50ft strip plank sailer - producing the strips for planking

Having a bad day are we Watson? Funny how the same comments can be interpreted so differently. I saw nothing negative in Steve's comments. It's always good to hear a success story. No doubt, you are correct that for every success story, there are a hundred unfinished or dangerous boats. I think though, that the Internet is a much more positive influence on the boatbuilding community than Steve suggests. Even though naysayers abound, the information, services and products available to almost any corner of the world increase the chances for success for most amateur builders. My own ability to build is most certainly connected to the amount of help I've received through the Internet over the years.

BTW, this wasn't an admonition, I only thought it was curious how our takes on Steve's post were so different.

@ Steve. I think a bright finish and gapped, filled plank seams can be attractive (inside or out). The seams simply look like a caulked joint.

 

It's a matter of sustainability, not about experience. On the contrary having experience is prohibitive factor to start with such project

 

The boat I mentioned was named Innismara and raced in A class on Auckland harbor for many years and may still do so. The designer/builder was not from a boatbuilding family but back then there was a much more valuable resource available in New Zealand than the internet, namely Sea Spray magazine. In every months issue there would be stories of recent launching and these were very much more in depth stories than anything we see today and usually included complete scantlings and build details of the boat in question so over time anyone wishing to build their own boat had all the info they needed and many many non profesionals designed and built some very fine boats (and some junk)without having to resort to asking for advice from a lot of strangers who may or may not know more than they do. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of great information on the internet and I continue to learn from it but a complete novice would have a hard time sorting out the wheat from the chaff so to speak. I once rented space in a large commercial building from a guy who had a lease on the place and was living in the office space with his wife, they both worked regular jobs and then he worked on a 57 foot cold molded twin keel boat of his own design, his previous boat was a 50ft keelboat also to his own design. I was building a 26 ft cold molded boat, another tenant was building a 32ft cold molded boat ,another a 33ft plywood Benford sharpie. All boats were of excellent build quality and all were finished. Those were in a different time though, the 1960 and 70s when this was very common.

Steve.

 

What a discussion.... Anyway to save some weight add some of your Cedar saw dust into the epoxy for filler. And it will look cool, and it is free.

 

50ft strip plank sailer

with a sealing coat of epoxy how successful is the infusion process of laminating on a stripped plank hull
Presumably any voids in the planking will not allow a vacuum to be achieved. would I spend hours and hours sealing leaks?

 

I can't say anything specific to infusing as I have never done it. I can say though that by the time you are done fairing the hull with plane, sanding boards and finally a palm sander, you will be intimately familiar with every plank, seam and joint and you will have found most, if not all, seam voids. I found bogging, back-filling, my seams to be fairly thorough with few, if any, voids.

I hand laminated the sheathing on my 24' hull, so for me, that was the "insurance" against hull leaks.

 

What is your glass layup over the cedar? I ask this because there are a number of different strip plank methods, some just have light glass or dynel on the outside and sealed inside, while with others the cedar is just a core with structural glass in and out. With the former infusion would not be worth the effort, with the latter maybe. With the infusions I have done it has always been done both sides at once with a balsa core against a mold but I know some folks have infused one side at a time against a foam core so it can certainly be done with a cedar core . The important thing is it MUST be absolutely vacuum tight. Don't underestimate the power of vacuum, it will draw right through particle board for example so you would need to do all your fairing of the core then use enough coats of epoxy to be able to sand it before setting up for infusion without going through. I personally don't think infusion is worthwhile if all you have is a single ply of glass but it becomes viable when you have more, heavier structural plies.
The strip plank wrc boats I have built were all before we were aware of infusion so were hand laid.

Steve.

 

50ft strip plank sailer

Sheathing is a structural component, 3 layers inside and out. hadn't thought of doing both sides at the same time though. how is that even possible possible

 

It would not be practical to infuse both sides at once with a wrc core. To do both sides at the same time you need to be infusing against a mold surface of some type with a perforated core to allow the resin through to the mold side, which is how a lot of production boats are built today as well as a lot of home built efforts using infused flat panels on a simple mold. You can however infuse one side at a time as discussed and it would be worthwhile with a three ply laminate. You do of course need to create a vacuum tight core. There is a lot of setup for infusion but it is low stress, clean work and then the infusion itself goes quite quickly.

Steve.