Wacko Ways to Build a Boat

Today I tightened the wires that I installed yesterday, adjusted the hull as best I could, and then epoxied it all together.  You start by rolling the hull upside down and tightening the wires using pliers. It's a challenge to get used to how tight you can go without snapping the wires. I've done many stitch and glue boats and I still snap a few each time. The hull will be noticeably tighter afterwards. Then you roll the boat upright and start epoxying. YOU MUST DO THE THIS ENTIRE STEP AND GET THE HULL UPSIDE DOWN AGAIN IN ONE SESSION! I used epoxy thickened with wood flour to make fillets at the bow, all the bulkheads, and the transom.  Then we flipped the hull upside down again onto the 2 x 6s so that it was level. We took all the time we needed to make sure the hull, especially the bow, was straight and looked good. If you want to stop for the day at this point you can, but I wanted to keep going so I filled all the seams with epoxy thickened slightly with silica.  Here'

I'm making very good progress. I brought home the Chesapeake Light Craft Annapolis Wherry one week ago, and yesterday was able to wire the hull together.    CLC does a very nice job in designing their panels. They use a puzzle joint that very accurately aligns the panels into the full-length planks.  After gluing up the final planks and storing them under my table, I adjusted the table to get ready to wire the hull.  The planks will need to be suspended between two sawhorses normally, but I'm very tall and bending over that much kills my back, so I simply removed one of the MDF boards that formed my table and shifted the other one to the middle. Then I screwed two 4' 2 x 6's to the ends of that MDF panel. That way, by using the factory edges, the 2 x 6's are aligned to each other. See the pictures below.  I store my completed planks and rails under the sawhorses until needed. That way they are mostly out of the way and stay flat. After making sure that the 2 x 6s we

Been busy on the CLC Annapolis Wherry build here.  Today I glued up the last planks and should be able to start stitching the hull together tomorrow.  The two halves are glued on top of each other to align them. Be sure to have plastic between the glue joints to avoid accidentally gluing the planks together! Yikes.    Also today I glued the rails together. These will be used to make the outwales and inwales later on. But now is a good time to glue the scarf joints while I have the long table set up. I'll be shortening the table when I start to stitch the hull together so that the bow and stern don't hit the ends of the table. That will make more sense later on.  Here the rail sections are laid out and ready for epoxy. I have plastic under the glue joints and clamps ready to go.   Here I'm starting to glue the scarf joints. I first put epoxy on each side of every joint, and then went back and did the clamping.    One hint to mitigate the scarf joints sliding is to place your

The new Chesapeake Light Craft Annapolis Wherry kit arrived! I picked it up at the 2024 Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend , WA, USA. They brought it over on their truck. Got it home and started the unpacking process. CLC does a very nice job packing their kits. LOADS of clear tape holds everything in place. You get two boxes: A small one with the epoxy and some fillers in it, and then the large flat pack with the wood, the fiberglass, and the manuals in it.  They use MAS Epoxy . I'm more used to System Three and WEST System epoxies, and wish that CLC gave an option to use them, but MAS has worked out fine for the two builds I've done with CLC boats. It took about 45 minutes to gently untape and sort through the flat pack. You don't want to break anything, and you really want to store the stuff in your shop/garage where it's out of the way but easy to access.  Then it was time to set up the workbench for the first part of the build. I use two sawhorses that have

I'm back! So that CLC Expedition Wherry I built three years ago... Sold!  My wife now wants me to make her a new rowing boat that is much lighter than her current Whitehall Spirit 14 (which weighs hundreds of pounds... it's the original fiberglass version). Therefore I have just ordered the CLC Annapolis Wherry. It will arrive on September 5th at the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival so that I can get free shipping. Yay! Should be a quality boat. I've seen several and they look great. I added the scuppered inwale option too.  Won't arrive for another month, and then September is already pretty full, so likely won't start building until October.  Stay tuned!