This boat is for my wife, and she wanted the seats dyed. She picked a "Vintage Cherry" from General Finishes. They look great. I dyed them a couple weeks ago and have since added two coats of epoxy to all of them, sanding between coats. They're ready for varnishing.  Today I installed them, but I'm doing it in a few steps instead of all in one shot as the manual says to do. I am first just tacking them down and using weights to keep them in place. Tomorrow I will sand those "spot welds" and then run nicer looking seams. The weights will be out of the way by then and it will be easier to make the seams without the seats moving.  For the thwarts, I first sanded a line down the middle of the underside of the thwarts so that epoxy would stick well, and then also lightly sanded the top of the bulkhead too. A small bead of thickened epoxy was added to the top of the bulkhead and then the seats were set down on top. When cured, it will be much easier to then add...

Today I spend time sanding the seams that I filled yesterday, as well as the rest of the bottom of the Annapolis Wherry hull.  Then I taped off the bottom planks and fiberglassed the bottom.  Read in my earlier posts about how I do the fiberglassing.  Later I used a sharp utility knife to cut along the hardened epoxy at the edge of planks #1 and pull up the tape and excess fiberglass. If you only wait 2 - 3 hours until the "Green Stage" when it's still slightly sticky, it will cut easily and still come up easily. If you let it cure, like the manual says to do, it'll be like cutting through rock! Trim the excess during the "Green Stage" when it's still slightly sticky and pliable.  Here's how it looked after the tape was pulled up.  Next I will need to work on shaping the bow around the fiberglass I just added, sanding the entire hull again, and then adding the first coast of epoxy coating.    Stay tuned for more!

All I was able to do today was fill the seams on the outside of the Annapolis Wherry hull.  I used large tongue depressor craft sticks to get the rounded seams filled with epoxy thickened with silica.  It looks pretty good. Will sand the entire bottom tomorrow and then probably get the fiberglass on the #1 planks.  Stay tuned!

Today I sanded out the entire inside of the hull again, and epoxy-coated the entire inside, again. Phew.  Here's how it looked at the end of the day.   First I used a cabinet scraper to cut down the really big fuzz that is created when you epoxy bare wood. I used it on the entire hull because it's a great tool for finding raised epoxy bits too. Then power-sanded where my 6" sander could reach. I hand-sanded the rest using a foam block with 80-grit sticky sand paper backing. I buy the rolls of sandpaper. The sticky back works really well.  Then I used the cabinet scraper again to cut off the tall scratches that the 80-grit paper leaves. This gave a nice surface for the epoxy.  Here's a close-up of how it looked after sanding. Then I epoxy coated the entire inside again.  I mixed up about 10 pumps of epoxy and poured it along the keel in the second section (I'm not epoxy coating the fiberglass again in the bow and stern... will leave the weave rough in those areas...

Yesterday I brushed on a coat of epoxy into all the seams on the Annapolis Wherry. I then wiped the planks down to get rid of any drips but made sure to allow epoxy to settle into the seams.  Today I gently hand-sanded the seams just to rough up the epoxy so that the next coat would stick.  I then epoxy coated the entire inside of the hull. Remember that I had already sanded the fiberglass on the bottom two planks and they were ready to go.  This coat was to add a second coat to the fiberglass to start to fill the weave, and to add a first coat to the bare wood on the upper three planks on each side.  I used three tools: An epoxy spreader, and 3" roller with an Wooster Tiz epoxy roll on it, and a 2" foam brush.  The Annapolis Wherry is an easy one to epoxy coat because the boat is neatly divided into five separate sections. That way you can completely take care of one section without feeling like you have to rush to the next one.  I did one section at a tim...

Yesterday I was able to fiberglass the inside of the CLC Annapolis Wherry hull.  It went well and looks good.  I did the epoxy work and then came back a few hours later while the epoxy was still in the "green" stage and trimmed the edges of the fiberglass. Then pulled the blue tape up.    While I'm a big fan of CLC, they could do a lot more in their manuals to help the first-time fiberglasser! This is what I wrote in an earlier blog post back on September 27th, 2021 while building an Expedition Wherry. It still applies to the Annapolis Wherry manual. If you are doing fiberglass for the first time, please read some of these hints and tips. You'll end up with a much nicer, and flatter, weave... "The CLC manual does surprisingly little to walk first-time builders through any fiberglassing tips and tricks.  First, they only suggest that you use a roller to apply the epoxy. Rollers are notorious for pulling up the cloth as you roll. Skip the rollers entirely. Ther...

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.  NOTE: YOU MUST DO THIS NEXT STEP AND GET THE HULL UPSIDE DOWN AGAIN IN ONE SESSION OR THE BOAT MIGHT BE CROOKED! I used epoxy thickened with wood flour to make the 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 ep...

 Epoxying the inside of the CLC Expedition Wherry will take a much longer time than the outside did.  The inside is done in sections instead of the entire hull at one go. It's easier to do it in smaller sections like that, but is more tedious and time consuming.  CLC also wants you to run beads of thickened epoxy along all the hull seams and bulkhead seams. I am not sure why they want you to run seams along the hull panels, especially in the middle of the boat where the panels and much closer to flat to each other. That type of seam will have virtually no appreciable strength. I'm only running beads along both sides of the bulkheads, and along the panels at the bow and stern but only along the keel. Otherwise I'll leave it to the very strong holding power of the fiberglass cloth on both the inside and outside.    For fiberglassing the inside, CLC suggests that you cut a specific sized rectangle for each of the inside bays. There are different measurements...

Big changes since my last post... the hull of the Expedition Wherry is now wired together and the epoxying has begun.    I'm doing things a bit differently from the manual, or at least I'm adding some things that the manual doesn't mention. So if you're following along and mine looks different than what the manual shows, you'll know why.  Since my last post I have scarfed the sheer clamps together and then epoxied them to the #3 panels at the sheer line. I think I used around 80 clamps!      The manual suggests that you overlap the transom ends and then later cut the sheer clamps short, but if you read further in the manual it mentions that you can do that now. I did it now and found that it worked better. I drew a line and used my pull saw to cut the ends.    Then I set up the frames that the hull would be sitting on while the stitching was going on. I snapped a chalk line down the center of my table. Then I drew lines perpendicularly down from t...