Painting the 27ft Sportfisherman

The 27ft sportfisherman that Kevin Agee is building as an amateur project in Virginia is in the painting stage, with final finishing coats going on during the past two weeks. He is using an Alexseal paint system, from undercoats through to finishing coats.

A big bugbear for anyone trying to get a top quality high gloss finish, whether on a car, boat or almost anything else, is dust settling on the surface either during or immediately after spraying. It creates tiny imperfections in the finished surface that can be seen on very close inspection. Dust is in the air all the time, even though we don't see it unless the lighting is just right to highlight it. It is aggravated by painting in a workshop space where woodwork and sanding has been done because the dust produced will have settled on all horizontal and sloping surfaces and even on walls and other verticals. From there it goes back into the air when disturbed by any breeze or draft, including those created by the spray equipment.

Preparing for painting concentrated on making the work space as clean as possible. All tools and materials no longer needed for the final phase of the project were removed for storage elsewhere, partly to clear the work space and partly to remove all potential dust sources. Then the boat was towed out of the workshop before hosing down all surfaces of walls, ceiling, floor and steel structure with water to wash out all dust. All had to air-dry before any painting could begin because of the risk of drips from above.

See the captions of the photos for explanation of what is happening.

This is the final sanding of the finish primer. The turquoise color is a guide coat of food colouring in alcohol. It is sanded until no turquoise remains to ensure a smooth surface with all minor imperfections filled.

Finish primer has been sprayed over cockpit and deck surfaces and sanded, ready for finish coats.

Holes for hardware and instrumentation for the console have been cut and the items dry-fitted to check for good fit before preparing for finish coats.

Console, leaning post and access covers have been sprayed with finish coats. Beyond them is the hardtop, with the bottom facing into the shop. The bottom of the hardtop is the same colour as the hull, the rest of it white. The bottom will be sanded and prepared again because of perimeter imperfections where some masking tape adhesive remained after cleaning with alcohol. A stronger solvent is needed to remove all traces of adhesive.

Three coats of Etheral Blue Alexseal Premium Topcoat, sprayed to a nice gloss.

Transom and outboard bracket, sprayed the same colour as the rest of the hull.

Reflections in the hull side showing the high gloss finish. 

The fuel tank was delivered by the fabricator during the week. It has been pressure-tested and test-fitted into its compartment under the cockpit. Now it has been abraded all over with 220 grit paper, then acid-washed before painting with a heavy coating of epoxy barrier coat. This was all done with TotalBoat products.

The 110 gallon fuel tank, as delivered by the fabricator. It has two baffles, one running fore/aft on centreline and the other transverse at the midpoint. It has spigots for inlet, vent and two outlets, as well as fuel gauge sender unit. The corner brackets on the top are for bolting to the hull girders.

After abrading, acid-washing and drying, the tank is ready for painting.

Tank painted with a thick coating of TotalBoat epoxy barrier coat.

The next step will be to spray the cockpit and deck, so we covered the toerails with masking tape and draped the hull with plastic sheeting, to shield it from white over-spray.

Draped, ready for deck painting.

Kevin's boat is now only weeks away from completion. I will complete the drawings after launch and seatrials. Until then, see our other designs on our main website or our mobile website.

27 Sportfisherman Tower Begins

The 27ft Sprtfisherman being built by Kevin Agee in Seaford, Virginia, is moving into the final stages. Work has started on the tower, with the metalwork being done by professionals. Kevin has been working on the non-metal components that will be attached to it. I will let the photo captions tell the story.

Foam cored fibreglass roof  being laminated over the hoop of the tower. The hoop has been wrapped in plastic to keep it clean. At this stage the top surface has been glassed to set the camber.

Bottom of the roof, with trenching formed with a router for conduits and recessed lights.

Roof trimmed to final shape and pods added for aftdeck floodlights, almost ready for glassing.

Upper helm pod being glued up from Coosa board. This will be on a hinged crows nest that will fold down in front of the tower to reduce height for trailing.

Completed upper helm pod, ready for hardware and electronics, then mounting on the crows nest.

Hardware for cabin doors and hatch dry-fitted ahead of final finishing. All fastener holes for hardware are being drilled over-size, then filled with epoxy. The cured epoxy is then drilled for the fasteners, keeping the plywood or foam core sealed against leakage and rot.

The console has a recessed panel for key controls and switches, with a hinged cover. The sapele mahogany helm pod, shown in my previous blog entry about this boat, will be mounted to the left of the panel. Electronics will be mounted in the surface above the wheel.

Dry-fitting the trim tabs to the transom, below the wings of the engine bracket. They must be set at the correct height and angle to operate correctly.

The sapele mahogany toerail has been sanded and sealed with three coats of epoxy, Another three coats of epoxy to go, followed by 8-10 coats of varnish.

The bow capping of the toerail has worked out really nicely, hand-shaped from a section of sapele mahogany plank where the grain would sweep part-way around the corner.

This design won't be on our website until after Kevin's boat is in the water and sea trials have been completed. To see our other design, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Consoles of 27ft Sportfisherman

In my last post about Kevin Agee's 27ft sportfisherman project I was cutting the parts for the pod on which the helm will be mounted. Kevin glued the parts together while I was away at the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic Seaport, CT. Then last weekend I completed the shaping and sanding. Last week Kevin applied six coats of epoxy, to be followed by at least eight coats of varnish.

The helm pod, shaped with hand tools then sanded, ready to receive epoxy coatings.

Helm pod with the wheel in the approximate position.

The sapele helm pod with epoxy coatings. Many coats of varnish to come.

Kevin has been working on the anchoring system for the leaning post and console and on the hatches that will give access to the fuel tank plumbing connections. The tank will be anchored to the hull structure under a large removable flush panel in the deck below the console. Hinged plastic watertight access panels inside the console and leaning post are fitted into the flush panel for quick access.

Hinged wateright access panel over front of fuel tank, inside the console. A similar one is inside the leaning post, over the aft end of the tank.

The console and leaning post will be bolted to the deck with 2x2x1/4" aluminium angle brackets. These have been cut to fit the spaces, then acid washed before coating with aluminium primer/barrier coat, then paint. The aluminium tank will receive similar protective treatments.

2x2x1/4" Aluminium angle anchors for the leaning post and console, after acid-washing.

Now they have been coated with a sprayed aluminium primer/barrier coat.

Kevin has also laid out and cut the holes for the many rod holders that this boat will have in the sidedecks. Two on each side will serve as mounting positions for the rather nice bait board supplied by Stainless Boatworks in Australia. The others are angled incrementally to fan out the rods along each side.

Console and leaning post in position for checking fastener positions for bolting to the deck. Rod holder holes have been cut through the sidedecks.

This model of bait board has been supplied by Stainless Boatworks in Australia, dropping into rod holders in the sidedecks.

The holes for this hardware will be sealed with multiple layers of epoxy resin for waterproofing, before painting hull and deck.

This design is not on our website yet. See our other designs on our main website or our mobile website.

Woodwork of 27ft Sportfisherman

I haven't posted about Kevin Agee's 27ft sportfisherman project for more than a month but work has been continuing. I took some time off for camping, surfing and sailing at Cape Hatteras with my surf buddies but Kevin stayed hard at work, sanding to achieve that perfect paint finish that he wants. The whole boat is now one colour, the light cream of the final coat of high-build epoxy. Next will be the finish primer to seal the epoxy in preparation to receive the high gloss finish coats.

In the meantime, I have been working on the pretty bits, the woodwork that will be bright-finished to set them off from the painted surfaces. Kevin bought 9-10" wide sapele mahogany planks for the toerails, from which I was able to select sections with grain patterns to flow the grain around the curves of the bow. He also found a 12" wide plank of figured sapele mahogany for me to make the helm pod.

All one colour, of high-build epoxy.

Flush lid of the fish box. OK, I fibbed a little, the lid is still a different colour.

Shaping and dry-fitting the pieces of the toerail. Kevin and Michelle glued this next day. The parts slipping and sliding on wet glue made the gluing operation a lot less fun than my experience when dry-fitting.

The finished bow capping of the toerail. It has been glued, edges radiused and sanded to a smooth surface. My high school woodwork teacher, who gave me a failing grade, would not believe that I made these high quality wooden parts without his help.

Scarph joint between two sections of toerail

The completed toerail, awaiting epoxy coatings and varnish

Cutting the components of the helm pod. Once glued up the completed pod will be shaped to a softly rounded shape.

The helm bod will form the base on which the wheel will be mounted.

I will have another break from the boat this weekend while Dehlia and I exhibit our designs on the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic Seaport, Connecticut.

This design is not yet on our website but will be there as soon as plans are ready. That will be after the launch and seatrials. See our range of designs on our main website or our mobile website.

Finishing the 26ft Sportfisherman Cockpit

My previous post about Kevin Agee's 26ft Sportfisherman project showed the support structure of the foredeck, dry-fitted for a test fit. Then the timber members were removed and set aside to be glued in later. This was to make it easier to finish the inside of the cuddy cabin, without drawing blood from our scalps.

Kevin is working toward a high-quality standard of finish, as good as he can manage as an amateur builder. Over all of the fibreglassed and sand-papered interior surfaces of the cockpit and cuddy cabin he has sprayed two coats of high-build epoxy, followed by two coats of fairing compound applied by roller. Most of this fairing layer has been sanded off and will be covered by sprayed high-build epoxy, then finishing coats.

Cuddy Cabin with the fairing layer being sanded. The white spots are the high-build epoxy layer showing through as an indication that the sanding has gone as far as needed to fair the surface with minimal thickness of fairing.

These are the curly maple foredeck stringers and fiddles for the cuddy cabin seats, epoxy-coated and waiting to be glued in then varnished.

Insides of hull sides with fairing layer sanded (light brown) and low spots filled (dark brown), ready for final sanding. The plywood cutouts for the hatch openings were loosely in place to keep us from falling through the openings. Now they have been removed for trimming to size, then addition of the perimeter framing. 

Parts for the flush cockpit hatches. The plywood cutouts have been trimmed to give 5mm (3/16") clearance all around. The perimeter frames have halved joints on the corners, cut on a table saw. The stiffeners have been cut to fit clear of the gutters into which these hatch covers will fit.

The cover on the left has the perimeter frame and stiffener in the positions where they will be glued. After gluing, the sharp edges will be rounded off and a drip groove will be cut into the lower face, all to be done with a router.

This design is not yet on our website, I want to get this prototype nearer to completion so that any adjustments that we make during the build can be incorporated into the final drawings before I make them available for sale.

Sportfisherman 26 Bottom Skin Begins

This new offshore fishing boat being built by Kevin Agee in Hampton Roads, Virginia, is progressing nicely. It is entirely his build project and I get to do the drawings for it and to help out occasionally at weekends, sometimes offering guidance, other times supplying an additional pair of capable hands. I always return home after a day working on the boat feeling tired but happy with the progress.

Last weekend we did the last preparation work on the framing to receive the bottom skin, dry-fitting the plywood panels from stern to bow, fine-tuning bevel angles on frames, girders, keel and stem in the process. The bottom skin is two layers of 9mm plywood and this post is about fitting the first layer.

Kevin had already done most of the bevel work and dry-fitted two full sheet-lengths both sides, where the sheets fall nicely into place under gravity alone. The further toward the bow that we get, the greater the twist that the plywood must adopt. It doesn't do this readily and must be coaxed by various methods. There is only 3 degrees of change to the bottom angle (dihedral) in the aft half of the hull but there is 51 degrees of change in the forward half. This is to form an efficient planing surface aft, combined with bow sections that will give a soft ride into short seas, so the bottom has to twist to give the characteristics that we want.

The photo below shows some of the preparations that have been made to the structure ahead of fitting the bottom. The large member across the top of the photo is the keel, which has been planed at an angle to match the edge of the frame. There is a shallow saw-cut visible on the top of the keel, which is used, one on each side of the hull, to gauge the correct bevel angle. The intersection of the two cuts also shows exactly where the centreline of the keel is, needed when fitting the bottom panels. The white is a structural epoxy fillet to bond the frame to the keel, easier to do now than in the bottom of the bilge when the boat is right-way-up. The green semi-circle is a fibreglass pipe that has been cut in half and bonded into the edge of the frame. This is to form a scupper for bilge water that may get into the bottom of the hull. Each frame will have one of these scuppers fitted each side of the keel, to lead any water to the transom for draining or pumping.

The next photo shows the hull with the aft skin panels dry-fitted and the forward panels fitted on the starboard side and held by clamps. The port side, facing the camera, has the contact surfaces of all structure planed to the angles needed for the plywood to lay flat against them, to maximise the bond strength. Here the rapidly increasing dihedral angle toward the bow shows nicely.

This next one shows the other side of the hull, with the skin panels dry-fitted all the way to the bow. Whereas in the aft half of the bottom full 8ft sheets were used, further forward the sheets must be progressively reduced in length. This is because the longer the sheets the greater the internal stresses built up inside the sheets due to the twist, so short sheets accept the twist more easily. It is not a good idea to scarph all of the bottom panels together then trying to fit them in one piece. First, that single panel becomes very difficult to handle because of the size and weight, so it will need an army of helpers to manhandle it. Second, glue must be applied to the mating surfaces before the panel is finally fitted, so the glue will be an almighty mess by the time that the panel is properly in place.

Forward of the two 8ft sheets we fitted the next one as a half-sheet, so a 4ft sheet, which worked well. For the following sheet the 4ft length proved difficult, requiring a lot of clamping pressure to pull it in, so we cut it in half again, down to 2ft lengths. Those worked fine and also showed us how much stress can be built up in the plywood from the twist. Although the two plywood edges are straight when lying flat, the second sheet had to be spiled with a plane to fit against the first sheet, to compensate for approximately 3mm of curvature between the two edges. The 3mm curve is caused by stretching/shrinking of the material in the two panels from internal stresses. Due to the nature of wood, the internal stresses will relieve as the fibres take on a permanent deformation and assume the twist as their permanent form. Lamination of the next layer of plywood will also lock in the new shape.

In the process of dry-fitting the panels they must be trimmed to their final shape. Kevin cut the sheets to shapes that I provided in the form of full-size patterns but they must be fine-tuned along the centreline and chine for a perfect fit. Once that perfect fit has been achieved and the panel is securely clamped, it should have some locating screws fitted, which will assist greatly with getting it back into that exact position when gluing it into place, with slippery glue trying its best to put the panel anywhere other than where you want it to be.

In this next photo the forward sheets of the first side have been glued in place. The temporary screws with fender washers are holding the plywood securely against keel, stem and girders but the clamps have been left along the chine. The strips of plywood on waxed paper across the joints in the middle of the panels are there to align the joints in case some glue has found its way into the joints; we don't want it to glue the edges misaligned.

This one shows the forward sheets of the second side glued on. This is when the previously pre-drilled screw holes to locate the sheets become very important. With the opposite side already skinned, clamps can't be used to position the plywood before any screws are fitted. This is a two-person job, with one person holding the sheet close enough to the framing for the first two locating screws to be fitted, then the other screws follow in a logical order to pull the sheet back into its proper position.

The aft sheets were glued on by Kevin and a friend during the week. The photo below shows the completed first layer of the bottom skin.

And the last job is cleaning up the glue that has squeezed out of the joints and runs down the structure. It is worthwhile to do this removal of excess epoxy as a matter of course throughout the build. If it is left to be cleaned later then the epoxy will be cured, difficult to remove and likely to break out pieces of plywood in the process. Trimming off when soft will save some hassle later.

This design is not yet complete, so is not on our pricelist or website. See our full range of designs on our main website or our mobile website.

Chine Stringers for Our Sportfisherman 26

Continuing with the 26ft sportfisherman project, the next step is to fit the chine stringers. This boat has a chine step that will be planked with Douglas fir strip. On the inboard edge of the step there is a stringer to support the outboard edge of the plywood bottom skin. These stringers fit into slots in the bulkheads and are housed at their ends into the transom and the stem.

That sounds like a simple process and for most of the hull length it is simple. Toward the bow it becomes more difficult because each stringer has to twist to follow the bottom panel and bend to follow the chine. It takes considerable power to pull that twist into the stringer as it goes into place.

The stringers also have to pass through the forward ends of the girders, with slots fashioned to fit the stinger path. The shapes of the slots through the girders are not easy to establish, so there is considerable work with saw, chisel and rasp to form the slots and filled epoxy is needed to fill in the inevitable gaps.

The end result is good. The photos and captions show the process.

The slots through which the stringer must pass on its way to the stem. The slot shape only applies on one surface of the bulkhead or girder, which must be used as a guide for shaping the bevel angles for the stringer through each member. In these photos the light coloured bulkheads are temporary formers, the darker ones are permanent and the horizontal members are the girders.

The slots through the temporary former and the girder have been shaped and the stringer is a reasonable fit. The upper edge of the girder will be bevelled to match the bottom skin, which will bring it into the same plane as the outer face of the stringer.

This photo shows how to establish the bevel shape of the stem to match the hull skin, also giving the front edge of the stringer when housed into the stem in the correct position. The stringer is now in the bulkhead slots but is short of the aft face of the stem, so it is lying at the correct angle relative to the stem. The saw is used to cut into the stem, down to the point that the saw teeth are touching the outer face of the stringer. The resulting saw cut is an extension of the line of the stringer.

The socket to receive the end of the stinger is easily made with a saw and a chisel. Housing it in like this is a stronger option than simply gluing and screwing to the side of the stem.

The socket for the aft end of the stringer in the transom is done in similar manner to the one in the stem. 

The stringer glued into its slots, passing through bulkheads and girders. The blue painters tape is there as a bond breaker to prevent adhesion where it is not wanted.

Here you can see how we pulled the twist into the stringers. We fitted the two in parallel, gluing both in the difficult twisted bow sections first before moving aft on one, then the other. The clamps are holding the twist in the forward ends, with the clamps lashed together with ropes pulled tight to provide the torque needed.

Stringers showing fair curves and securely lashed until the epoxy has fully cured.

The next stage of building will be to prepare the bottom framing to receive the bottom skin, by planing bevel angles on bulkheads, girders, keel and stem.

This design is not yet complete, so is not on our pricelist or website. See our full range of designs on our main website or our mobile website.