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!

The manual for the Annapolis Wherry has you drill and install the drain plugs as one of the very last steps right after finishing. Do it now instead!  First, it’s just easier to drill the 1” hole now, before you install the bow and stern seats, and before finishing. Plus, it doesn't wreck your finished surface. You can also vacuum up all the sawdust. If you wait until the seats are installed, you will always have sawdust and chips inside your tanks.  Drilling the hole will often chip out wood on the inside. Drilling them now will give you access to the inside so you can properly epoxy coat any bare wood. I used a spade bit and it chipped out wood on the inside. Always drill from the outside of the bulkhead into the tank! Here is one of my drain holes. It was drilled, sanded, vacuumed up, and epoxy coated. I'll install the actual drain plug and screws after finishing, but the messy bit is done now.  Tomorrow the hull gets turned over and I'll start on the bottom. Lots of w...

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...

 In my last post I had wired and glued the Annapolis Wherry hull together. The next day was spent, and I mean the entire boat-work day, removing the $&*#ing wires! Unlike boats that are glued on the edges of the panels (kayaks for example, and the Expedition Wherry), the Annapolis Wherry uses the Lapstitch process which embeds every wire in epoxy. They ALL were a challenge to remove.  Luckily I had one trick up my sleeve that helped. You can heat the wires and they will soften the epoxy just around the wire and the wires can much more easily slip out. I use a soldering iron.  If you have a wire that just will not come out, you can hold a hot soldering iron to it and let it heat up for 20-30 seconds. Be careful not to scorch the wood! You can then generally work the wire out. In the picture above you can see me holding the soldering iron to the end of a cut wire. It easily came out even though it was embedded in epoxy.  This trick even works on the bow, stern, and...

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...