The Mallard Boat

Thanks for the info. My helper suggested that I leave that extra cloth hanging down to catch the drips. I found that doing the sides can get a bit drippy. A couple minutes with a sabre saw and a belt sander and it will be just as gone. We'll see how it goes.
 
I fiberglassed the second side last night then added the center keel this evening.
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I used all sorts of things to weight the keel down: an anvil, scrap metal, boxes of shotgun shells etc.
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The front curve took a bit of tying down with bungie cords to make it sit down tight. I filled the crosscuts on the underside of the keel with thickened epoxy.
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The white spots on the bottom are reflections from my overhead lights. It is actually pretty smooth now but will get another coat tomorrow. Also tomorrow, I will set the bilge keels and glass the front and transom. The weather has been hot here lately. It makes for good epoxy weather.

I ordered brass strips to attach to the bottoms of the keels (3). I found them at a company in Maine:
hamiltonmarine.com. Soon I will have to buy other hardware. The lights at Fishiers Supply seem awfully high. Does anyone have a good source for cheaper, but good quality lights, bow eyes, cleats etc? I will be attaching some of that stuff soon. I plan on putting some courtesy type lights in the storage compartments so I can see into them and a power port so I can plug in a spot light or a phone charger also.
 
Dave,
The boat is coming along nicely.

Most of my boat hardware, to include ss and silcon-bronze screws, have come from Hamilton or Jamestown Distributors. I seem to recall seeing one of the boat supply chains in Olympia having a going out of business sale in the April time frame, but suspect they have closed shop.

Keep the pics coming!

-Bill
 
Today I didn't get too much done. I forgot to buy more latex gloves. I just added the bilge keels and glassed the front. I put the bilge keels (I think that is what they are called) 15 inches from the center one and cut them off right where the hull starts to bend up a bit. I clipped the ends at 45 degrees so they won't snag on anything.
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I also bought some stuff called: System Three Gel Magic. Has anyone tried it? It is supposed to replace having to thinken epoxy with wood flour or whatever to fill gaps and things. I have been using ground up wallnut shells (I found out). I mixed up a small batch of the Gel Magic and stuck in on the back of the transom in a place where it won't matter. I wanted to test it out to see if it stickes to my epoxy. I will know tomorrow, I guess.

Tomorrow, if I remember to get some gloves, I will sand the hull down a bit to get rid of a couple runs and some dust and give it another coat.

Once again the camera makes the boat look like it has white spots on it. They are not there (honest) until I take a picture.
 
Well, the Gel Magic works pretty good. It was hard as a carp when I came home from work. Last night it was sort of rubbery. I had to chip it off of the transom with a hammer and chisel. Then I sanded it smooth. I like it a lot better than putting thickener in the epoxy and it doesn't run.

I sanded the outside of the boat, put some more glass on the front and the transom area. There is only a small part of the transom area that does not have glass on it now. I suppose I could have done that all in one piece. I have learned that having a seam is really no big deal. It is easy to sand the edge to a taper and just keep going with another piece. I didn't want to make it too complicated back there. There are lots of angles and places where a wrinkle or pulled edge can happen. I have found the only thing that is hard to deal with is having the glass pull away from the wood at the edges or corners. I have found that going back a few hours later and sticking it back down works pretty well.

I have all three keels installed now. I put a coat of epoxy on them. I took the left over epoxy and spread it over some of the bottom. I suppose that is not the correct way to do it, but I didn't want to throw it out and I didn't have time to do a complete coat on the entire boat. The brass strips that will cover the bottom edges are supposed to be here on the 29th. Thats a couple days before I go to Canada to shoot. I might have time to get them installed before I go. I will have to see. All the shooting practice takes (too much) time.

I have to go to the gun club and shoot.

Later,
Dave
 
I have been gone for a week or so. When I got home I was able to work on this a bit. I painted two coats of Parker Duck Boat paint. I got it from Cabela's (Hunter green color). After letting the paint dry for about three days, I installed "brass half ovals" on the keel and keelsons. In put 5200 sealer on them and screwed them down using bronze screws. Soon I will turn the boat over and work on the inside stuff. I have a feeling that is where most of the work will be... Before I do that, I will wet sand the paint a bit. It was threatening to rain here today, so I did not move the boat outside. Maybe tomorrow, I am pretty much spent after this last week. Here are a couple shots of my latest progress.
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Today I sanded the paint with 340 wet or dry paper. I turned the boat right side up and trimmed the shear. It took me two lumber yards to get what I wanted, but I found (nearly) clear straight grain 5/4 fir. I bought one six inches wide then cut two two inch strips 16 ft long. I trimmed the lower edge to 30 degrees and used a molding bit to cut a half round groove along the length. This groove will house a bungie cord used to hold vegetation. On the lower edge, I cut a small saw kerf. This will allow water to drip off the edge rather then run down the side. Over time this can make black streaks, I am told. While I was bending and screwing the shear clamp into position, one of the sides cracked. I painted it full of epoxy then clamped it into place and kept on installing the screws. I will see how it goes tomorrow when I take the clamps off. Hopefully, the damage will be minimal. The beauty of epoxy is that things are easy to fix.

Here is a shot or two of what I did today.
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Grain direction in that piece of fir is going against you on the bend around the hull. For that bend the grain should be vertical not at a 45 like it is. If you have epoxied the strip down to the hull and screwed them they should not keep cracking. Don't be surprised if they do though with seasonal changes.
 
Today I didn't do too much. I had to go and get an emmissions test on my truck so I could renew the license tabs. We have to do that every two years here in Washington. While I was out and about, I picked up the transom drain tube and a one inch hole saw. When I got home I drilled the hole for the drain tube. I have to tell you, I picked up the drill and set it down again before I had the nerve to drill a hole through my transom. It came out OK. I mixed up a small amount of epoxy and rubbed it around in the inside of the hole so the wood would be sealed before I installed the brass tube. I also cut holes in the interior bulkheads that would have to potentially drain water. There was the bulkhead at the front of the cockpit area and also the bulkhead just ahead of the transom (one of the Sam Devlin changes). I made the holes big enough so water would run through easily. I once had a boat where the holes were very small and it took FOREVER for the water to run out of it once I got the boat back on the trailer. The back of that boat (on the bottom) rounded up a bit and I could never get all the water out of it unless I had the truck and boat stopped on an incline. It turned out to be a nuisance. I wanted to make sure that would not happen to THIS boat. The places where I drilled the holes will be under the subfloor and will not be seen later. I put two coats of epoxy on the bare wood for good measure.

Tomorrow, I will start laying things out for floor supports (or what ever they are called). There will be quite a few angles I will have to figure out. It could be slow going. I ASSUME the inside of the boat needs to be fiberglassed. The plans never said so, but it seems like there would be a lot more strength if it was. What could it hurt? Here is what I did today:
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This is the bulkhead at the front of the cockpit area. I will be making a "spot" for my dog up there. He will bring in LOTS of water after his retrieves. I wanted the dog behind me so I don't ring his ears with the shot gun. Also, he will be out of my way up there.
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This hole is in front of the transom. This picture does not show it but there is about 6 inches between this bulkhead and the transom. It just creates another small storage area.
 
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Sure, now you tell me..... where were you yesterday? :)
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kicking rocks down the road and picking my nose ;-)

Make sure you rasp down those bulkhead drain holes so that you don't get small puddles of swamp goo building up on the bow side of the bulkhead.

Glass the inside of the hull - you only get one chance. You can use a lighter weave cloth like 4oz.

Get some cardboard and make templates for cutting the cross pieces, cut oversize and then hand fit them.
 
Today I just sanded the inside of the boat a bit. I had installed the rear trim (shear) and rasped the corners so it looks nice and rounded. I didn't glass anything today. It was my son's wedding anniversary and he had taken his bride to the beach for the weekend. I could have glassed the rest of the inside by myself, but I felt lazy today. Most of this stuff I have done by myself, but doing the inside seems harder. Its easy to get epoxy all over my forearms and shirt. Gravity works against me. I can do it tomorrow after he gets home. At least, that is the excuse I am using. Here are some of today's pics:

You can see how the pieces matched up before trimmed the ends.
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This is how the corners looked after I rubbed the rasp around a bit.
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I ran out of molding so I just cut the back ones a couple inches short and cut them off at a 45 angle. My attempt at "style." It actually looks OK (I think) from the topside. I am pretty sure the ducks don't care.
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After I got done in the shop this evening I fired up the leaf blower and blew the dust outside. It worked pretty well, but I will still have to wash my bike. The darn dust sticks right to it.

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Here is some of my progress as of late. I am working on the bow, and the keelson and stuff under the floor. I made a mistake that I will have to live with. I will start with the rear support for the floor.
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Here is what I did in the front part of the cockpit. This was the mistake.
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What happened is that the front part of the boat curves up and I didn't think about that until it was too late. I had just measured from chine to chine on both front and rear. The front needed to be lower, so that the sides of the floor rested on the chine, not above it. After I realized what I had done, my heart went down into my shoes.
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I racked my brain, asked questions, then I walked down the block and got my neighbor John (he is a carpenter). He suggested I leave the piece in there and work around it. So I pressed on. Since removing the piece (or trying to) would just tear things up, John had me make a couple new pieces and add them to either side of the front drain hole. The floor would rest on top of them. You can see that it is much lower than my first attempt.

Here is a shot of the rear part of the keelson. I rasped the drain hole (under where it is not visible in this shot) so it was clean and wide open then cut a drain hole in the rear of the keelson.
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The lnside looks like this now. The square looking hole just ahead of the cockpit is a place for the dog. I wanted him behind me so I don't ring his ears with the shotgun. Next I have to go and get some more 3/4 marine plywood and make the two knees, or bulkheads or what ever they are. I decided not to epoxy any more of that stuff in place until I KNOW it fits right.
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Hopefully the rest of this build will go better than the last day or two...

For some reason laying out this inside stuff is just driving me nuts.
 
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Dave,

I know it is too late to tell you this - dry fit everything before gluing it in. You never want to epoxy pieces into a hull until you have every piece dry fitted.

To hold things in place you can use double sided carpet tape or even tack them in with short screws.

For the rest of your floor dry fit all your pieces.
 
Dave,

I know it is too late to tell you this - dry fit everything before gluing it in. You never want to epoxy pieces into a hull until you have every piece dry fitted.

To hold things in place you can use double sided carpet tape or even tack them in with short screws.

For the rest of your floor dry fit all your pieces.
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I'm not sure on the cackler, but I would think that you woudl what to have the sheer in large area in the cockpit without any bulkheads spread to a certain dimension specified on the plans to attain the proper hull shape until the knees bulkheads go in.
 
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Dave,

I know it is too late to tell you this - dry fit everything before gluing it in. You never want to epoxy pieces into a hull until you have every piece dry fitted.

To hold things in place you can use double sided carpet tape or even tack them in with short screws.

For the rest of your floor dry fit all your pieces.

------------------

AMEN BROTHER!!
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I cut the knees and floor out today.
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I will cut out some holes in the knees so I can store long items in there (fishing pole or whatever). Then I will glue everything down. For now, I put it all together DRY. I was so stressed out about this part of the build. It actually was fairly easy once I got into it. I am glad it is over for the most part.

I need to install some of the hardware soon. I guess I will do some of that before I start on the decking.
 
Maybe someone can advise me on this:

I remember reading somewhere in this forum that where the knees (bulkheads) attach to the hull bottom may be a problem area. I am in the process of glassing this area right now. Are two layers of tape enough? three? I plan on installing the flooring in solid, which I assume is stronger than a removable piece. I will be adding more glass to all of the knee seams this evening (I am currently at work).

My keel has 6 layers of cloth on it (including inside and outside), my chines have 5. This is counting the overlap of the layers at those places. The outside of the boat has just one layer, plus the aforementioned overlap at the keel area. The inside of the boat has just one layer overall plus the layers of tape (4 inch then 6 inch) one does at early construction at the joints and seams. I don't want this baby coming apart.

Sorry I don't have any pictures for you this morning. I don't have my electronic toys with me this morning. I will post some tonight.
 
Dave, I believe what you read was from Eric where he had a problem on his Scaup that he built, which he used knees instead of a full bulkhead, which eventually had problems. I think it was cracking where the knee and floor joint came together. If a crack or break is going to occur, it is almost always going to occur where a joint or bulkhead is located (the point where a "strong" point and a "weaker" point come together). It is my understanding that there have never been problems with using knees on the Cackler or Black Brant, but on the larger hulls such as the Scaup, Snow Goose, and Honker it is a different story.

I'm sure Eric could enlighten you more on what exactly the problems were that he encountered with using knees.

I would certainly use 3 layers of tape on all my bulkheads and knees, they are the main backbone of your boat.
 
Today I just did a little glassing. I didn't really make anything. I decided not to cut holes in my knees to store my shotgun. I got to looking at the pieces and felt they may become too thin and weak by doing so. I just decided to leave them as they were designed... almost. I did cut a couple of small holes on one side, near the top to accept a piece of conduit. I will run wires through that to my lights. Later, I will install a tray between the knees. I have seen that done in other boats to hold various things. It seems like a handy thing to have.

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This is a shot of how I fixed up the front of my keel. There is a cut out under the triangular piece that will let water run out from under my dog, to the back under the floor. The 1/2 inch plywood floor will sit on top of that piece and the keelson. The black lines on the hull are where my floor will touch the hull and be glued down.

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The knees have two layers of glass at the hull botton and sides now. I didn't want to put a third layer on at the same time. I can do that tomorrow. I didn' t want to push my luck and end up with wrinkles or whatever. I just let the glass stick up past the lower part of the knees. I will trim that off after it hardens. The floor will sit directly on top of the plywood. It's not needed for strength at that point. Its easier than wrestling with going around the corner and it won't change my floor height.

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I have ordered a bunch of hardware for the boat. It is almosty time to install the bow eye, trailer hold-downs in the rear, bilge pump, lights and other stuff. It will take a week or so for that to get here I suppose. I already have my foam kit. I can't use that until I have some of the other things installed. The kit is supposed to make 8 cubic ft of foam. I really have no idea if that is enough or not. I haven't taken the time to do the math. The kit came in two one gallon cans.
 
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