Carbon Copy

Creation of Carbon Copy

If I start to tell the story about the creation of Carbon Copy, our 12’ skiff, I have to start five years ago with the construction of a wooden, stitch and glue, rowboat we called Honey Badger.  I had purchased plans online, with dreams of building a light little rowboat that my wife and I could use as a tender on s/v Wheee Dogggie, a 1968 Cal 40.

I started construction in a storage building; cut out all the parts needed and began assembly.  The boat went together very quickly and I learned through numerous mistakes.  I used West System epoxy and zip ties as I brought all the joints together.  This was my first attempt at stitch and glue assembly and also my first attempt at building a boat.  I was apprehensive about my end result.

After many weeks of work, we finished Honey Badger and she was a fine looking skiff.  We used her quite a bit in the first few months but she had a bit too much junk in her trunk.  Pulling her out of the water was a major undertaking. Trying to get her on the fore deck was a nightmare.

We later moved to a house on the water and the inability to launch her from the bulkhead in the back yard prolonged her neglect. She sat next to the house for another year and a half.

Direct orders from the Admiralty (my wife) required me to either fix Honey Badger and get her in the water or get a new skiff to replace it.  I chose building a new one by using the lessons learned from my past mistakes.

Lessons learned five years later:

·      Weight – the boat was much to heavy for our intended purpose.  I would say it weighed in at around 150lbs.  It took two adult men to move the boat and putting it on deck was almost impossible.

·      Pre-drill and epoxy fasteners - I did not pre-drill and epoxy fill many of the screw holes needed for attached devices, i.e. oar locks, cleats and pad eyes. This was a huge fail.  We found that water intrusion started to rot the wood core.

·      Fiberglass – We should have fiber glassed the entire bottom and transom to protect it from abrasions.  I used multiple coats of epoxy on all surfaces but that will not protect it from scratches.  When the epoxy gets scratched, water gets in.

·      Drain Plug - I neglected to put in a drain plug.  This could have been easily corrected but due to the lack of use, this never happened.

The list of changes I would incorporate into my new adventure was primarily reducing the weight and eliminating wood as much as possible.  My thought was to use the existing hull as a pattern and make the boat completely out of fiberglass.  I figured I would have to use wood in some areas that needed more strength, but this might just come from my fear or ignorance in the use of fiberglass.  Now came an entirely new learning curve, I began to study the technique of hand layup of fiberglass.

For this new project, I wanted to use Polyester resin and not my typical West System Epoxy.  I wanted to try my hand at it and learn, before starting another project sitting in my front driveway, a 1964 Pearson Ensign restoration.  Being that the Ensign was originally made with Polyester resin, I wanted to make all my repairs with the same.  We will chat about this in a future blog post.

I ordered my materials from US Composites and started work in February 2016.  With the help of a neighbor,

I flipped Honey badger over, onto the roller cart I had built, and started to prep the bottom of the boat.  I tried my best at making the hull smooth, smooth definitely being a relative term.  My greatest fear was laying up the new fiberglass shell and not being able to separate it from the old hull.  I had put a lot of thought into this and came up with numerous ideas that would increase the chances of separating the fiberglass from the old boat.  I went with mold release wax and then at the last minute added wax paper.

Many that have perfected the art of fiberglass may scoff at my sophomoric attempt, this is not the way the professionals would make a boat.  The pros would have made a mold with gel coat and many layers of mat.  They would have polished it to a mirror gloss and then laid up the new hull from that mold created.  I was not that pro and did not want to make multiple boats, I just wanted one boat that floated and did not rot.  My intention was to lay up a new boat from the “male” plug called Honey Badger.

I started laying up the fiberglass on the bottom, first with a light 2 oz. cloth and then with stranded mat.  I later learned that the first layer of cloth was for the most part, worthless.  My initial thought was that the light cloth would make a better finish on the inside of the boat.  The remainder of the boat was laid up with just mat that I tore into small sections and scattered across the hull of the boat and thoroughly wetted out with resin.

Due to the size of the hull, I could not lay up the entire hull all at once.  This made it necessary to sand in between laid up sections and layers.  Just a little added work but it gave me a beer break and the chance to reflect.  The one benefit was that I could separate the bottom of the fiberglass hull from the mold before moving on to the topsides. I appreciated this as the hull came together; I found it harder and harder to separate the new shell from the old hull.  By this point, I also learned that the wax paper was more of a hindrance than help, it would stick to the new fiberglass shell and had to be sanded off before the inside of the boat could be finished out.  The wax paper also created ripples and waves in the shell that would not have been there if I laid the fiberglass directly on the mold.  I stopped using wax paper and just used mold release wax when I got to the topsides, this worked with much better results.  I separated each section from the old hull as each spot cured.

Finally after a couple days of laying up, sanding and then laying up the next section, I had a shell of a boat.

Once the shell was done, I flipped Honey badger over and laid up the seats in the same fashion as the hull.  One by one they were completed and popped out of the original boat.  I did use the wax paper again when trying to deal with the non-skid that existed on the seat tops.  This did not present the same problem as the hull because I did not intend to do anything with the underside of the seats, that was just going to be filled with two-part Polyurethane foam once the seats were glassed in. 

When I put the seats into the shell of the new boat, they fit like a glove.  No trimming was needed with the exception of a few fibers and polyurethane drips.  I have much to do under the seats before they can get glassed in permanently.  I will need to add drainage, stringers and increase the strength of the topside glass.  To pour in the two part foam, I will cut some holes and pour it in gradually, numerous batches so that I do not stress the structure.  Once it is foamed, I can then put the last layer of glass on the top of the seats.

 

I later glassed in one of the few pieces of wood that will be used in this project, the transom.  I cut out the plywood, gave it a good coat of polyester resin and then fastened it with thickened resin.  Once it cured, I started to glass over it and strengthen the transom to topside joints.  I will add more structure in the next step of the construction.

I travel for work and it gives me three weeks to think about the next few steps in this project.   

I changed my thoughts on exterior finish and decided to go with carbon fiber rather than paint.  I will cover the entire exterior hull with carbon fiber cloth and a clear UV polyester gel coat.  It may just be cosmetic but I also feel it will give some abrasion resistance.  

If I could do it all over again (and I likely will on an 18-20' sailboat) I would do the entire boat in carbon fiber.  The thought scared me a bit in the past, but now after some reading, I think I could handle it.

More in the next episode...

Carbon Copy - Part II

Great news, the Honda 2.3hp, four stroke outboard has arrived and will be anxiously waiting for the day I get the boat completed.

The new motor weighs in at about 29 lbs and easy for my wife to install on the transom.  It won't make the boat plane out but it will keep it moving forward when needed.


I have had three weeks to plan my next move on Carbon Copy.  I need to accomplish a few things before I can put this little skiff in the water.

• Install stringers along the inside edges of the boat and possibly down the center as well.  I want to be sure that I have enough structure from bow to stern so it does not fold in half (might be a good thing).  The seats will take care of the port to starboard rigidity.  These added stringers will also make up my drainage channels from the bow to aft where the aft drain will be located.
• Install a drain channel under the aft seat with a drain plug at the base of the seat.  I would like to keep the drain plug inside the boat and easy to remove and install.  I plan on glassing in some tubing from the transom to the bottom center of the seat. A good seal and glass job will be needed, once the seat is filled with foam, the seat will then be sealed up with fiberglass.
• Tab in and glass in the seats.
• Glass in some backer plates for hardware such as cleats, pad eyes and handles.  I am still undecided as to the composition.  They may be wood or possibly multiple layers of carbon fiber.
• Install a Breasthook in the bow.
• Install the inner and outer gunwales.
• Install two part polyurethane foam in all the seats for buoyancy.
• Put a finishing fiberglass on the seat tops to cover the foam holes.
• Coat the entire interior with white gel coat and non-skid paint on the working surfaces of the sole.
• Flip the boat over and apply the carbon fiber to the bottom and top sides.  This is more for cosmetic purpose than strength however it will stiffen it a bit and add protection against abrasion and puncture.
• Coat the bottom and topside with clear UV gel coat.
• Install the inner and outer motor mount plates on the transom.

There is much to do and very little time to accomplish this.  I have three weeks home and two of those weeks I will be in school.  I might have a couple weekends or evenings to spare.

More later....

Carbon Copy gets Seats, Stringers, Gunwales and a Drain

Finally, I return home but I am left with very little time to work on my project.  Schools have become a time suck this year and will consume a huge amount of my freedom.

I did have a chance to install a few items into Carbon Copy and I will show you my progress in this post.

To add strength, I used 3/4" CPVC along the length of the boat.  The CPVC was not used for the strength it added, but more for the shape that it would make when I applied fiberglass over it.  I thought hard about numerous products, products that would give the shape of a stringer, yet not add too much weight.  I almost used foam piping insulation, the type that would usually be used to wrap exterior water pipes, but later thought about the affect that Polyester resin would have on the foam (testing could have answered that question).  I also liked the thought of having something rigid under the fiberglass, so it would not crush if something hard hit the stringer.  I ran a full length along the port and starboard side and then one down the middle of the craft.  The one along the centerline will also act as my drain between the forward compartment and the aft and then continue to drain under the rear seat and out through the transom.

  

When I came up with the right spot for the transom drain, I made an extremely oversized hole through all the fiberglass and wooden transom which later got filled with thickened resin and covered with more glass.  I wanted to be sure that if water should leak around the drain plug for any reason, it would never get to the wood structure.  Once the resin fill cured, I drilled the correct size hole for the drain plug flange that I would be using.

From the photo, you can see that I had to cut a good sized hole into the rear seat, which gave me access to completely glass in the drain tube under the seat.  Once again, I did not want water to ever get under the seat.  If I had it all to do over, I would have glassed in the tube before putting in the seat (Brain fart).

The drain mount on the back of the boat created a different challenge. The shape and angle of the hull made it difficult for mounting a straight plug flange directly to the transom.

I was able to create a mounting plate by using some 1/4" cut fiberglass strand and resin.  I used a disposable bowl and propped it up on an angle to roughly create the uneven angle that would match the transom angle.  It worked pretty good.  When cured, I ground it down to make a final finish and glassed it over the drain hole made earlier.  To finish it off, I then used glass mat over the entire mount.

When it was all done, it looks like the mount was originally formed into the hull.

The seats installed fairly easily, being that I copied them from the original hull they fit into the new shell like a glove.  I quickly tabbed them in using 4-5" fiberglass cloth tape and resin, this was done just to hold them in the right spot.  I later came back around and added torn fiberglass mat to make everything finish out and have the strength I wanted.

The seats really strengthened the topsides of the boat, what started out rather flimsy turned into a very solid structure.  I then cut 3" holes in the top of the seats and filled the entire seat cavity with a mixture of foam packing peanuts and two part urethane foam.  The closed cell foam should insure that, even when punctured, the hull should have enough buoyancy to stay afloat.  The 2 lb. foam made the seats extremely hard, absolutely no flex when you put some weight on them.

Gunwales were also added during my short stay home.  These were also made of CPVC, this time I increased the size to 1".  When I first started to think about the gunwales, I was thinking about the traditional wood installed on the inner and outer edges of the topsides.  Plastic sounded better with less maintenance.

To install the CPVC gunwales, I set up my table saw to just barely cut into one edge of the tubing and then slipped the tubing over the fiberglass topside.  The tube naturally clamped onto the topsides of the boat while I laid fiberglass tape to make a permanent bond.

One added bonus of the CPVC, it will give me a quick electrical path should I ever need to install permanent lighting.  I simply drill a small hole and fish a tape or blow a string and in minutes I could have wires from bow to stern. 

I made a breasthook from some scrap 1/2" plywood and glassed both sides.  The breasthook and the transom have become the only two structural pieces of wood on the boat.  I did use some 1/4" ply under the seat tops, but that was just to give it a rigid surface and does not have a purpose now that the foam has been installed.

I also continued the gunwales by using a piece of 1" CPVC that has been cut in half.

In the photo, notice the pink foam packing peanuts visible inside the seats? They were repurposed rather than sending them to a landfill.

Just before returning back to work, I pre-drilled the transom and breasthook in all the locations that will receive hardware.  The stainless boat bling has arrived, items such as handles, pad eyes and oar locks.  All of these holes have been filled with thickened epoxy and covered again with glass mat.

Items left to do;

• Make and install blocks for the oar lock mounts
• Grind the interior smooth
• Gel coat the interior
• Add a layer of carbon fiber cloth across the bottom and topsides
• Add the final clear gel coat to the bottom and topsides
• Install the hardware
• Launch it!

It will be a struggle to get everything done this trip home, but I am hoping for the best.