Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Hatches and Clamps

My anxiety over cutting the hatches out began while I was reading the instruction booklet, before I even started building the boat. Our jig saw is rather old and vibrates. The guy at the large off-island hardware store tried to talk me into buying a different saw blade than is recommended in the instruction manual. I borrowed other saws and practiced on bits of plywood. Finally I settled on the instruction manual's recommendation to hold a saw blade in a vice grip and hand cut it out. I used a scroll saw blade instead as it cut easier.



I waited to fill the shear seam from the inside until the hatches were cut so I would have better access.

Attaching the cockpit coaming.

Smaller clamps are recommended.
And the hatch spacers.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

The incredible shrinking boatshop


The gallery is open, and it's still a boat building shop! I was supposed to relocate after the student art show, but it's still fairly quiet here in town and I don't have anywhere convenient to go. But the boat's space is very small. And I can't make dust.


Boat shop in a box.

Kayak draped

I made my first mistake on the boat at this point. I draped the cloth over the boat to measure it, then I thought it was fitting over it so nicely I would I leave it and start cutting. After I started cutting I remembered I was only measuring and there is a special way the cloth has to be laid out and cut so there will be enough to do the other end. Darn. Then I was looking at patching three or four pieces together. I've read on other coho builders websites that they almost all order extra cloth so they don't have a seam at all. Four seams on the only part of the boat that isn't going to be painted? Lucky I live in a town with a lot of boats. I called around and the auto parts store, the hardware store, and the boat building shop all had fiberglass. The only problem is that all the boats around here are bigger and all the fiberglass cloth was too heavy. So I lost a couple of days driving around checking the fiberglass and then having it shipped from the marine store. The photo above is the new one piece cloth.

Friends and visitors stop by to check my progress.

The fiberglass is saturated with epoxy.