Wooden Boat People

By McKenzieDriftBoat.com

Greg's drift boat project - photo update

I am finally getting around to uploading the photo's of my build.

started with a pile of steel studs and built a bench. Oh, almost forgot,, this is Chase.

turned out ok, considering I have never built anything before

my scarph jig. I was able to do 12:1 scarphs on 4' & 8' pieces with this..

easy to set up and easy to use.

This is the rough cut, cleaned it up with a belt sander and epoxied it with system 3.

That stuff is amazing. I ran several tests and it is REALLY strong.

I made my side panels form 1/4" 4' x 18', cut them with 29" bow height and 19" stern height.

This shows them curing after a layer of glass and poly resin. It was cold when I set these up and the resin vapors drove me out of my house for a couple of days. With Poly resin, ambient temp is everything!!! This took 3 days to finally kick. A very BAD 3 days..

Mounting the bow stem.

Wrapping around the frames. This is the point when my plans went completely out the window. I only used 3 frames on my boat. As shown in the pic I used #1, #4 and #5.

I took apart the rest and used them for temp. bracing. Which will come out after I turn the boat over.

Fitting the bottom. Made from 1/2" 4' x 16' AC plywood. I also scarphed in a 8' x 16" piece in the middle of the main piece to allow me to get to a 56" bottom.

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!!!!!

I did not factor in the extra length of my boat and ended up with these gaps on both sides of my width scarph. I cut some pieces and epoxied them in with some dowells.

While waiting for my patches to cure I added some extra support struts to help hold down the bottom.

Bottom rough cout out (you can see the pencils lines) over cut by approx 3/4", with one layer of glass on the inside.

Mounted the bottom and trimming to fit with a jig saw. This worked alot better than I could have imagined. My buddy insisted and I just knew that we would cut through the sides, so I went inside until he showed me how well it was working.

Sides, bottom and transom all together for the first time. just starting to sand and getting ready to glass the outside and chines.

Ya, I know, I have a screw fettish...

The sides have one layer of glass. The Chine edge has 2 layers and an 8" 10 oz biaxle, and the bottom has 3 layers of glass.

Would have done more, but had a very valuable learning experience.

When mixing a new batch of resin, DO NOT pour in the last little bit of the previous batch!!!!

It turns into jello in 7 - 8 minutes....

Lost the last 1/2 gallon of resin...

Sorry for the long post and if anyone can see if I have screwed up anything, please let me know.

Good luck every one, and thanks to Guy for coming over this weekend. It was very nice to meet you.

Wooden Boat People

Greg's drift boat project - photo update

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