Thinking ahead to a meelonseed

[cs]

Got my thinking cap on again and started looking into the future.

The future holds a meelonseed skiff.

What I'm thinking is doing strip construction, and others have went this route. What I don't want though is to sheath it in glass. I would like to do strip and leave all epoxy and glass off. I want to edge glue the strips with epoxy though.

While at a boat show I saw a guy doing one of those adirondack guide boats. He was edge gluing the strips with epoxy and than fastning the strips to the frames with screws.

This is what I'm thinking about doing. Do you think it can be done this way and the glass left off?

Chad

[BrianR]

Hi Chad:
I'm one of the guys who made it using the strip method - with glass. I suppose you could nix the glass and go forward, but I would think that you'd need to uses a thicker and wider strip than I did, and maybe even a harder wood than western red cedar.
If I'm right, you may encounter some difficulty due to the curves of this boat. You need alot of flexibility in the stips to accomodate the curves.
Finally, if you intend to use Barto's plans, you'll have to figure out how to get the ribs set up before you apply the strips, because he contemplates the reverse order.
Whatever you choose - good luck to you.

[Jack Heinlen]

Chad,

One reason a small boat like this is sheathed is to keep the moisture content more constant. If you glue up what amounts to a panel of cedar, say three feet wide amidships, and then move it from the water to out and back again, the wood without sheathing is going to move signifigantly: roughly a quarter inch per foot of width which equals 3/4 inch that has to give somewhere. Fasten it to restraints(frames) that run across the grain and it will split.

Strip planking, in its original iteration, had nothing; no glue, no sheathing, just strips edge nailed. That worked for a few reasons. The boats were work boats, and spent a majority of their time in the water. If they did dry out, seams open, it wasn't a big deal, just throw them in the water and let them take up.

For a recreational boat to be dry-sailed I don't think what you propose would work very well.

[John Bell]

I assume this stems from your expereince with sheathing your canoe?

Rest assured, the second time you do something will certainly be easier and of higher quality. If you want to avoid sheathing all together, why not glued plywood lap? That would certainly be a better, easier, faster, and less messy option than what you are proposing.

[leftish]

Pulsifer Hamptons are stripped plank with pine and edge nailed perhaps a little paint between strips and they seem to work well being put in and out.

[cs]

Yes John it is partilly due to that, and I've also gotten tired of working with epoxy.

Chad

[John Bell]

Your proposal actually makes the working with epoxy even worse in my opinion. Glued lap would still entail getting on with googe, but there would be less of it.

Also, as others have pointed out, going the no sheathing route means that you'll need to use much thicker strips which means a heavy boat, if it's even possible to get them to the final shape.

Sheathing is really pretty easy, but it takes some practice before you get it right. My first try wasn't very much fun. But it got better and the so did my results on subseqent attempts.

[cs]

John I don't have a problem using epoxy as a glue, the problem I have is covering all that wood with epoxy and than having to prepare that surface for a finish. I would much rather work with the wood bare.

Chad

[John Bell]

I guarantee you the next time you sheath something, it will turn out better with less effort on your part. Experience does that to a man...

Thin strips without sheathing doesn't seem like a good idea, though.

If you don't mind epoxy, then glued lap would be the best way to get to a melonseed hull. One plus of this route is that you don't have to modify a design because Our Sponsor can sell you plans today for this type of construction.

If epoxy is totally out of the question, then clinch-nailed or riveted cedar lapstrake would be my next choice.

[John Bell]

What Mike said. If you build it, we will come!

[cs]

Let me get out the chisel and granite and write this down. "If I build it they will come"

Chad

[Bert Langley]

What everybody else has said. I really like strip building and really dislike the epoxy and glass coating part. However it seems to be a necessary evil. I suspect you could make it work by using thicker strips, and harder wood. Give it a really good paint job inside and out and, if you only daysailed it not have a significant problem with taking up water and having the wood expand and contract significantly. I just don't think you would gain enough to make it worth the effort. You still have to fill and fair all you end up with is a likely heavier boat that may not be as strong as using cedar and glassing it.

However as I sit here typing this I realize that the first person who thought up building a cedar strip canoe, glassing it and doing away with the ribs etc. was alos told that it was a bad idea and would not work. Seems to me that if you are really interested in going this route it would be easy to do a test of the concept. I wouldn't start on a melonseed, but another canoe wouuld be easy. A small canoe built this way would give you at least some indication if the method was reasonable and who knows you may start a trend.

But as Mike and John said, build it and they will come. You can count me in on the glass work. I live just down the road from John and a road trip and boatbuilding party is always a possibility.

[John Bell]

Hey Bert, have you considered coming to our little messabout at Allatoona on May 13-15? We'd love to have you!

[Bert Langley]

Trying to make it happen John, I just took over managing our Cartersville Office, so I am really just down the road.

[Bob Smalser]

Wire nails and table saws were the innovations that allowed boats to be built with strips, not glass and goo.

Strip-planked boats were built for generations before fabric and goo came out. Add an 8th to your plank thickness in WRC and you can build that way in a boat with conventional framing....and the wood itself has planked many a successful boat without anybody worrying about it being too soft beneath 3 coats of primer and paint.

Moreover, WRC is so stable that in a small boat, seasonal movement won't be a problem, nor will waterlogging in a boat that lives on a trailer. My WRC work boats live in the water year round protected only by paint and generally half full of rainwater....the side planking remains at around 12% M/C and only the fully submerged bottom planking gets to 22% or so.

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/6490387/82554788.jpg

That said, the lighter weights of fiberglass fabric are real forgiving to use....mistakes sand out real easily and a second layer of fabric disappears nicely beneath the goo. Consider a couple-three layers of easy, 3oz fiberglass cloth as opposed to one layer of something heavier and relatively awful to work with (Dynel comes to mind).

[ 04-01-2005, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: Bob Smalser ]