Geezer Rock

Tonight Renee and I, along with several friends, checked out Arrogance at the Cat's Cradle.  Arrogance is the king of the Triangle bands.  There are probably 15 bands out there who would take exception with that statement.  Arrogance formed way back when - '69, I think.  They played together until 1983. They released 5 records, including Suddenly on Warner/Curb, plus The 5'11"Record long after the breakup.

They opened with "Not Unusal." That is one of my favorite Robert songs. Later, a great version of "Money'", but no "Open Windows."  I have to say I miss the old days when they walked onstage to the whistling song, and closed with "Puff, The Magic Dragon."

There were a lot of geezers there.  I'm not young by any means.  I can't remember JFK's death, but I do remember RFK's.  I would have been in the youngest 5% there, had so many people not brought their grandkids.

Attaching the Rubrail

Laminating the rubrail is a several day process.  The rubrail is made of three 1/4" thick by 1 1/2" wide plywood strips laminated to 3/4" thick.  They are glued on one layer at a time with a glue made of epoxy and wood flour.  You really need lots of clamps for even clamping pressure.

I don't have any 16 foot strips of plywood, of course, so my rubrail strips are 8 feet long.  I will stagger my joints for strength and for fairness of the curve.  On the last layer I will center the 8 foot strips on the sides and finish with 4 foot strips on either end.

I borrowed a few clamps to make 49 clamps total (thanks Rob and Carl).  On my 16 foot canoe, that is 25 per side, more or less, or one clamp every 8".  I glued on the first layer on both sides.  It bends vertically more easily than you would expect.  I used 10 ounces of epoxy for the putty to glue on 16 feet of rubrail.

After it set up, I noticed little waves in the rubrail.  There were depressions at every clamp point.  This picture shows it, although blurry.  The canoe is longer than the depth of field.

I was afraid to do only one side at a time, to avoid pulling the canoe assymetrical.  To try to correct the waves, I spread on the epoxy a little thicker and clamped over the high spot on the first strip.  This helped some: it reduced the waviness by about half.

Since the 2 layers has made the hull stiff, I decided to go ahead and put the last layer on one side at a time so I could use all of the clamps.  I used 44 clamps on each side - 1 every 4 1/2 inches.  This is a much better spacing.  I will make sure on future boats that I can clamp every 4 inches.

This is the finished rubrail, before shaping.

Taping the joints outside

My goal for this session of work is to tape the outside joints with fiberglass and do as much of the epoxy work as possible wet on wet.  I probably didn't say so earlier in this blog, but my real purpose in building this canoe is to learn for building a bigger boat.  Having a canoe at the end is a fringe benefit.

Yesterday I prepared for today's work.  I sanded the outside so that all of the epoxy was scuffed and new epoxy would adhere.  I rounded the joints outside to about a 1/2" radius with a belt sander.  After rounding the edges, I noticed several holes in the core of a couple of panels.

I had seen few voids from the cut edges, so I investigated closely.  I discovered tht I could push my thumb nail throught the veneer at these holes, across the panel, all of the way to the other edge.  I have to fill these to prevent rotting, so I got out the Dremel and looked for discolored lines or snall voids at the edges.  I routed through the veneer and first layer of the core.  I will fill the slots with epoxy putty, and cover with fiberglass tape to replace the lost strength.

Last, I laid out and cut the fiberglass tape.  Each piece was rolled like a scroll from each end to the middle, to make it easier to lay out, just line up in the center, and roll.  I laid them out, labeled.

I started early doing the outside joints.   The steps - prime the wood, fill the joints to make them smooth, and apply fiberglass tape.  Priming the wood is easy enough.  I used a foam roller.

I let the epoxy cure nearly an hour, then I mixed putty and filled in all gaps in the joints and all of the slots I cut to expose the voids.  As soon as I finished puttying, I began taping.  I taped the bow and stern (Which is which?), then all four chines.  I used  the scrap tape at the bow and stern between the chines to make fairing easier by providing a constant number of tape layers.  I also used a little woven tape to strengthen the slots cut over the core gaps in the plywood, since the plywood was only one layer thick at those spots.

I let the tape cure awhile, until it set.  Since I had time, I went ahead and filled in the weave of the biax tape with a thick wood flour/epoxy slurry.  It was closer to putty on the vertical surfaces.

Working wet on wet is definitely the right way to do this.  There is no sanding between steps, and that saves a lot of time.

Below, the canoe is all taped.