Once I had bullied the hull together (well, it seemed that way with the chines......) I did a little informal test to see if I had any major problems with leaks. This was another James idea that he tried with smaller boats and it seemed plausible to me.
So I filled the hull with water. Not a lot mind you--actually only about 4 inches at the center, but enough to tell me where a leak might be an issue. Well, it turned out to be an issue all over. The bottom, being A-C plywood, was leaking like a sieve, with water dripping through all over, including I nice stream from the edge of the plywood sheet right at the middle. Curiously the Luan had no problems, except for one nail hole.
At this point I had a choice: I could epoxy and fiberglass just the chines and bow and stern, or I could glass that and the entire bottom. The general consensus would have been to glass the bottom, but the hull weight is rapidly adding up and the eventual goal is for this to be cartoppable by one person. Hmmm, what to do?
The most practical response from yelling out into the Internet was to epoxy the bottom and also to epoxy the interior and glass the chines and ends as usual. I thought this a good strategy, and in hindsight probably saved me a lot of grief, as epoxy is a very tempermental critter.
Why is that? Well, it's the darned pot life, and once it's gone, it's gone. with the most interesting results.....
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| This was a one pint plastic container--a little smoke and heat and bingo, a hockey puck! |
Still the results look good and with the sanding between coats and the glass on the chines as per Payson, I'm pretty happy with it.
