#VINTAGE RUNABOUT BOAT CRACKED#
#VINTAGE RUNABOUT BOAT PLUS#

The aft bottoms were pretty flat and easy. It's all going to be filled and painted anyway. The famous transition between lap and butt went fine. The forward bottom pieces took a bit of fussy fitting because they have to butt to each other and to the sides. I butt joined after the forward bottom pieces were in place. I used Sipo plugs on the starboard and they looked much better.

#VINTAGE RUNABOUT BOAT PLUS#

Too much work and too messy, plus I may end up painting a stripe or having a large enough rub rail to cover them. Well the plugs I used on the port side were too light colored. If it's a bust (or too much work) I can paint a nice stripe at the gunwale as someone else has done and still have a lot of nice mahogany showing. I've countersunk the screw holes joining to the sheer pretty deep with the idea of plugging. I remembered most of the time to erase (sand away) pencil marks on the plywood before epoxy could drip on it and enshrine the marks forever. For bending the second side at the stem I had to screw down some blocks for something the clamps could pull on. I was struggling with the bend before it dawned on me to whack it off. I found that bending the plywood at the transom is much easier with a minimum of excess ply projecting back. I butt-joined the 8' lengths in advance of putting it on the boat. This stuff looks like mahogany, has many plies, and is waterproof. Where bolts are required, I've used galvanized.įor all planking I used Hydrotek 1/4 inch ply. I've also got quite fond of the square drive heads that McFeelys sells. The 3/4 inch screws they supplied are pretty short and don't give much bite into the sheers and chines. The bronze nails are hard to use, don't countersink, and can't be removed, so I've used precious few of them.

I bought the fastener kit from Glen-L but in retrospect I think it was not a good plan. If I were to do it over, I'd make 3 or more laminations. It looks shabby but when it's all put together I think it will be fine. I had some other smaller cracking later which I epoxied in place.

#VINTAGE RUNABOUT BOAT CRACKED#

My fix for the first crack was to epoxy and screw the crack together and move the cracked place to the stern where it would be straight. But I think after I got the first lamination in place I let too much time go by and the second one dried too straight. The towels and boiling water technique seemed to work, relaxing the wood and allowing both laminations to bend at the stem. I'm using Yellow Alaskan Cedar for the longitudinals. Sheers, in these plans, are the longitudinal pieces that form the upper edge of the hull. Sheer is usually defined as the curvature of the deck front to back. Not sure if they land at the right place on the stem but the notches in the plans seem to encourage the wood to land where it lands. The port chine didn't land on the stem with the right twist so I had to add a little beveled shim to make a flat landing place. There are designated pieces of wood that serve this purpose. The slightly different shape makes all the difference.Ĭhines are the lines that divide the 'sides' of the boat from the 'bottom'. I finally saw the light and got a Fearson (Reed Prince) screwdriver and ordered the Fearson bits from Glen-L. I struggled for a while with the Fearson screw heads, trying to use Phillips drivers. For screwing into the hard wood I had to predrill giant holes and wax the screws. Per instructions, I had ordered bronze screws. For the frames I used Sipo, real nice hard wood, not quite as expensive as Honduran mahogany, but looking about the same. Frames are pieces that run the width of the boat and to which longitudinal pieces are attached.

Vintage runabout boat