a winding/twist check again prior to doing those filets. Of course, following the manual is usually a safe bet - so consider it.
When building from the Pro-kit plans we end up having to consider and make decisions like this on our own. With the complete build manual there are has already been much consideration given, and hundreds of boats sucessfully built by following the guidance.
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