Building the Raptor

If it makes you feel any better, my first boat took me 15 months. Having a shop to build in makes a huge difference, even if it is only 40 degrees in there sometimes.

It was. When I first sat in her I was too far aft and Scott said I only had about 2 inches of freeboard aft. Once I got scooted up to where I was supposed to be it leveled out quite a bit. She's just a touch light on the bow, but that's intentional.

Today I got all the stuff done that needs to be done before I can put the deck on. This mostly consisted of installing the surfaces which the deck will adhere to plus permanently installing some pieces which were only tacked in before. The deck arch is now screwed and epoxied in place, and the aft cockpit bulkhead is just waiting for more screws.


In addition to giving the deck something to mate to, the gunwale strips also seal the ragged end of the glass, hopefully preventing delamination. Given that this area will be nearly impossible to reach once the decks go in it seems like a good headache prevention step.

If all goes as planned, the deck will go on Thursday and then it's just the cockpit and fittings and she'll be finished!

 

Keep that up and I'm gonna deck you!

Q: How many spring clamps does it take to build a cockpit ring?

A: Every *******ed one of them!

Got most of the deck on this morning. The process involved first cutting the pieces to shape, then "painting" the inside with resin to seal it, and finally buttering the joints and putting it together with brads. Unlike the ones in the hull, these ones are going to stay in and be sealed by resin and filler compound. Of the 5 sections of the hull, three are now decked, The larger one in the rear still needs to have a hole cut in it for a hatch, but until I find a hatch I like, I don't know how big to cut the hole.

Next step is the piece over the forward hold and the front of the cockpit, which is going to be the hardest of the whole boat, I think. It's going to be a really strange shape and it has to bend quite a bit in all three axis, If the plywood doesn't work I might get some larger sheets of veneer and laminate it up from that. The deck around the main cockpit section is going to have to go in after the cockpit ring is finished and is going to present some interesting headaches of it's own.

All in all, I feel like I'm significantly closer to done than I was a week ago. Things are going to get held up a bit since I ran out of resin again and won't be able to afford more until payday next Friday. Currently she has 5 quarts of resin plus 2.5 quarts of hardener on her, and I will probably go through another quart of resin before completion.

Last picture is with my camera sitting on top of the cockpit arch. I'm going to try to put a camera mount there once she's finished

 

It's funny how a small amount of progress can make such a difference!

Yesterday I got the deck pieces for the cockpit arch to the forward flotation bulkhead cut out and clamped in place, and all of a sudden, it looks like a boat! They're not attached to anything yet, and I may in fact junk one or both and re-cut them, but still...

 

Another week and progress continues...

The last pieces of the foredeck are stuck on and coated in resin. I'm sealing the interior bulkheads with filleting compound to ensure watertightness and hopefully stave off rot problems in the future. As soon as the cockpit ring is finished I can build the supports for that and put decking over them and she will be pretty much finished. There is still a lot of trim work to be done, including cutting and placing the hatches, but as of tomorrow she should be ready to paddle!

 

As usual, I didn't get quite as much done as hoped, but when you're waiting for epoxy to cure in a 40 degree shop things just take longer.

I spent the $11 plus tax to rent a 5 1/2" hole saw for purring in the forward cargo hatches. I marked and drilled a hole in each side of the deck and another pair of holes in some scrap plywood which I then cut in half. The scrap pieces were coated with epoxy and then glues to the inside of the holes in the deck to reinforce it. Once the epoxy cured I liberally coated the inside of the hole and the flanges of the hatches with 3M 5200, inserted the hatches, and drove the screws in. 5200 takes forever and a week to set in these temps, but once it does it will be there forever.

I also applied some of the vinyl graphics as you can see.

The cockpit ring was coated with epoxy to seal it and sanded. It will still need another coat for a smooth finish as the maple doesn't suck up much resin and left a really rough finish the first time. Once the first coat was dry enough to work with I measured and cut a small piece of ash for the front of it to rest on, and then mortised a notch in the cockpit arch that the support fits into. This is a high stress joint and so after some consideration I used 3M 5200 to hold it in.

The next steps are going to mostly involve shaping a lot of small fiddly pieces of ash to support the cockpit ring and once those are finished decking over them around the ring. Once that's finished and the deck-hull joint gets taped she'll be basically finished, which is good because I plan on taking her to Tacoma for a trip on the 24th.

The last big issue is how to do the aft hatch, but that problem can wait for me to come up with a really good solution. I found a really nice large tribal eagle decal on eBay I would like to use, but unless I can make the hatch completely flush, or really close to it, it won't work.

 

Every time I see the word "Experimental" on the side of something, I think of a phrase a buddy of mine, a former NTSB investigator, used to say; "That explains it . . ."

You can quicken 3M 5200 cure rates with moisture vapor. A trick I often use is to drape a soaked, but not soggy rag over the area, making sure it doesn't touch or can drip and pool on the goo. If a fan, in your case a heater and fan can be arranged, the better. Evaporating moisture will surface cure the sealant, so it skins over pretty quickly. If you can keep the humidity high in the area, then it will also continue to cure much quicker. You don't need a big volume of air flow, just enough to keep drying out the rag, which should be re-soaked as needed. This trick works on all polyurethanes, even the cyanoacetate activated types, including Gorilla Glue, WR-LPU's and truck bed liners.

 

Par,

Thanks for the tip.

Do you know what is used to speed up the cure of "superglue"?

I was told it is something easily obtained and non toxic, but I lost the reference. Looking to save a buck or two.

Marc

 

Super glue is a cyanoacetate (CA) which is a moisture (vapor) cure. You can speed it up with toluidine, which is an amine and a common accelerator, though it's use will weaken the strength of the bond and cured adhesive a tad. Knowing a bit about it's chemistry, I'll bet most alkaline substances will accelerate it's cure. There are a few different formulations of the single part CA's as well as multiple part (activated) versions. The common CA in a tube is usually the methyl version (C5H5NO2). Acetone will dissolve CA and cold will make it brittle enough to break apart the bond.

 

Cyano

Making a fillet out of baking soda and then squirting it with cyano will result in an instant rock hard cure. Don't get cyano and baking soda on your skin at the same time -it will burn like hell. This will work on things that don't require the bonded joint to get wet-water will tend to weaken the cyano.
The joint lasts a long time in a dry environment-like an RC helicopter. The cyano/baking soda can be used to hold pieces together on a boat if it is later covered with epoxy.

 

Heres a picture I have been saving of a nice way to do a large deck hatch

 

I know a large percentage of deck canoes and kayaks have detachable access covers, but I don't like things that can "get away" from the boat. I like things attached. I've built countless different types of hinges over the years, many in just wood, not counting the pivot pin.

A very simple one is shown, using a barrel bolt as the pivot. It doesn't snag lines, the fasteners and pivot are flush, etc. Hinge pieces are live oak. The height of the hing is lower then that of the hatch.

This hinge could have been rotated 90 degrees and buried completely in the deck, to further decrease it's impact and windage, but the hatch was proud, so I didn't bother.

 

Solid attachments are generally a sound principle, but on Kayaks, I have found they can represent problems.

Certainly any hatches on a kayak should have a minimum of a rope connection to the main hull, but the use of hinges on a thin Kayak deck can restrict stowage and add weight from the fittings themselves and the required connection point reinforcing. Small hinges end up being bent and distorted as the boat gets manhandled, and more substantial hinges are significant extra weight.

I would have made this cover flush as a preference, but it looks pretty streamlined, and you do get that few inches of extra storage.

 

The hinges pictured above are about 3/4" tall and about an inch long. They do through bolt a king plank, but a simple piece of plywood as a backing plate would do. As to weight, we're talking a few ounces at best. The hatch was about an 1" tall at the height of the crown, tapering to about 3/4" along the edges. I can't imagine a significant weight savings without hinges and backing plates. The hinges could be offset, with additional thought and mill work, making for no protrusions as could the hatch, fitted to a recessed carlin.

 

Tom Macks designed a cover held on by magnets, 6 pairs of 3/4" dia rare earth magnets. These are significantly strong enough to hold the hatch on, flush to the deck. He also suggests a lanyard to insure the cover is not lost while opened up. I've not used this in practice, but I'm convinced there would be no issues with the cover opening up under use, since it is hard enough to pull open.

It is a nice clean look to a kayak.

Marc

 

I used rare earth magnets on the hatches on the Re-YAK-tion and I'm not sure if I would do it again. While the magnets are pretty strong, the pieces they're holding together are large and it just doesn't feel as secure as i would like. Not ruling it out, though...