Building the Squirt

Fiberglassing It's exciting every time I get to the next stage of building the boat. After filling the screw holes with famowood and using system three QuickFair to smooth out the scarf joints in the panels it is time to start fiberglassing. I sanded down all of the sharp corners of the boat, mainly around the chines and transom because the fiberglass won't bond well to sharp angles. It will end up creating air bubbles on the corners witch we really don't want. I used the fiberglass kit from Glen-L. I couldn't find any instructions on how to use which fiberglass sheet where, so I finally decided to use one sheet to cover the bottom of the boat and the transom. Then trimmed it to size. I invited some friends out to help in the process. Much easier to do with extra hands than by yourself. When dealing with epoxy and having to work quickly it is nice to have someone to mix the epoxy and multiple people to poor and smooth out the epoxy into the fiberglass weave....

Bottom Planking Prior to top planking, I put in some corner braces along the chine and transom and made some timbers in the battens near the transom. Instead of using a router or some fancy power tool I just used a wood rasp and smoothed it out with sandpaper and it turned out pretty nice. Timbers are small cutouts to allow water to pass through to one area of the boat. In this case it will allow most the water that gets in the boat to pool up near the middle of the transom. When I take the boat out of the water I can just sponge up any water remaining in the boat before it is stored. I know some people will go crazy about this but I decided to not put in a drain plug. The benefits don't seem to out way the risks. I could completely mess up the angle when drilling through the transom, not only that but it's probably more likely to rot there first. The only time I'd ever use it is when the boat is on the trailer and I want to drain water out. Which from what I've read ...

Side Planking It's time to make it shaped like a boat. Many people walk down my street wondering what I'm doing in my garage and soon they'll know without a doubt that it's a boat. Initially I was working with douglas Fir plywood (marine grade) and it was not working out well. It would not make the tight bends of the stern of the boat without cracking. I even tried pre-warping it with a 2x4 I cut out to match the curve of the transom. I took a scrap piece of ply and used a towel and hot boiling water to conform it to the shape of the transom which seemed to workout ok. I left it in place a week and when I took the clamps off and it popped right back into a straight piece of plywood.   After removing the clamps Every time I would try to bend a piece around the side of the transom it would crack. In the picture it looks like just the outer layer but over time it gets deeper and deeper. Not good considering the side panel will have to be removed severa...