Hi Javier,
Don't panic mate. you're going real well.
Mick - great suggestion. Now you tell me. It must be easier for you since your canoes start upside down I'll try that on the next one. In spite of inside glassing, there WILL be a next one. I did use spring clamps to help hold the cloth on the sides, which did help some.
The inside is still a pain to do, no matter how you start out. There is a post somewhere here of a bloke with his boat on saw horses. there are uprights clamped to one side of them and he has his boat leaning with the bottom against the uprights. I tried that with my wadefish and it was a lot easier to get the glass to stick down into the deep concave areas.
When preparing to glass the inside, I lay it up as mentioned trim of the overhang and put it asiide. There is allmost enough trimmed off to do the other side. It just means lots of overlaps and lots of sanding. I also use lots of offcuts for the end bits, again with lots of overlaps. I incorporate the serveral overlaps into a serious fillet in the ends ( wet on wet.)
Posted: Fri Sep 01, 2006 8:45 pm Post subject:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK, question about gunwales:
I'm doing inwale and outwale. As you guys saw, I've placed 1/4" spacers on the inside, I'm planning a 1/4" inwale strip from mahogany and 1/2" outwale also from mahogany.
I put the first piece on, and I'm concerned. There's quite a bit of torque on the boards to conform to the canoe sides.
Your gunwhale set up is similar to that on my swampgirl, only I used Australian spotty gum. I think you are talking about edge bend where the gunwhales need to not only bend round the shape of the hull but curve upwards from the centre to the ends.
I did a dry run. By that, I mean I fitted the outwhale first without glue and while they were clamped to the sides, I drilled a series of holes through the boat and into the outwhale. starting from the centre and working towards the ends
When I was satisfied with the fit, I took them off, covered the things with epoxy & woodflour and re-fitted them using pan head wood screws. I screwed through the ply and into the outwhales, again starting from the centre and working towards the ends. I did both sides of the boat at the same time alternating from side to side.
This pic doesn't really show what i mean but highlights the similarities in gunwhale set ups.
When the glue had set, I did the same thing with the inwhales. By working from the centre out and towards both ends at the same time, i was able to gradually put the edge bend in that i needed.
hope this helps a bit mate.