Avoiding Epoxy Allergies in Boatbuilding
How common are Epoxy Resin allergies and what are there strategies for reducing the chance of building an allergy? I will discuss building strategies, materials choices and useful production work practices.
How common are Epoxy Resin allergies and what are there strategies for reducing the chance of building an allergy? I will discuss building strategies, materials choices and useful production work practices.
Sandpaper – don’t use COARSER THAN 100grit ON TIMBER TO BE GLUED (or Painted/Varnished). We provide reasons.
Ultralight strip planked boats using Paulownia, Balsa and Western Red Cedar. Superlight Eureka Canoe and Goat Island Skiff and the amazing 12lb balsa canoe
OK … I decided to keep the old racing dinghy and fix it up. How do I put my effort in the right places to get the maximum results? A grab bag of methods for joining plywood, working out sizes, making centreboards and rudders and more.
Most epoxy mixes are 2 to one resin and hardener. Or 4 or 5 or 6 to 1. Some companies offer 1:1 and push ease of mixing. But are they a good choice?
I’ve been in and around wooden race and recreational boats for a few decades now. As a designer who sells plans I can really only direct people towards the most tried and true methods that work just about anywhere. This article explains a large part of experience that leads to my approach.
One of the most important things as a designer or sailor is to keep an open mind, but also to be able to analyze things in light of real experience and prior knowledge. These are online and paper resources that force thinking in different ways.
This article, after a bit of a spiel, goes on to give some great resources that “opened my eyes” at different times in my life.
They focus on areas of structural design, sailing, sail aerodynamics and touch on a bit more.
I built the Quick Canoe in a day and a half. This is way slower than some of my customers.
It is the first time I have been disappointed building a complete boat this quick.
The risk of high expectations!
But a day and a half with the problems I had is pretty good.
Another Quick Canoe built in less than a week. This time by Clinton.
He shows how quick and cheap the boat can be. Probably our friends from the Americas can build for about half this price for the same materials quality.
Fast building was part of the aim of this plan! Also to keep the expense down. Rick surprised me – I was thinking it would take a couple of weekends. The Quick canoe is very simple to build and comes out of three plywood sheets. A very simple plywood canoe It has been designed to be as easy to build as possible while keeping some of the qualities of a good paddling canoe – in particular the ability to track.
This podcast/mp3 talks about why Australian (and New Zealand) wooden boatbuilding is different from the rest of the world..
Click to listen to the talk. This is the third of three.
This is the second of my talks in the USA. It focuses a bit more on construction and some of the methods that can be used to keep a boat light and simple, but very strong and stiff.
It also discusses how there is a “creep” in boatbuilding and design that increases the weight of boats way over what is really needed for a strong structure.
We have moved much of our activity to the Facebook Groups. See the links in the Menu above. But there are so many great questions asked and discussed on the Oz Woodwork Forums..
How epoxies make boat building easy for amateurs compared to other glues that required tight fits and high clamping pressures. Read the specs on the containers!
Boatbuilding school report – 12 different projects and sometimes up to 30 people miilling around.
The projects were
Two different CLC (Chesapeake Light Craft) Kayaks
Four Iain Oughtred Clinker boats – Puffin, Fulmar, a pram and a Skerry Skiff.
A couple of John Welsford’s designs a dory and a Jeanette.
A Bolger Gypsy
A Murray Isles Coorong Traveller
and one of my OzRacers