PK87 Dinghy- Today, Stitched and Glued the Hull

Lots of progress today! What a great day it was, this being my first boat, seeing the pieces some together and start to look like a boat was great!

As I said in my last post, I took some photos!



The frames do not look level because, well that aren't. They aren't glassed in place although they are close to where they should be. The main reason they look out of whack is because the boat itself isn't level.





I think today went pretty well in all, even though I did make one pretty big mistake... When I was cutting out the plywood pieces I somehow got confused and cut the certain panels out of the wrong pieces of plywood. (There are two thicknesses of plywood and I cut the panels that were supposed to be out of the thinner piece from the thicker piece and vice versa. But! I now have a set of stencils so I guess I will probably be making another PK 87.

I realized this mistake once I had stitched the two bottom panels and the bow and transom panels together. When I was about to put the side panels on, I said to myself, "Self, how in the world are you going to bend this thick plywood like it is supposed to be????". Then I checked the plans and realized my mistake and felt pretty dumb. Oh well, maybe that will be my "big mistake" in this project.

So I had to run out and get new plywood and cut out all of the panels again. But this time I had stencils so it wasn't as time consuming marking them out. I finished cutting the correct panels out at around 11 o'clock, nearly half a day wasted. But once I had the new panels the hull went together in no time!

Stitching the hull together was simple and quick. Then, one of my friends, Jarrod Davis, decided to come check out my project and ended up helping me until we left at 6:20 this evening, what great help he was too.

With Jarrod's help, we flipped the hull (it was extremely light weight) and applied the duct tape on the outside so that when we puddied the seems from the inside it wouldn't seap through. I am a little worried about how hard it will be to get this stuff off in the morning. I think the way I put the zip-ties on wasn't the best way. I had them where the bulky connection part was on the outside of the hull so that made taping it up a little tricky. We ended up having to cut slices in the tape beside each zip-tie so that the tape wouldn't let the puddy dry around the bulkyness of the tie leaving hardened epoxy bumps all over the hull. I think we solved the problem but I will see in the morning how it all worked out.

But, when I think about it, the bulkyness of the tie on the inside of the hull could have been more trouble on the outside. Because puttying around what little bit of the tie that was showing was pretty thick, so maybe the bulkyness on the outside is the best way.

So, we brushed on epoxy resin everywhere that the fiberglass would be touching and then we puddied the seems. This went pretty quickly with the two of us working simutaneously.

One we finished applying the puddy we immediately began cutting and wetting out the fiberglass on the seams. This wasn't very difficult and I think it's easier to do it right after puddying so that the glass has something to stick to and hold it in position. Brushing the resin onto the fiberglass, "wetting it out", was pretty slow until one person started pouring the resin and the other quickly brushed it out. Once we started this method it really went fast.

Since I didn't put the frames in before I glassed the seems, I didn't want the hull to dry out of shape so we temporarily put the frames in place so that the hull will dry in the correct shape. Not sure if this makes a difference, but I didn't want it drying out of shape and then the frames not fit or the seems crack or fail when I forced the frames in.

That was it for the day and I think we got alot accomplished. With Jarrod there things spend up a good bit. Thanks man.