JEM Watercraft

Hi,

Here I am, a bit late, as the boat is ready by now.
I wanted to have it because there is a small lake at my parents summer house and this self built would not be too attractive to steal. I also needed some activity for my 19 year old son. So it was mostly his project, however glassing we did together and spraypainting was my job.

We chose this project because it looks more like a real boat (comparing with simple bottom + 1 side section ones).

First of all, we did everything "wrong" - we shortened the length to abt 4.7 m, to simplify - 1 joint instead of 2, and as I have a GRP canoe 4.6 m as well, I thought this would be long enough for 3 people (the lake is also small). Secondly we used polyester glue instead of epoxy - as 3 times cheaper and epoxy is only available on order by us. Fiberglass tape is also not available, so we used cloth instead and cut 10 cm bands of it, used some overlap...



In order to shorten the boat we just shortened the distance between marking lines on plywood, it also took a little improvising to smoothen the lines.

As the angles of sections changed and were misplaced, we first made temporary "permanent" supports for lower section, just measuring angles and cutting it out from crap.





During assembly with cable clips we used wooden blocks to keep bottom ends up and some improvised weight to keep bottom center down.

Will continue...

You must not be doing something right... The garage is too clean and I don't think the directions ever said anything about a Chainsaw needing to be used.


Just kidding chief. That's looking real good. I'm sure you are anxious to finish it and get out in the water with it.

After all panels were stitched together, we measured angles again and cut new permanent frames an covers for watertight chambers in both ends, rear one with hatch. I fixed them with thin screws through the plywood, laminated with fiberglass later... For this shorter version, probably just one frame would have been enough, but as we wanted to have 3 seats it was easier to place them.

We didn't bother to maintain the 3 mm gap between the panel stitches , as the cutting was also not perfect and due to panels are tilted from each other, there was mostly enough of gap anyway. We masking taped the seams from inside, to block filleting material to press out and applied polyester glue - wood flour mix filleting material from outside.



We used putty knives for that, worked fine. After removing cable clips, the remaining holes were filleted. Thanks to masking tape - inside was also ready for glassing, just a few drips were to remove.

For keeping the boat straight we added a wooden strip for keel



Here glassing has also started.

Gunwales - we put one outer and one inner, without spacers, felt strong enough. Fastened outer one first, with screws (and glue ) through plywood, so it took a good, smooth curve shape, then inner gunwale, screwing it to plywood and outer wale.



Blocks for seats also screwed and glassed. Glassing inside was surprisingly much easier than I expected.

A bit of the further progress:

Some more "epoxying" with polyester




...then some sanding and painting. For outside I used polyester paint remains I had, sprayed it on. For inside I mixed white coloring powder to the resin when epoxying last layer.

Here the first launch

Nice job and colour...................that keel will take a lot of punishment when you drag the boat around...............well done

Here some riding photos





As it felt a little unstable (comparing with plastic canoes we have) we made a turn-over test. It turned over easily, as well as when equipped with two or three passengers, however IT HAS NEVER TURNED OVER ACCIDENTALLY, it ha s been used during all summer...



So if you build one - I suggest you have your seats positioned rather lower than higher.

As it was fun to build and there was some summer left we have started with another project, the log of that build I have posted to: http://hobbykatbuild.blogspot.com/