You'll need more straps...

The aft deck went on just fine because the radius did not require a significant bend in the 4mm plywood. First I coated the underside of the deck with epoxy, then I put thickened epoxy along the sheer clamps, fastened the tip of the deck with a bronze ring nail, and then used a nylon strap placed at the bulkhead to hold it in place. I then used a marking guide to draw a line on the deck along the edge to serve as a nail guide, and predrilled holes every 4 inches along this line. I spaced the nails on the aft deck at 4" rather than the recommended 3" because I'm using nails left over from another boat and I only have 112 of them. So, 4" aft of the rear bulkhead where it's relatively flat, and 3 1/4" forward of the rear bulkhead where it's gotta hold a steeper curve, will require 110 nails, which means I can (a) bend two (b) lose two, or (c) bend one and lose one. I'd order more but I'm a cheap bastard. Also, I hate waiting.

The fore deck was a bit trickier because of the 16" radius curvature. I wound up using about 6 nylon straps (the ratcheting kind) to hold it in place while I nailed. Also, the butt blocks were hard to clamp tightly enough to ensure a smooth and level join, so I had to use a couple of drywall screws to draw them up. Once it was nailed, I flipped the boat over and filled whatever gaps there were between the deck and the chines with epoxy thickened so it would just barely run into the gaps on its own. Tomorrow, I'll glass the deck.

All hands on deck

With the sheer clamps and footbrace backs installed, the deck is next. I added a couple small deckbeams fore and aft, and installed a couple of additional bulkheads very near the bow and stern (just visible at the top of the photo at left). Not sure why. The hull was plenty stiff without them. I just wanted some clean storage compartments, really, and I was envisioning tiny little loose things rattling around and getting jammed in those tiny wedge spaces at the bow and stern, so I just closed them off. Then I gave the inside a second thin coat of epoxy. Ready for decking.

Free Foot Braces

CLC sells some really nice adjustable footbraces, and I'm sure they're worth every bit of the $45 bucks they cost, but I'm a cheap bastard, so I decided to make my own foot braces. At first, I was just going to make some non-adjustable blocks and screw them to the hulls like the plans suggest, but I thought that adjustable ones would be nice to have, if for no other reason than very few of my friends are the same height I am. So I searched the tubes and found some pics of some braces another guy invented that looked straightforward enough to make. I cut them out of some oak that used to be a pallet. If you look closely, you'll see that there are stainless bolts sticking out of the bases, about 5 inches fore and aft of the deckbeam. These will serve as pins for the slotted braces, which will slide forward or back, and be held in place by nylon spacers, washers, and wingnuts. So now, that old pallet is no longer cluttering up the place, and I have $45 bucks in my pocket. I think I'll take my family to the movies.

First, I installed some glass tape to stiffen the hull beneath the base of the footbraces (shown here tacked into place with spray adhesive, but not wetted out yet). Then I installed the bases with epoxy. This has an added advantage of not requiring any through-hull fasteners to hold them in place. The last picture at right is of the braces themselves. Note the slots. I'll add more pictures when they're installed on the bases.

Planing the sheer clamps

With the hull complete, the next step is to plane the sheer clamps at the correct radius to accept the deck. Your grandfather's plane will do the trick just fine, but there's nothing like a power planer to make a man feel alive. You can shred your boat into tiny chips in no time flat with one of these, so it pays to go carefully.

The radius on the foredeck is 16 inches, so to make sure I don't plane too much, I made a plane guide of out a bit of scrap plywood. To cut the radius accurately, i made a compass out of my router and cut it with an edging bit: anchor one end of a 16" stick to the scrap plywood, clamp the other end to the router, and viola, a circle-cutter. Of course, I wasn't interested in the circle. I was interested in the outer part. Here's what my plane guide looks like, and the close-up shows how it's used. I simply planed the chines until they matched the guide.
 
The aft deck gets similar treatment, except with a 60" radius, which is not far from flat. Between the rear bulkhead and the deckbeam is what's called a "rolling bevel," which means that the curvature of the deck goes from a 16" to a 60" radius. It sounds fiddly, but it's not. I freehanded it with the power planer in no time.

Graphite Bottom

After reading lots of posts on the CLC forum, I decided to apply a graphite/epoxy mix on the bottom. The reason is three-fold. First, apparently it makes the bottom very slick so that when you paddle over rocks or drag your boat over the reef, it doesn't scratch nearly as readily as it would if it had a bright finish (or maybe it just doesn't hurt your feelings as much). Second, it takes care of the UV problem that unfinished epoxy suffers. Third, I think it's going to look good.

So first, I masked a line just above the chines and put two more coats of unthickened epoxy along the sides. This was enough to fill the weave of the cloth to an acceptably smooth finish. I should say I don't plan on spending much time sanding this thing and varnishing it shiny like a Steinway Piano - I plan on paddling it around instead, so perhaps my acceptable level of smooth wouldn't be smooth enough for the next guy. If so, my advice to the next guy would be 'build your own damn boat.' Still, it's pretty smooth.

I scratched my head for a little while trying to figure out a way to apply the masking tape in a straight line and even found myself at the building supply store looking at laser levels, but then caught a glimpse of myself being absurd enough to actually think about buying a laser level just to put a straight line down my hull and I snapped out of it. I'm a cheap bastard. Instead, I applied it by eye. My reasoning was that if I can get it straight enough not to bother me when I'm actually concentrating on how straight it is, it probably won't bother me later when I've forgotten all about it and am just busy paddling around. And if it bothers you, well, build your own damn boat.

I mixed about 3+ ounces of graphite powder (about $10 for a pound at a local art supply store) with 9 ounces of epoxy to make a slightly thickened and very black mixture and rolled it on in a thin layer with a foam roller. (I measured the graphite by volume fairly roughly using a 3 oz Dixie cup). The second graphite layer only required 6 ounces of epoxy, as did the third. Next I'll remove the masking tape and hopefully will be rewarded with a two-tone hull with a nice clean line. And if it ain't straight enough for you, well.. you won't be able to see it from your house anyway.

Glass bottom boat

Here's the boat with the fiberglass draped over and ready for epoxy. The plans called for 6 oz glass, but I bought 5.6 oz instead because that's what was available. I'm sure the strength difference isn't going to be noticeable, nor will the weight savings either. Notice Stanley, the project foreman, checking to see that I'm complying with all safety regulations. He's inspecting the sawhorses to make sure they're strong enough. 

It was a bit fiddly to get the glass to lay down along the bow properly, so I cut it with a razor and a straightedge, overlapped it around the bow by a half inch on either side, and then stuck it in place with 3M 45 spray adhesive. (Similar at the stern). I then worked the glass over the hull with a bondo spreader, hitting it here and there with the spray adhesive to hold it in place and make sure it wasn't gonna float when I applied the epoxy. Probably completely unnecessary, but it did make wetting out the cloth easier. No big bubbles, and it allowed me to use a minimum amount of epoxy.

Here's what it looks like with one coat of epoxy. It required about 10 ounces of epoxy to wet out the whole boat (or perhaps 14 - I can't recall how much epoxy I mixed). I was pretty careful not to use any extra  - just the minimum amount required to make the cloth go from white to clear. (In the picture, it looks like some places are still white, but that's just the glare - the glass was completely saturated). The procedure was easy enough, and it took about 20 minutes or so to do the whole boat. I poured a couple of ounces on the middle of the hull and worked it with a bondo spreader toward the edges then down the sides, and then repeated until the whole thing was done. I wound up with a bit of epoxy left over, so I mixed it with wood flour until it was thick, then applied it to the inner bow. I've been doing this every time I have a bit of resin left over - i just thicken whatever's left and smash it into the inside of the bow - and it's building up quite nicely in there, which will save some resin when it comes time to do the end-pour.

By the way, I'm using the West System pumps on my Resin Research epoxy with the volume limiter installed on the hardener side, so one pump of each delivers about 3 ounces of the correct 2/1 ratio of resin/hardener. I'm very pleased with the Resin Research product. It hardens in a reasonable time, and it's blushless, which means it doesn't form water molecules as a by-product of the reaction and so it's very clear. As you can see, I've used about 3/4 of a gallon of my 3 gallon kit so far. At this rate, I may well have enough left over for Crescent to build her boat.

Peel Ply

I used peel ply on the middle section of the interior hull. Peel ply is a finely woven polyester cloth designed to be applied on top of the wetted-out glass then peeled off after the epoxy cures. It allows for really nice control of the epoxy on wet-out, and when you peel it off it leaves a perfectly serviceable mat finish. Still, I don't think I'll use it for the exterior glassing. I want a more glossy finish, which will require multiple coats of epoxy anyway, so it seems peel ply on the outer hull would just be a wasted effort.