2011: Post 46 – More good progress on my Disko Bay

Continued from previous Post 45…

This past week I got a lot more done on my Disko Bay SOF.  Over the week I got all my lashing done, made the stem pieces and epoxied them in place, and glued my coaming lip and coaming spacer together. 

The lashing I used was 50# flat artificial sinew.  I consulted the lashing video (again) that is on the Kudzu Craft website and gave it a try.  I busted the lashing on my first attempt when I tried to pull it tight.  I swore, not expecting it to break.  I cut away the lashing and got another piece.  I busted that too when I pulled it tight.  I thought to myself, this stuff is crap (okay I didn’t say ‘crap’).  I wondered if I had a bad spool of this stuff.  But I gave it another go and did not pull quite as hard and finished my very first lashing.  I believe on the video Jeff Kudza says that if you’re not busting this stuff now and then you just aren’t pulling hard enough…  I finished all my lashing over a couple days and only busted 2 or 3 more.  I think (I should say hope) I did a decent job of it though.

Lashing at the Masik

Lashing the keel.  I added a couple little groves for the
lashing so as to reduce the bumps along the keel bottom.
Don't know if it really makes a difference, but it can't hurt.

I used a couple pieces of cardboard to make templates for the stems.  Then I cut them from 11.5 mm thick Russian Birch plywood that was left over from the couple pieces that I cut the cockpit rings from.  After I cut them out I sized them up and thought I might have too much plywood in them and could cut them down a little.  But then I thought that a little extra plywood would just give it a little more strength in the bow and stern, and cutting them smaller would not take off much weight anyway.   I suppose I could put a few holes in them before skinning.  I’ll decide later.

I had some trouble with the bow.  It was late and I was a little tired and didn’t think things through enough.  I cut the excess length about 4 inches too short, and didn’t realize till it was too late.  More swearing… I got on-line after that and looked at Sean’s pics on his blog and checked some other web-sites and then realized the way to do it was to cut the excess off flush with the tip of the stem and then cut out the excess in the width parallel with the sides of the stem.   I epoxied the keel, chines and gunwales to the bow stems with marine epoxy.

I am thinking I may lash the stringers to the stems.  I know the epoxy is good stuff and should not come apart.  But I keep thinking if it does let go from the smooth face of the plywood the lashing will be there to keep things in place.  I’ll have to decide on this before skinning.

With the ‘practice’ attempt on the bow as experience to guide me, I had no trouble with the stern.

After I had the stringers epoxied in the bow and stern, I went back to work on my blunder in the bow.  I roughed up a couple filler pieces and glued them in place.  With some additional shaping, a bit of wood filler, and some sanding it all worked out to my liking.

Once I freed up all my clamps from work on the bow and stern stems I glued the coaming lip and spacer together.

This thing is starting to look like a kayak... 

View from the bow

View from the stern
(bottom cockpit ring is just laid in place)

At this point I think I could remove it from the strongback but I am going to leave it there until I get the floor figured out, epoxy the cockpit ring to the frames, and add in the fore and aft deck stringers.