It’s been roughly 5 years since my last build (the Swifty 12) and 10 years since my Pygmy kayak build. To keep up with my current pattern, it’s time to build another boat! This time I went with the Glen L Zip. Pic of what it is supposed to look like when it’s finished.
Wish me luck! 🙂
Been a long while since I’ve posted. Life hasn’t allowed for a lot of time on the boat and even less time for documenting it.
I was able to finish the bottom planking. It went pretty well, but there was one thing I would have done differently. In my past boats, I’ve never left hardware in when planking (kayak that was stitch and glue and a small sailboat that was glued lapstrake). So I was a bit apprehensive about countersinking too deeply. This lead to a number of screws that needed to be backed out and redone. I also didn’t fix as many as I should have and there were a few that, even after filling, had some portion of the screw head showing. Had I gone deeper on all of them from the start, my putty work would have been a lot cleaner (nice perfect small circles). Instead it looks a bit messy. Not too big of an issue, as it will eventually be painted.
Filling the holes was a multi step process because it shrank after it dried. My son likes to join me and tell me we are ‘building boat together’. As I got closer to being finished I went through with red masking tape and marked everything that wasn’t as smooth as I’d like. If I tried to fix imperfections as I went I’d skip over a bunch on accident. So the tape was helpful.
Next I put on a coat of epoxy. I bought a bulk pack of squeegees on Amazon and they have been really useful.
About 24 hours after the first coat I put on the fiberglass. It went pretty well. As with the first coat, I used the squeegees and then ran over it with a high density foam roller. Another thing I wish I had done differently: rounded the edges more. Any edges that aren’t rounded enough are impossible to get the fiberglass to lay down properly and can cause air bubbles. So annoying!
After the fiberglass coat, I put an additional 3 coats on without sanding (each one between 12 and 24 hours from the previous coat). I’ve done a little bit of sanding now that the third coat is down and am happy so far with how it’s been coming along. Still lots to do before it gets flipped. Not sure what kind of progress will be made over winter, so no promises on when my checkin will be. 🙂
Work has been pretty crazy, so not a lot of progress. Lots of fairing and I glued together my bottom planks. Finally got good use out of the weights. 🙂
I was finding that the boat placement in the garage was not working out well; too much sawdust everywhere and in the way a lot. So I swapped everything over (which was a bit of work since the other side of the garage is a gym including lots of weights and a squat rack! I also put up some plastic to keep the mess contained.
I got both of the bottom planks glued/screwed down. Happy with the way it turned out. Here’s a look at the first one going down.
And the second one…
My carriage bolts arrived! So I was able to get going on the keel, battens, chine log and sheer clamp. Starting to see the shape/curves of the boat and am really liking it.
With the sheer clamps I was a little worried about the amount of force I was applying to get the bends I needed, so I steamed them a bit and clamped them into place. After leaving them for 24 hours, I was really impressed how well the bag steaming worked and how much of the bend they retained.
I’ve also started doing a small amount of the fairing that’s going to need to be done. Lots more to go before I ever get any of the planking done.
Not a ton of progress this week as I am waiting for carriage bolts to arrive (back ordered). Also took a trip to Deception Pass to relax and enjoy some family time.
While waiting for the carriage bolts to arrive, I played around with clamping the chine log into place. It was struggling to align well between the 4 and 5 1/2 frame. After inspection, I believe it was because my 5 1/2 frame wasn’t sitting exactly perpendicular to the floor. This caused the chine log to come off the frame at a lower angle than it should have. So I took out the screws and sawed it apart where it was attached. I ended up putting some thin shims made out of mahogany between the chine assembly and the frame and it sits much better now. Looks to be fitting together much better now.
I cut out all of the notches in the frames with a pull saw. Love working with those saws when accuracy is needed.
My little helper…
Working on building out all of the frames. No matter how many clamps I have, I feel like I need one more hand and a couple dozen more clamps!
Got started working on the transom today. Lots of work with the backsaw and chisels; since the transom doesn’t sit at 90 degrees, all of the battens/chine/keel come in at an angle.
A bit of fairing going on with the front frame…
I received my zzzipkit and other materials from Glen L on July 9/10/11. The wood from the zip kit is awesome and I am already thrilled I decided to purchase that over finding it on my own and going off of the plans. I unpacked everything, took inventory, read/reread the directions and got started on the building form:
The finished building form:
The first set of steps was to assemble the chine brace. It didn’t take me long to realize just how much fairing was going to be required in this build.
Definitely need more clamps. My guess is I’ll have 100 or more by the time this is all said and done.
Getting the boat on the water!
It felt like it took forever, but it finally started getting 3-dimensional:
I took on a different challenge with the Swifty 12 sailboat (from Shell Boats). Rather than to purchase a kit (wood/fiberglass/epoxy already cut/measured/etc. and provided in a single shipment), I decided to purchase only the plans. This included set of blueprints and a few pages of step-by-step instructions. In the beginning it was extremely intimidating!
After reading and rereading the directions, I finally started purchasing the materials. The most difficult part was the wood – which was overwhelming. Scaling up the blueprints to the material was a new and fun task (referred to as lofting). Some pics of building the forms and cutting the material:
Bevelling the edges on the plywood (not a proper use of my table saw!)
Joining the plywood:
Jig for building the transom:
Building the daggerboard box:
Mike's Zip