Almost-A-SCAMP Progress Report #9 . . . .

[Charles Brennan]

I need to start off with a digression:
When I was but a lad of 12 or 13, one day, my Dad (who worked in finance) brought home a power boat that he named the Loan Shark.
It was a Gold Coast Clipper, made by Pompano Boat Works in Pompano Beach, Florida in the late '50's.
A 17 ft 60 hp outboard made of Mahogany plywood, on plank Mahogany frame.
Oh! My! How I LOVED that boat! 
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Went everywhere and did everything in that boat, for several years.
One of the drawbacks to the mahogany plywood hull was that when you ran aground or scraped it on coral rock or oyster bars, you had to sand, fill and paint the affected area.
Considering the closest thing we had to a chart was a gas station road map (remember those?) that had the ICW on one edge of one page, we ran aground a LOT.   
I thought that was just what you did with a power boat, made of wood.
As my Dad deteriorated, (alcoholism will do that to you)  the boat also deteriorated.
Nothing shows neglect, more than a boat. 
Sometimes, we couldn't go out on the weekend, because the hull hadn't been patched and painted.
The steel trailer rusted into pieces and we couldn't afford a new one, so Dad found a cheap slip to put the boat in, but that required bailing rainwater out of it every weekend (including during a hurricane). 
By the time I was 17, it was a wreck waiting for inevitable sinking; and now we were about to lose the slip, which I could not stand the thought of.
Told my Dad we had to DO something. 
He tried to deflect, by proposing a Herculean Task: "Hey! If you can figure out a way to get it home and cleaned up, she's yours!" 
DONE!! 
Nothing is impossible, when you are blessed with the Ignorance of Youth! 
Most of the successes in my life, have been from being too damn' dumb, to know when I was whipped! 

I worked at a trailer manufacturer that summer and they took in trades, so I got an ugly duckling of a trailer from the back lot for the princely sum of 25 bucks. (Hey! It was the '60's!) 
Set about to modifying it to accommodate the Loan Shark.
Getting her from the slip to a ramp was another story, for another time; but trust me, it was epic!   
Getting home was a real challenge too, filling the tires at every other gas station at roughly 15 minute intervals.
Thank goodness, air was free in the '60's! 
Trailer had airbag springs, that promptly blew up in the carport.
But the biggest problem was the fouled hull.
So I stripped the inside of the boat, windshield, steering wheel and all, removed the outboard, then jacked up one side and cribbed with blocks of wood and used ropes and tire jacks and 2X4 levers and anything else I could think of and finally got the hull off the trailer and placed upside down, in the carport.
Mom objected LOUDLY     to the smell in the carport from the algae, barnacles, oysters and other assorted marine hitchhikers drying out in the carport, but all the neighborhood cats LOVED it! 

I started with a mental check list:
Dis-assemble boat.
Remove Motor.
Get boat off trailer.
Re-build trailer.
Re-build boat.
Re-install motor.
Go Boating!
(Aren't things ever so much simpler, in our Youth?) 
I decided what the boat needed was a more durable hull that didn't need so much sanding and patching and painting; nay, what it needed was FIBERGLASS on the hull!   
Yes, I successfully rebuilt the entire boat  top to bottom (bottom to top?) and had more years of adventures.

Turning the SCAMP over to fiberglass the hull brought me back  full circle, back to where I first started out on boats, nearly 60 years ago.
But first, it had to be turned over.
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Get some tow straps . . . .
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Add a coupla come-alongs . . . .
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Start cranking!!
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Remove the dolly and relocate out of the way  . . . .

High enough to invert?!?
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Since there are no good hand-holds under what is supposed to be a smooth hull, a 2X4 shoved in the centerboard trunk, made for a terrific lever.
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You can just see the 2X4 on the right side of the pic.
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The hull had a tendency to want to slip back to where it was, each time I moved it, so I tied a line to a carlin, to prevent that from happening.
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The other end of the line tied off to a post.
Also used the line to pull the hull over, when the 2X4 was too high to lever effectively.
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Got the saw horses mostly in place (after checking that they were rated for 150% of SCAMP's weight!).
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And prepared to start lowering the come-alongs.
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Until the hull was resting on the saw horses. Pic taken prior to shimming everything to (mostly!) level.
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Success!!
No boats, or boat builders were harmed, in the turning over of this hull!   
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A peek through the tiller opening in the transom; nothing bowed, or buckling. Whew!   
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Next I needed to add duct tape to the trunk so that epoxy would not drip down the trunk.
I also used a ¼-inch round-over router bit to ease the trunk edges, to make it easier to apply the fiberglass, one inch down into the trunk.
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I have been unable to get the fabled 60-inch wide 6oz. fiberglass widths from our local suppliers, so I had to make do with 12 feet long by 39 inch cloth widths.
This is off-set, but the next layer of cloth will just about cover the rest of the hull.
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Taped them off to hold the corners from lifting up; the wallpaper brush was very helpful for smoothing out the folded-up cloth
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After applying the epoxy and before trimming off the excess below the garboard plank.
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Same with the other side.
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After trimming the excess cloth while the epoxy was still "green".
(Not fully cured.)
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I was pleased with how it turned out;    a far cry from my attempts at age 17.   
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This next bit is an experiment, and I don't yet know the outcome.   
I carefully laid down some tape right on the edge of the applied fiberglass.
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Folded the cloth over it.
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And put a second strip of tape exactly over the first strip of tape.
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And trimmed away the excess cloth.
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Since I had some extra cloth, I went down the transom, as well.
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The THEORY is that after applying the epoxy to the cloth, when I trim the green cloth. the edge of the new cloth should butt up right against the edge of the first cloth, just like two pieces of wall paper.
We'll see how it goes; at worst, I'll have to lay down a strip of fiberglass tape to bridge between the two.
It's been raining the past two days and tomorrow doesn't look much better, so I've been chomping at the bit to get out there and get the epoxy down, but know better than to try to apply it in 110% humidity.
Figured as long as I was stuck in the rain, I'd write up my progress to date.
Ah, well.

Charles Brennan

[Riley Smith]

There's always fairing compound. Something I didn't know about back when I was trying to get glass on a hull. Good job CB. I don't know why but I had thought the OUTSIDE was already glassed. Oh, I'm glad not to be doing that. I'm almost immune to fiberglass but I'm not particularly fond of it.

[Spot]

CB, did you consider sanding the existing edge and doing a small overlap?
That would be my go-to in a composite build or repair situation.

There are techniques with the tape that allow you to place the tape and masking on the existing surface, glass, wait until semi-cured, then peel up the new glassing and tape and masking and make a neat cut with a razor blade aka a zipper cut or cut lap which will naturally cut at the event horizon of the tape and new glassing. This can be done with epoxy as well.

The video feature polyester resin, you would not 'waterfall' epoxy as it is not that fluid and is too $$$ to let drip on the floor. If you have 15 minutes it is very interesting. The lap I am talking about happens during the first 7 minutes with the cutting starting around 6:30

Surfboard glassing is a ubiquitous subset of composites. Thin cloths to reduce weight and cost, various tints and fabric inlays on the classic boards, and all of your work is out there for the world to see without the benefits of fairing, paint, etc.. I started there and am now being introduced to the realm where projects are measured in layers of 1708 DBXM.

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[Norm L.]

Charles, you mastered the ancient art of parbuckling. I've seen it done in shipyards but it is a lot more interesting when you are rolling a semi-upside down 200' boat or a fully upside-down barge. In 100 feet of water. Or partially sunk in mud. Salvors, and their divers, can be amazing.

[Riley Smith]

Not to mention you have a Manitowoc at your disposal! I had to lift S R Cat off the trailer awhile back to paint. Man, that was some sketchy stuff! There was no way to lift UP...so all the lifting was done from BELOW, with a jack.

[Spot]

CB-The flipping was quite clever, along with the stories of the old family boat. Thanks for sharing!
RS-Manitowoc? Is that another term for a carport?

[Frank B.]

Ingenious flip, single handed, I'm sure.  I thought I would have to rig something similar when I built my skiff.  However, I started upside down, built the hull on a frame which would eventually mostly become the bulkheads for the boat.  I took it all the way through glass, fair, and final paint before I turned it.  I pondered for a while how I would do it then went for simple.  At the time I was running with an early morning Saturday group run and I "invited" four of them over to my house for breakfast post run. Hey guys, got a little chore before we eat if you don't mind. The five of us and a neighbor flipped it off the saw horses and frame onto its trailer in about ten seconds.  Took the wheels off of the trailer so I could lower it all making working the inside a lot less tedious.  wrapped the hull so when I worked the inside, including glass work and paint I wouldn't damage it.  Miraculously, it was unscathed at the end of the build and I'm still friends with the ambushed runners.

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[Charles Brennan]

Spot, Can't claim to know how Riley's thought processes work, but I suspect he used a noun as a descriptor.  Much like Kleenex or Formica being used as generic nouns, when they are really trademarked names, Manitowoc is a prominent crane manufacturer, formerly in Wisconsin.

Hope this clarifies,
Charles Brennan

[Charles Brennan]

Frank, I did indeed, flip the boat solo.  I prefer it that way, since I don't have to worry about anyone else, but me.
Gorgeous finish on that boat; I'm envious.
The best I'm hoping for is: "Yar from afar." 

Charles Brennan

[Wayne Howard]

Frank, I did indeed, flip the boat solo.  I prefer it that way, since I don't have to worry about anyone else, but me.
Gorgeous finish on that boat; I'm envious.
The best I'm hoping for is: "Yar from afar." 

Charles Brennan

Go for the 10 foot rule, CB. If you can't see the flaws at 10 feet, you're good.

[Frank B.]

Frank, I did indeed, flip the boat solo.  I prefer it that way, since I don't have to worry about anyone else, but me.
Gorgeous finish on that boat; I'm envious.
The best I'm hoping for is: "Yar from afar." 

Charles Brennan

Thank you for the compliment, I can assure you it will not happen again.  This is a stitch and glue so part of the design is to reinforce all the stitched seams with multiple layer of tape and cloth.  For instance the keel seam has three layers of tape and two layers of cloth which overlap, so a lot of fairing to blend that into the part of the hull that only has a single layer of glass.  Worse yet is the transom which has three total layers creating a little bit of 'Hook" back there.  Since it is a planing hull the build forum experts said you really need to blend that because that little bit of hook will cause the boat to porpoise when on plane.  So it was a never ending saga of fair, sand, guide coat, repeat.

Above the water line, not so bad, I've got experience with and equipment for spraying cat poly.

If I ever build again and it is being considered, it will be a displacement speed hull where globs of stuff down there won't really matter that much. And, it will be a ply on frame requiring no additional glass layers for strength.

I'm with Wayne Howard, however, I think twenty feet is more appropriate.