Foam WYE 13-6

[jem]

I'm still not sure what I'll do on the WYE as the angles are all different. By the way, what does WYE stand for?

# Wye, Kent, a village in Kent, England
# Wye, Montana, a town in Missoula County, Montana, USA
# Wye, South Australia, a town in South Australia, Australia
# Wye River (plantation), was the home of William Paca, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland
# Wye River, Victoria, a coastal town in Victoria, Australia
# Wye Road, Strathcona County, Canada
# River Wye, the major river, mostly in Wales and partly in England, rising on Plynlimon to the River Severn
# River Wye, Derbyshire, a river flowing from Axe Edge Moor, Buxton to the River Derwent
# River Wye, Buckinghamshire, a river flowing from the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire to Bourne End where it meets the River Thames
# Wye River, New Zealand, a minor river in the South Island of New Zealand
# Wye River (Maryland), in Maryland, USA
# Wye River (Victoria), Australia


Why not?

[texarican]

Just reading you posts again & was wondering if you tried wetting your knife

I know when cutting rubber a little bit of lubrication in the form of water or soapy water makes the job a lot easer.

This foam can be a little ornery at times though. For no apparent reason, it might ball up or tear out during a cut. The best thing you can do is stop immediately and cut from the other direction. Go slow and make several light passes. Most of our cuts were very clean. One tip I discovered is that applying a little pressure with a ball point pen while marking the layout lines helps tremendously. It puts a slight groove in the foam that the utility knife tends to follow.

No, have not tried lubricating the knife but that is a good idea.

What I did find however is that I'm using the wrong foam. This is the blue Dow styrofoam that Lowes sells. Now I try not to buy anything at Home Depot but I had some pink Foamular Owens Corning from there that had been in my attic for a couple of years. Used it for the decks on the SOT and found it to be much easier to work with. The blue foam has flow marks and seems to have density inconsistencies. It tears and flakes easy on the cut edges and small chucks can come out if sanding too aggressively. The pink foam cuts like butter and I had absolutely no tearout. It is much easier to sand and shape and seems to be much more consistent across the sheet.

[texarican]

Sorry I have not kept up the build progress here. The first splices for the WYE in foam are curing now. Tomorrow I'll start figuring out if I need to bevel the panels and I'll attempt to assemble the tunnel.

Meanwhile, here is an update on the SOT:

Well, 1 month to build a kayak without really having a plan ain't too shabby. She's done!!!! Ready to fish weight ballooned up to a whopping 34lbs 4oz. Oh well, the extra layers of foam, glass and epoxy in the cockpit really added up. Also, I'm experimenting with exterior latex paint and I think the thicker coats are heavier than I'm used to. Now that I have some idea of how to build a foam boat, I'll set my weight target for the foam WYE at 28lbs. (just pulled that number out of nowhere really)

This boat is just for me so I really slapped it together with no care for looks. It shows epoxy drips, glass edges, bumps and bruises that got into the foam before glass cured, etc. After 2 rolled on coats of the latex, I added about double the manufacturer's suggested amount of non-skid and literally dabbed a coat into the cockpit with the end of a cheap brush. This gave it the textured look and feel I wanted, covering up some of my sloppiness too

One boat getting rigged, one getting spliced up.


I went with a 2 ring anchor trolley with a line keeper right in the middle. This is how I used to rig my plastic boats for the bay. I mostly like to fish with a stakeout stick but sometimes like to anchor off the bow and just sit.


I don't bother with paddle keepers. My method is just slide one paddle blade up under the deck bungee.


The seat base is set up to work with a regular SOT 4 point seat but I also wanted to be able to paddle without one. From my pool testing, this one seems like all I will need is a cheap cushion.


Might be a while before I get a paddle report in. My goal is to get the WYE finished before my birthday in late Sept and then go for a family paddle. After that, I'll be doing plenty of fall bay fishing.

[Manjimike]

Looking realy good.
Did you mention a length somewhere?

cheers Mike

[texarican]

13' 9"
22" across the bottom at the widest point

[texarican]

Slow going on the WYE. Perhaps I experienced a let-down after completing the SOT. The extreme heat is also not doing anything to aid my boat building motivation.

My first attempt at building the tunnel was scrapped. I just did not like the way the edges came out on my panels so I bought some more foam, this time the pink stuff, to re-do any panels I did not like. This was a good move especially for the tunnel since I was able to make the edge bevel on the original cut; something I had neglected on my first attempt. It seemed to work out well. I have it tacked together and will complete the fillets tonight followed by 6" heavy biax tape on the 4 tunnel seams. For the rest of the boat I think I can get by with just regular fillets and my 6oz hull glass but on the core of the boat where I think all the abuse will occur, I'm going heavy.

[Manjimike]

13' 9"
22" across the bottom at the widest point

Thank you

[texarican]

Well, I've really lost motivation and have found just about every excuse possible to not work on the boat so progress is slow. I'm almost to the point where I can flip it and start shaping in prep for exterior glass. There is going to be a LOT of sanding. I think this boat will also need some kind of strengthened gunwales (sp?) to stiffen it up to my liking. I'm considering PVC lattice material for that.
As far as panel fit, I kind of slopped it together but minimized the gaps by beveling with a fillet knife. I could have taken much more care in the process and gotten down to no gap at all. As it stands, I'll have some filling to do on the outside.

[texarican]

The beauty of building with foam is that you get to shape flowing smooth curves. The agony of building with foam it that you have to shape flowing smooth curves

Start with nasty intersections of 3/4" foam that looks like this:



Wear your respirator, hook up a power sander of your choice with 80 grit, attack and pray. You get something like this:




Continue with hand sanding and progressively finer grit paper. I'm using foam sanding sponges - 2 for a buck at Dollar General. Now it looks like this:



The goal is to eliminate any shadows or hard lines. I want smooth transitions everywhere. Also want to minimize any gaps, gouges or cracks that will have to be filled with goupie later. Note that ALL gaps must be filled before glassing. Hopefully I can sand for an hour or two each evening this week and get glass on by Saturday. We'll see!

[texarican]

Moving along. The curves and seams are more smooth than the pics would have you believe. It just needs a fill coat, then I can flip and start the inside which will get a really rough finish. I like to do the inside with a non-skid texture so I don't worry so much about sanding tape seams and such down perfectly.

Still light as a feather at this point.