Bill Burruss
Well-known member
All,
Good afternoon. Hope all the folks up north are getting to hunt this weekend; we?re still waiting for end of Nov to start season.
Continuing on with the build, the next step was to make sure all the mating surfaces where the deck attached to the bulkheads, sides, and shear clamps were cleaned up and properly angled. For this task a 7 inch Harbor Freight variable speed polisher w/ 60 grit fiber disk did most of the heavy work. With 60-grit or lower it is easy to remove epoxy blobs and carve/shape wood- you just have to be careful to go slow and not remove too much material.
Laying out the patterns to cut out the deck pieces was about trying to optimize use of wood or solving a ?cutting stock problem?. At the same time I tried to keep the actual pieces as big as possible to minimize the number of seams. All seams are centered over a deck beam or edge of a bulkhead. The bill of materials in the plans called for 2 sheets of ply for the deck, but since we stretched the boat the layout provided in the plans would not work and I was concerned about being short wood. I had ordered 3 sheets of 3/8 1088 okume to make sure we had enough, but by carefully laying out the sketches we were able to make the 2 sheets work fine.
Before the build I had spent a lot of prep time studying both Devlins Cackler and Snow Goose plans. I thought I recalled someone on this forum who built a Cackler mentioning that they wished they had added the rounded Snow Goose deck extension as they felt it added sea worthiness, particular when hunting big salt water. Having put the bow of my Broadbill through a wave once (perfectly timed for the resulting ice cold shower to rain down on me), I opted to add the bow extension for this build. This boat needs to be as seaworthy as possible as it will see nasty weather and very well could spend time in Bay/Sound or other salt water. Plus, it would be very easy to remove if it becomes a nuisance or is deemed not aesthetic. Adding it later would be tough.
To trace the first piece of the bow decking I used deck screws to attach a piece of luan to the boat. One straight edge of the luan was aligned along the center line of the forward deck beam and the adjacent edge aligned on bulkhead #2. I then bent the wood to conform as close as possible to the bulkhead curvature, and traced the cut line with a sharpie. Since that panel was not fully screwed down, I left 1-2 inches buffer when cutting. That luan template was later cut up to make templates for the smaller rear deck pieces. For the long side deck pieces I used some recycled foam board from an old sign to make a template.
With the deck pieces cut, it was time to start the fun task of epoxying/screwing down the deck. This really is fun, because it is a fairly clean job that progresses quickly and it?s easy to see the completed boat in your head. The deck panels received 3 coats of epoxy on the underside first so that I would not have to be seal them while lying on my back, looking up into the drips, with my head ?in a suitcase? as Eric would say (still had to work upside down to put fillets at the connection points on the underside of the deck, but at least there was more room than in a sneakbox design). You will see lots of pencil lines to keep the screws centered on solid wood. One tool I made was a rectangular jig you can see next to the cordless drill in the picture below. The channel cut in the middle fits over the deck overhang overhang, while the bottom part rides against the rubrail and the top part positions a pencil to scribe a line centered over top the rubrail. All contact surfaces got a ?bead? of wood flour/epoxy mix with peanut butter consistency. I use 2 drills for this job, 1 with a pilot/countersink bit to make the hole, the another with a screwdriver bit to set the screws. For this build I used 1 inch ss # 8 flat head Philips screws. Silicon bronze has gotten prohibitively expensive, in my opinion. Plus, I am not sure there is any real advantage of bronze over stainless.
Next was to clean up any deck overhang, first by cutting as closely as possible with a sabre saw, then finalizing the fit with a flush cut router bit.
I also had to knock the corners off the inside top of the sponsons to make room for the motor cowling when the motor is down all the way. This is the opposite problem that BB2 owners have had with the anti-ventilation plate hitting the lower inside corner of the sponson. The way this Cackler is set up, the breakaway sets the motor back about 4 inches, so there is plenty of clearance at the lower corners. Am definitively glad we installed the motor when we did so that we could adjust the boat shape now rather than after sheathed and painted.
The template below was used to cut the nose extension (or as we affectionately call it the ?beak?) reinforcing pieces. The actual nose arc was established by nailing a finishing nail at a carefully determined position along the centerline of the bow, then using a string attached to a pencil to scribe the arc. The template was made from this arc and used to cut two 3/8 inch plywood reinforcing pieces, so the ?beak? is 1-1/8 inch think. Plans called for making the backing plate out of 1 piece of three-quarter ply. Maybe some of the smart woodworkers on this site know how to bend that to fit the curvature of the bow, but I have no idea. Laminating the 2 pieces of three eighths was a simple work around.
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Up next, pulling the engine, combing, and prep for sheathing.
Have a great day!
-Bill
View attachment 2.0 IMG_4942.JPGView attachment 2.1 IMG_4943.JPGView attachment 2.2 IMG_4945.JPGView attachment 2.3 IMG_4963.JPGView attachment 2.4 IMG_0334.JPGView attachment 2.5 IMG_0328.JPGView attachment 2.6 IMG_4965.JPGView attachment 2.7 IMG_0333.JPGView attachment 2.8 IMG_0324.JPG
Good afternoon. Hope all the folks up north are getting to hunt this weekend; we?re still waiting for end of Nov to start season.
Continuing on with the build, the next step was to make sure all the mating surfaces where the deck attached to the bulkheads, sides, and shear clamps were cleaned up and properly angled. For this task a 7 inch Harbor Freight variable speed polisher w/ 60 grit fiber disk did most of the heavy work. With 60-grit or lower it is easy to remove epoxy blobs and carve/shape wood- you just have to be careful to go slow and not remove too much material.
Laying out the patterns to cut out the deck pieces was about trying to optimize use of wood or solving a ?cutting stock problem?. At the same time I tried to keep the actual pieces as big as possible to minimize the number of seams. All seams are centered over a deck beam or edge of a bulkhead. The bill of materials in the plans called for 2 sheets of ply for the deck, but since we stretched the boat the layout provided in the plans would not work and I was concerned about being short wood. I had ordered 3 sheets of 3/8 1088 okume to make sure we had enough, but by carefully laying out the sketches we were able to make the 2 sheets work fine.
Before the build I had spent a lot of prep time studying both Devlins Cackler and Snow Goose plans. I thought I recalled someone on this forum who built a Cackler mentioning that they wished they had added the rounded Snow Goose deck extension as they felt it added sea worthiness, particular when hunting big salt water. Having put the bow of my Broadbill through a wave once (perfectly timed for the resulting ice cold shower to rain down on me), I opted to add the bow extension for this build. This boat needs to be as seaworthy as possible as it will see nasty weather and very well could spend time in Bay/Sound or other salt water. Plus, it would be very easy to remove if it becomes a nuisance or is deemed not aesthetic. Adding it later would be tough.
To trace the first piece of the bow decking I used deck screws to attach a piece of luan to the boat. One straight edge of the luan was aligned along the center line of the forward deck beam and the adjacent edge aligned on bulkhead #2. I then bent the wood to conform as close as possible to the bulkhead curvature, and traced the cut line with a sharpie. Since that panel was not fully screwed down, I left 1-2 inches buffer when cutting. That luan template was later cut up to make templates for the smaller rear deck pieces. For the long side deck pieces I used some recycled foam board from an old sign to make a template.
With the deck pieces cut, it was time to start the fun task of epoxying/screwing down the deck. This really is fun, because it is a fairly clean job that progresses quickly and it?s easy to see the completed boat in your head. The deck panels received 3 coats of epoxy on the underside first so that I would not have to be seal them while lying on my back, looking up into the drips, with my head ?in a suitcase? as Eric would say (still had to work upside down to put fillets at the connection points on the underside of the deck, but at least there was more room than in a sneakbox design). You will see lots of pencil lines to keep the screws centered on solid wood. One tool I made was a rectangular jig you can see next to the cordless drill in the picture below. The channel cut in the middle fits over the deck overhang overhang, while the bottom part rides against the rubrail and the top part positions a pencil to scribe a line centered over top the rubrail. All contact surfaces got a ?bead? of wood flour/epoxy mix with peanut butter consistency. I use 2 drills for this job, 1 with a pilot/countersink bit to make the hole, the another with a screwdriver bit to set the screws. For this build I used 1 inch ss # 8 flat head Philips screws. Silicon bronze has gotten prohibitively expensive, in my opinion. Plus, I am not sure there is any real advantage of bronze over stainless.
Next was to clean up any deck overhang, first by cutting as closely as possible with a sabre saw, then finalizing the fit with a flush cut router bit.
I also had to knock the corners off the inside top of the sponsons to make room for the motor cowling when the motor is down all the way. This is the opposite problem that BB2 owners have had with the anti-ventilation plate hitting the lower inside corner of the sponson. The way this Cackler is set up, the breakaway sets the motor back about 4 inches, so there is plenty of clearance at the lower corners. Am definitively glad we installed the motor when we did so that we could adjust the boat shape now rather than after sheathed and painted.
The template below was used to cut the nose extension (or as we affectionately call it the ?beak?) reinforcing pieces. The actual nose arc was established by nailing a finishing nail at a carefully determined position along the centerline of the bow, then using a string attached to a pencil to scribe the arc. The template was made from this arc and used to cut two 3/8 inch plywood reinforcing pieces, so the ?beak? is 1-1/8 inch think. Plans called for making the backing plate out of 1 piece of three-quarter ply. Maybe some of the smart woodworkers on this site know how to bend that to fit the curvature of the bow, but I have no idea. Laminating the 2 pieces of three eighths was a simple work around.
[font=Verdana, sans-serif]
[/font]
Up next, pulling the engine, combing, and prep for sheathing.
Have a great day!
-Bill
View attachment 2.0 IMG_4942.JPGView attachment 2.1 IMG_4943.JPGView attachment 2.2 IMG_4945.JPGView attachment 2.3 IMG_4963.JPGView attachment 2.4 IMG_0334.JPGView attachment 2.5 IMG_0328.JPGView attachment 2.6 IMG_4965.JPGView attachment 2.7 IMG_0333.JPGView attachment 2.8 IMG_0324.JPG
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