Shore Leave Night a blast!

Well folks (4 boats?) - this week was our best Shore Leave night yet. Our newest board member Ray, thought the monthly event (last Thursday evening of the month) should have a revamp for longevity. To make his point he sponsored a Polish Sausage BBQ roast around the bonfire behind the boatshop. A few got there early and gathered up the fuel lying around and got the fire going. By the time everyone got there is was quite merry! Lots of great conversations and our best turnout yet!

George, Jim, Glen and Wayne near heat!

Chris takes delivery from Troy

Troy is self appointed chef!

Boatbuilders gathering by the water

We will be exploring new avenues to keep SLN vibrant and it is a bit of a fundraiser at $10 a head for food (especially if the food is sponsored! thank you Ray!) and beer so consider joining us for the next one!

In the shop this week we reached a major turning point in the Shepherd restoration project - both sides of the inner bottom are on the boat to stay. It took a team of 6 to make this happen - two gunning out the SikaFlex along the keel, frames and chines, two spreading the stuff out to make sure we have no moisture traps later and all 6 to carry the one-piece panel over to the boat and hold the keel edge in place until location is OK and the first few screws are driven. Most screws went into the holes from the dry fit process which is comforting. Once all the screws are in four of us started banging in the bronze boat nails on about 3" spacing.

Ray, Joseph and George SikaFlexing

Bernie jumps in too...

Jason, Ray and Anton spreading goo...

and banging in the boat nails with Glen

 After the goo has set up - typically 24 hours - the screws can be removed. Our thinking is that when we apply the outer planks - they will be screwed right through everything and into the keel, chine and frames. If those screws hit a stainless screw head we have a problem whereas if they hit a bronze boat nail we probably won't even know. At least this is the theory - we haven't done this before and the pro's don't do it quite this way - stay tuned. Meanwhile the starboard side has been faired out and the original side planks dry fitted to assist in shaping the fairing of the inner bottom right at the bow - the trickiest part of all this process.

joint looks good near us but opens forward.

needs more delicate shaving to close joint

 On to the Mini-Hopper project with Mad Bernie! By the end of the week the front deck is fully closed with the bulkhead epoxied in place. Beautiful detail work going on here - this will be the most elegant sea flea ever!

inner panel material being epoxy coated

bulkhead in and sides faired.

And the TNT ready for painting - almost. Next week a complete change...?

no such thing as too much surface prep...we learned this the hard way.

Meanwhile Ray, who purchased a Contessa last fall is scrambling to get her ready for launching and he wants to make sure she is perfect. Last week polished, this week bottom bead blasted to the bare boat and now with her in the shop, the 5th coat of stinky paint on and two to go!

looks have been transformed - but a fiberglass boat in our shop? Who'd have thought...

Oh well not for long the way Ray is going at it.

So that's the news for this week!

Boat Teams Scrambling to next stage..

Interesting how the four boat teams are coming up to a major transition in their projects like a horse race in the stretch...or not!

TNT under the watch and action of Steve and Jason will be faired out for painting of the bottom by the end of the next session I think. This week was the detail of filling all dimples and divots with thickened epoxy - dab by dab.

dabs of epoxy fill screw holes

ready for final sanding out

Mini-Hopper moves along with Bernie and Troy filling and fileting as well as making a landing place for the forward bulkhead. It will be epoxied into place and will have a screw out 4" handhole in it for ventilation when no on the water. Part of our deliberations on this project are the considerations for creating a buildable kit for the future.

handy to work on like this.

using ply strips as landing surface.

The Skiff team has installed the new keel and it is SikaFlexed and boat nailed down. We use screws to pull the parts together but they will come out and be replaced by boat nails which will make the interior much easier to finish.

Jim did a lovely job of fairing in the bow of the keel to the stem

The Shepherd crew got both bottom panels glued up and coated with 3 coats of epoxy. Next time we won't try to make a removable panel like this - we'll follow the suggestion from Clarion to assemble the inner bottom right onto the boat permanently the first time. Makes sense once you've done it the (hard) way we are doing this one!

we used grey epoxy floor paint for the third coat.

Not too much action int he engine shop this week but another engine arrived of just the right size and a load of spare parts also arrived - thanks Peter!

a nice little 3 arrived

a slightly newer Evinrude 8 also showed up

and a load of parts - including some rare ones.

So that's last week. This week we have Shore Leave Night on Thursday April 24 so come on out, we have something new in store - weather permitting an old fashioned Polish Sausage Roast around the bonfire by the river, courtesy of our newest board member Ray!

Let us know if you are thinking of joining us! 905 873-0141 or blackbox@cogeco.ca

Smoke and smiles, planks very much...

Another great week of projects pushing along to major milestones..

The 16' Shepherd team has completed the creation of the inner bottom panel using more or less the Dwight method. Funny but once you get going with this fiddly job it really does fly along. We added little "joint leveller" scraps screwed through from the front to improve the match of most of the plank edges to each other. Next step is the remove the panels, improve the epoxy planks joints, fair things out a bit with thickened epoxy, three coats of epoxy to the inside surfaces in one day then final installation on the hull with SikaFlex and bronze boatnails.

tracing curve of stem.

first side all fitted ready for epoxy

fitting second side planks

first side panel done.

George shapes the planks

all done!

In the engine shop, Joseph decided to see if the 15 horse early 50's Evinrude dropped off by the Carthews a couple of weeks ago is a runner...turns out it is but needs a water impeller and carburetor cleanout!

Joseph is happy!

On the Mini-Hopper front the amazing Bernie has closed the hull of Mini-Hopper #1! The inside surfaces of the flotation compartments have all been painted with epoxy to seal them and the inside of the bow curve has been filleted with epoxy on the inside. Now we just have to see if it all sticks together when the clamps come off!

checking the final dry fit of deck.

epoxyed and screwed down.

Troy looking for gaps from inside.

first completed hull!

And the TNT team fairs very well too...

The fussy business of filling dips and shaving off lumps

The skiff team of Wayne and Jim got the new keel ready to be fastened to the skiff.

Jim and Wayne debate details

ready!

So that's how it went this week! Great turnouts and lots of action.

A pox on boats! Wait I meant E poxy on boats..

That's how this week looked anyway - several corners have been turned on several projects! First:

The Lightning "Bolt" - the spars, rudder and parts have had their final varnish thanks to Chris, next comes installation of hardware on the spars once the varnish is good and hard.

Chris prepping for last coat

done and done! (actually and done)

On the TNT Project, The team (Steve and Jason) has filled all the screw holes and is into fairing the hull out preparatory to priming. When you have filled holes like this there are often knobs of epoxy sticking proud of the surface. The risk of trying to fair them off with sandpaper is that the epoxy is hard but the surrounding wood is soft - the wood goes first and waves and dips are introduced to the flat surface. In this case we used a body shop file and a Stanley SureForm to shave off the excess epoxy, neither of these tools will remove wood but they work by shaving off the high spots only - very slick!

and here it is gone and flat.

here you can see shiny knob of epoxy

Next the Mini-Hopper development project with Bernie and Troy plowing on. This week saw the transom final fitted and the hull epoxied together with 2 coats of epoxy to seal the flotation chambers so they won't rot if moisture gets in (it will). We discussed installing ventilation ports so these closed area can dry out when the boat is not in the water.

Bernie explains what's up to Glen

rolling epoxy on bottom of deck

a possible future detail.

all sealed up!

On to the 16' Shepherd where George is forging on with creating the inner bottom panels. We epoxied the 3" strips which are scarfed at one end and butt glued to each other onto the main bottom panel. Our concern was for movement as the strips are bent down into final position - finally we glued everything up with no bend figuring that if we bent them down after the epoxy set-up was partial, things would self align later...seems to have worked!

George cuts the ramps.

dry-fitting the strips..

next morning screwed down

all epoxied up - no bends

Next task is to add more strips heading forward, we are concerned about the amount of twist in some of these little strips of plank - however - one at a time seems to do it!

Now on the the engine shop where Peter, Joseph and many watchers are making and following the progress! We are at the point now where parts ordering is next so these motors can begin going back together. Impellers are flying around!

George gets his pristine 3 running.

So that's it for this week, drop in, become a Follower of the blog, buy a raffle ticket, become a Gatsby Member, boating season is coming up (slowly this year)!