Wubwails

Nothing is more exciting than installing the inwhales and wubwails.

Well, actually, there are 3 things that are more exciting...

1. Throwing the cat down the laundry chute
2. Shopping for socks
3. Huffing epoxy
4. Sticking your tongue to a metal fence post when it is -40° outside
5. Sex with a Sarah Palin blow-up doll
6. Chewing your toe nails
7. Tearing the labels off of all the canned foods in your house so your wife can't tell beans from tomato sauce
8. Anything that gets you banned from the petting zoo
9. Going door-to-door and telling your neighbors that you are a registered sex offender
10. Timing a joke so soda pop comes out your kid's nose
11. Shaking all of the beer cans in the refrigerator 2 minutes before dad gets home from work.
12. Watching dad beat your little brother for shaking the beer cans, and
13. Wet T-shirt contests.

But, other than those 3 things, nothing is more exciting than installing the inwhales and wubwails.

In my Project Slowdown post I described how I scarphed and glued 8-foot strips into 20-foot strips for the inwhales and wubwails.

Final sanding of inwhales and wubwails

Before installing the inwhales and wubwails, I sand 2 faces. Then I use a router to round the corner between the 2 faces.

The 2 faces that I sand are the bottoms, which will be difficult to access once the inwhales and wubwails are glued to the side panels, and the exposed sides (inside face of inwhales and outside face of wubwails).

There is no need to sand the gluing surface since it will never be seen and a rough surface will yield a better bond to the side panel.

There is no need to sand the tops since they will be sanded flush with the side panel as part of the final sanding of the boat.



Fitting of inwhale

I prefer to sand and route outdoors so the little dust particles don't get all over the shop.

The inwhales will be clamped and screwed for gluing. It doesn't matter how many screws or where they go since the wubwails will cover the screw holes.

Whenever I use screws for clamping, after the epoxy cures, I remove the screws for re-use. I use stainless steel screws because epoxy does not stick well to stainless steel and every once in a while the screw does not come out and must be left behind.




Lining up the inwhale for screwing and clamping



Screwed and clamped inwhale, ready for gluing

 

 

Screws in place, masking tape to keep excess and dripped
epoxy off of the side panel

 

 

Adding silica powder.

I use thickened epoxy for gluing. I start by mixing epoxy resin and hardener. Then I add silica powder and mix it up. Then I add wood flour and mix until the mixture has the consistency and flavor of peanut butter.

Don't get the silica powder confused with your cocaine. The silica powder burns like hell.

 



Adding wood flour









Buttering the side panel with thickened epoxy

When I butter up the side panel with thickened epoxy, I use enough epoxy so that excess epoxy will be squeezed out by the clamps and screws. That way I know I have enough epoxy and I leave no voids in the joint.



 

  I screw and clamp a few feet of the inwhale.

Screwing and clamping

I scrape off the excess epoxy that is squeezed out and use the excess to butter a few more feet of side panel.

 

I work my way down the length of the boat.

I butter 4 feet of side panel, clamp and screw 2 feet of inwhale, scrape off the excess epoxy and butter a few more feet of side panel, clamp and screw 2 more feet of inwhale, so on and so forth.


Wubwails are easier to glue onto the side panels since they go on the outside and will hang away from the side panel for easy buttering.




Wubwail masked and ready for gluing

However, any screws used for clamping the wubwail will be exposed in the final boat. I used 5 screws for each wubwail, just enough to assure that the wubwail stays in the right place during clamping. The screw holes will be plugged with thickened epoxy after the screws are removed.





Wubwail clamped

Inwhale and wubwail installed. The ugly top
surface will be sanded smooth later.

 

 

The cool thing about installing the inwhales and wubwails is that after the epoxy cures, the boat is structurally complete. You can then lift it to see how stiff and how heavy, or in this case how light, the boat is.

 

The RevolutionPly plywood that I used for the bottom and side panels is very light-weight and working out really nicely.

 

 

Wasn't that exciting?

 

 

 

 



 

I have been saving my used epoxy mixing containers.

If I ever get out of prison I will use them to decorate my room at the halfway house.