Aussie Cackler 14 build

[RM Anderson]

Matthias,
Necessity is the mother of invention! I never would have thought to use moldings for side clamps but as long as the grain is straight with minimal runout, why not?
For years I also used an epoxy that was quite viscous and just recently tried one of the boutique boat building resins. What a difference in workability but as you mentioned, not near as flexible. I also used a penetrating epoxy on all interior hull surfaces as it was so much easier to apply and work into every nook and cranny. To ensure a truly waterproof sole, I used an industrial epoxy coating meant for coating the inside of storage tanks to create a sort of bathtub floor inside the boat. Aging the workability was so much easier than neat epoxy. Great write up! RM

 

[Matthias]

Matthias,
Necessity is the mother of invention! I never would have thought to use moldings for side clamps but as long as the grain is straight with minimal runout, why not?
For years I also used an epoxy that was quite viscous and just recently tried one of the boutique boat building resins. What a difference in workability but as you mentioned, not near as flexible. I also used a penetrating epoxy on all interior hull surfaces as it was so much easier to apply and work into every nook and cranny. To ensure a truly waterproof sole, I used an industrial epoxy coating meant for coating the inside of storage tanks to create a sort of bathtub floor inside the boat. Aging the workability was so much easier than neat epoxy. Great write up! RM

I went through the entire shelf of mouldings and chose the best ones.
Initially when I first glued on the moulding I had planned on it being the first of two laminations, but now I reckon it will suffice on its own, covered with two layers of tape and then a strip of HDPE over the top as the rub rail.

 

[RM Anderson]

Matthias,
HDPE for a rub rail is a great idea. UHMW, if available, is even better. Can be bonded with G-Flex epoxy or something similar if flame treated. UHMW has worked wonderfully for me on my Kara Hummer as wear strips on the bottom of the hull. I think you will really enjoy your new boat and nothing comes close to the satisfaction of building your own.
All the best, RM

 

[Matthias]

Never thought that building a boat would require working at heights. For little jobs such as removing the wire stitches it was more practical to leave the boat hanging because some stitches were more easily pulled out from underneath.

Had to redo the wire stitches along the chines between bulkhead 2 and 3 because after dropping to boat down to the floor again I noticed some of the stitch holes in the plywood had started to elongate and the chine joint started to loosen up getting out of shape. All this moving around was not good, so it was time to finish filleting and start laying some tape.

I'm using a combination of 100mm and 150mm 400gsm biaxial tape. (that's roughly 4" and 6". I bought a 328-foot-long roll of each)
Had to sand smooth these bow fillets then fair them with another thin layer of thickened epoxy -- the white stuff -- before laying down the boat's first section of tape.

Front floatation compartment and storage compartment all taped up.

Taping the chine between bulkhead three and four.


Working on the fuel/rear flotation compartment. These fillets were quite rough and required a decent amount of sanding to smooth out before they could be glass taped.

On the plus side, I'm enjoying the build process because just about all of the sanding so far has been done with 40 grit and it gets done quick! I'm not looking forward to fairing the hull with fine grit papers. In general progress is slow because the work is done after hours at work and I don't stay back more than 2hrs, and I'm only doing that a couple of nights per week.


There's been some cold temperatures overnight and one batch of fillets took three days to completely set! The daytime temperature in the factory hovers around 14ºC and has been as low as 12. It's impossible to heat the space so I thought I could keep sections of fresh epoxy cosy with an old electric blanket! There's some waxed paper under the blanket to stop it sticking.

Finished taping the fuel/floatation compartment. The next job is to install the floatation bulkhead (the piece with the big hole in it) and build a light floor in front of it so that the fuel tank has a level surface to sit on.

 

[RM Anderson]

Mattias,
I can't imagine working on a boat suspended in mid air! You are correct to worry about your chine joints. My Poleboat faced somewhat similar circumstances when the cheap folding sawhorses collapsed early in the build. Fortunately it only required minor tweaking to get the boat square again. For wetting out biaxial tape, I found it helpful to make a shallow rectangular box to wet out my strips before transferring them the short distance to the boat. Another great timesaver is to lay your biaxial strips on top of your uncured fillets. RM

 

[Matthias]

Mattias,
I can't imagine working on a boat suspended in mid air! You are correct to worry about your chine joints. My Poleboat faced somewhat similar circumstances when the cheap folding sawhorses collapsed early in the build. Fortunately it only required minor tweaking to get the boat square again. For wetting out biaxial tape, I found it helpful to make a shallow rectangular box to wet out my strips before transferring them the short distance to the boat. Another great timesaver is to lay your biaxial strips on top of your uncured fillets. RM

Do you have pictures of your pole boat? Would be interested in seeing how you built your poling platform.

The laying of tape and making fillets was certainly a learning and evolution process. I now don't wet the tape in position any more. And do it more or less like you described.
I mark the area, cut the tape to size, paint the marked area with epoxy, wait about half an hour, wet out the tape on the workbench on a layer of waxed paper or plastic, then roll the strips into bundles that I carry to the boat and unroll into the correct position.

For filleting I now use a piping bag for all fillets and let the long sausage sit a while before spreading it out. So much easier than spooning uneven globs out a tub with a stick and trying to work that into a nice even fillet. I try to do wet on wet where I can, but working only for an hour here and there makes it difficult to coordinate.

 

[RM Anderson]

Do you have pictures of your pole boat? Would be interested in seeing how you built your poling platform.

Mattias,
There is no platform since I absolutely suck at poling; a Poleboat in name only. To get around, I row with oars. Sorry about the photo, it seems that I can't access them since they were uploaded to the cloud.
RM

New photo · Thursday, Oct 16, 2025 📸

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photos.app.goo.gl

 

[HenryHawthorne]

Looking good Matthias!

 

[Matthias]

This is the port side fuel compartment and floatation chamber. I don't want the fuel tanks sitting on the slope of the hull panel so I'm making a level floor for them. The floatation chamber (between the bulkhead with two holes and the rear transom) will eventually be filled with expanding pouring foam.


Test fitting the fuel tank floor. It's 6mm hardwood marine ply and will be glassed in once I screw in the bilge keels, which need to be screwed through the hull panel from inside the boat..


Fuel tank sits nice and level now. Just gotta figure out a way to stop it jumping around when I'm pounding through the chop.


When the blind puzzle scarf joints were CNC machined, the plywood wasn't vacuumed down properly and the sheet moved during cutting. Basically after I glued the two pieces together to make the hull panel I was left with an open area full of exposed dry PVA. Because epoxy doesn't bond to PVA I grabbed the die grinder and carved out all of the surface PVA.


Close-up of the PVA removal.



Port side chine. In a few areas where I thought I needed greater strength while filleting between the wires, I added tabs of biaxial tape. Quite some sanding was required to smooth these out in readiness for fully taping the seam.


Overview of the taped seams. To fill the centre V where the hull panels meet at the keel I mixed some sawdust and fumed silica with the epoxy to make the filleting paste. Maybe this is wrong, maybe I'm over filling the seam? I just thought it was too deep and large an area to fill with solid thickened epoxy, hence I added the saw dust. Also used the sawdust mixture to fill the caved out PVA area.


Removing the last wires so I can sand and prepare for the centre stringer installation. The plans show a hardwood longitudinal for this, but I'm making it from plywood instead.


Laminating two pieces of 19mm ply to make the aft centre stringer.


When the boat is sitting on the trestles I can not reach into the centre of the boat easily to do any work there. So for proper access to confidently do the stringer work, the boat had to be unceremoniously laid on the ground!


First time in the boat!

I wasn't happy about getting into the boat with it lying on the concrete, but it was the only way I could have proper access to comfortably do the stringer install.


Sanding and prepping for the stringer install. I didn't bother glassing over the tabs because the stringer would be glued and glassed over that entire area anyway.



Epoxy glue laid out, ready for the stringer to be set.


Stringer is in, somewhat filleted and screwed for support while the epoxy cures. As soon as I had the stringer glued and screwed I placed the boat as true and level as possible back on the trestles so that it would not be distorted while the epoxy set.

 

[RM Anderson]

Looks fantastic Matthias!

 

[Matthias]

The glass work at the keel line near bulkhead 2 is quite lumpy, actually most of it is a bit rough because it wasn’t easy to access. It’s quite a stretch to reach the centre of the boat when you’re standing beside it. The epoxy I'm using is by nature thicker than other brands, and winter temperatures make it more so.
The stringer will receive an extra thick bed of thickened epoxy to compensate for all the undulations. Black lines show position of stringer so I know where to glue.


I’ve reached a milestone

The build has officially consumed 100 gloves! This is the last pair.


The forward stringer epoxied in and supported until it cures. I mixed too much paste and couldn’t bear to leave it in the mixing cup so I slathered it on extra thick towards the bow.
I think in general I’ve been quite heavy with my epoxy usage so why change now!


Both stringers have received one layer of biaxial tape. That's all I'll do. The floor board will box the stringers in, so I reckon one layer is enough. You can see that I also only glassed half of the fore stringer because I didn't think the area of excessive filleting needed glass as well.


Night time temperatures in the factory are hovering just above 10°C and it’s not warming up much more during the day so I’ve laid out the electric blanket again.
For the duration of winter I had to plan epoxy work around the weather. (The work shown in these posts was from months ago)


Took a couple of minutes to admire the beautiful dusk sky the other night.


When the glass for the stringers was set I was confident that the boat was now rigid enough to flip over. Later I’ll add another stringer halfway between the keel line and chine.

Bulkhead 3 (highlighted in green) is only supposed to be two side knees, but to aid the construction I changed to design to a more comprehensive bulkhead that gives more support to the bottom hull panels. Also because they are joined I didn’t have to worry about lining up the two knees. The top bridging piece will eventually be cut out but at the moment it makes a fantastic lifting point.

I was going to cut holes into the bottom section that joins the knees so that I could run long one-piece stringers through it, but I didn’t plan properly — next thing you know it was filleted and glassed in. Cutting through the glass and epoxy seemed too much effort, so now I’m doing two-piece stringers instead. If the boat one day snaps in half at the knees I’ll know then that I should have implemented long single length stringers.


I have a different view and workspace now. Time to get the keels underway.

 

[HenryHawthorne]

Looks good, you'll have plenty of strength, not to worry.

 

[RM Anderson]

The epoxy I'm using is by nature thicker than other brands, and winter temperatures make it more so.

Mattias,
For years I used a very thick epoxy like yours. Recently I switched to one of the non-blushing boutique boat building resins. Couldn't believe how much easier it was to work with. If it's any consolation, the thicker epoxy resins are usually substantially stronger albeit much harder to work with. Your Cackler looks great!
RM

 

[Matthias]

Mattias,
For years I used a very thick epoxy like yours. Recently I switched to one of the non-blushing boutique boat building resins. Couldn't believe how much easier it was to work with. If it's any consolation, the thicker epoxy resins are usually substantially stronger albeit much harder to work with. Your Cackler looks great

The one I first started using (and described above) comes from a local boat building supply shop that conveniently is 5 minutes from work. I didn’t research different brands, just bought this one for convenience. Turns out that it is a bit of a boutique brand used by many wooden boat builders. Apparently it has no amine blush, is a 2:1 mix and has a reduced alergic reaction potential for those sensitive to epoxy. It also cures somewhat flexible.

At one point, later in the build, due to bad planning I ran out of resin, the shop was closed so I had to buy one of the more Aussie mainstream brands. This one is 3:1, very runny, smells a bit, but wets cloth quicker, self levels more and sets much harder. I was quite surprised by the difference.

I thought they would all be the same. I continue to use both brands and chose different tasks for the different resin characteristics.

 

[Matthias]

The Cackler 14 has three small keels, a centre keel, and either side a bilge keel. The plans specify: 18mm x 38mm softwood against hull, hardwood over. I couldn't get that size so I I'm using 19mm x 42mm instead.

I couldn't figure out how to attach the softwood for the centre keel so that it sits nicely on the peak of the hull, so I chose to do the two side bilge keels first. I had my brother help me and we used a laser to project the bilge keel's position onto the hull.


Some nice looking lines. Once we had the port-side bilge keel screwed down, we measured its position as a guide to fit the starboard bilge keel. I then chamfered the the edges to 45 degrees.



For ease of transport I bought the keel timber in 2.4 metre lengths (94.5") so another piece had to be added to reach the stern. After the dry fit, he hull and bottom side of the keel pieces were roughed up for extra tooth for glueing with thickened epoxy.


Once the keels were glued down I crawled underneath the boat to add more screws from inside.

I was still at a loss of how the do the centre keel, so I worked on the rear transom instead. I cut out the hull panels to make the motor well, faired out the huge, rough transom fillets with a layer of smooth thickened epoxy and started to glass the edges/seams with the 400gsm biaxial tape.


This is the timber I used for the keels. I finally came up with a solution for the centre keel, and that was to do it in two 18mm x 18mm (0.7"x 0.7") pieces side-by-side and fiil the gap with heaps of epoxy.


Here's the solution for the centre keel. Two square lengths of pine with a epoxy, sawdust filling.


Centre keel gap is now filled. Back to work on the rear transom/motor mount. 800gsm fibreglass cloth ready for epoxy!


All glassed up. I had to peel and re-apply the heavy cloth twice before I got it to lay nicely over the radius of the fillets.


The keels looked OK, but the timber wasn't completely straight. Also because I was working by myself, and even though they were pre-drilled at the dry fit stage, I couldn't get the keels into their exact position during the glue up. As a result they are not 100% parallel and the spacing between them is slightly out.

The error is about ±3mm (±3/32") so I'm not going to stress about it.


The 45º chamfer on the keels was sanded round so that glass cloth and tape would drape over them and apply nicely.


Mum wasn't happy about me stealing her nice silicone spatula to work on the boat!

The fillets on the keels required loads of epoxy, and in an effort to get them as even as possible I piped the mixture on using a ziplock bag. Wow, what a game changer -- from now on all fillets were piped!


I don't know why, but the centre keel has a sad face! It's all sanded smooth waiting for a covering of 400gsm biax tape.


I mixed up too much resin when putting the biaxial tape over the bilge keels. Stupidly, rather than wasting it, I applied it over the centre keel to smooth out some of the bumps, but it had already started to go off and went on way too thick. My nicely sanded keel now needed extra sanding to bring it back to standard — gotta love doing things twice!
Lesson: if the epoxy starts heating up and going off don't panic apply it.


To prepare for the final hull sheathing I am using a carbide scraper to fair out the edges of the glass tape that was applied over bilge keel. Much better than sanding -- I can now work cleaner with minimal dust and more accuracy.

 

[HenryHawthorne]

Yes, a good scraper does make things easier and cleaner! Nice, creative solution on the center keel strip. On mine, I cut an angle inward from the corner towards the middle of the strip, then flipped the strip and cut the opposite direction. That gave me a v in the bottom of the strip that roughly matched the v in the hull (I chose an angle closer to the front section of the hull so it would still lay flat near the rear), but your solution works just as well.

 

[Matthias]

Yes, a good scraper does make things easier and cleaner! Nice, creative solution on the center keel strip. On mine, I cut an angle inward from the corner towards the middle of the strip, then flipped the strip and cut the opposite direction. That gave me a v in the bottom of the strip that roughly matched the v in the hull (I chose an angle closer to the front section of the hull so it would still lay flat near the rear), but your solution works just as well.

I think I got too caught up in trying to work out how to cut the changing V out of the timber — I didn’t think of doing a continuous even V.

I don’t know why I didn’t do it earlier, but I’ve just started using a rasp blade without the handle as a fairing tool to quickly knock down lumpy areas of resin. The sander with the vacuum hose attached is a bit cumbersome in tight areas and the rasp blade keeps things more level.