The 511 putty comes in 2 parts: the resin and hardener, both premixed with a certain kind of thickening agent (filler), one has a dark gray and one has a yellowish color. Just stir them until you have a consistent light gray, highly viscous mixture. Since the hull and deck are tied to the framing boxes, I can easily slant the boxes to get the putty cured into the exact position, resulting into very clean seam lines. No need to use duct tapes to mask the lines though.

Fill the seams, wait for the putty to cure, cut the wires, then fill the remaining, repeat that for both the hull and deck parts. My precautious nature steps in as always, I made the seam lines of the hull much bolder and thicker, while the deck has very thin lines only. It’s easy, but it would take a few days to finish all these glueing tasks. After this, I would dry fit the two halves, to see if they match each other well, and to produce an initial impression of the final product also!

I recall glueing the seams of Hello World – 1, my first build. I used a small masonry trowel to apply the putty, about 1/2″ thick, and epoxy is all messing around. Now it’s much tidier and cleaner, and I don’t even need a pair of gloves and just work with my bare hands. Well, lots of little know – hows, skills and experiences that you could never learn if you don’t just really do it. About this time last year, I was so doubtful if I could even finish myself a boat, now it’s (almost) the third!

A bit off topic here, but the thinking has been in my mind for a long time. About educational methodology, they’ve been arguing all the time, about knowledges, information, attitudes, practices, etc… But for me, it works a different way: if you want someone to build a boat, show him / her the immense beauty of the sea. Similarly, you don’t have to learn all those maths and algorithms to become a good coder, seek the inspiration in something else, e.g: the art of hand writing calligraphy!

The game of paper cutting and glueing again! The efforts of building all those framing box and temporary spacing bulkheads now come into fruition, seeing the bilges fit perfectly, not any noticeable gaps between them. All temporary bulkheads fits well to the hull and gives you an assured feeling that the boat is taking a good shape. It’s a real pleasure to see things properly executed and the building quality is under your control.

I use smaller wires and drill smaller holes into the bilges’ edges, as the 4 mm ply need less fastening force compared to the 5 mm one. The ugly thing about the “Stitch and Glue” method is that there’re so many small holes to be drilled into the hull, about 250 for this Hello World – 3, and later, you would need to check and re – fill each of the holes before glassing, a tedious task indeed. The bevelled edges leave a good space for putty to go into, making very clean seam lines.

Contrary to my initial thought, the sharp edges stand together pretty well, they need some adjustments, some dots of Cyano Acrylate glue here and there, and some little wires fastening too. But overall, both the deck and hull part shapes are very satisfactory to me. My boat building workshop has been becoming too overcrowded and cramped with three boats, and many kinds of machineries, to get some good shots showing off the boat shapes. Oh, those gorgeous curves and shapes!

I proceed slowly as I would have little free time this week: check the geometries, fasten the wires, then glue the seams. I use a good local epoxy putty called: 511. The 511 came into my favor since it has long curing time, don’t have to worry about epoxy burning in pot anymore (it’s a real problem in hot tropical climate). It also has a constant viscosity giving you a consistent, predictable working behaviors (unlike the fillet I manually mixed with wood flour, which differ from time to time).

The S & G Night Heron plan calls for beveling the bilges’ edges, and I follow it exactly, the bevels will help forming the boat shape more precisely, and also help to strengthen the putty joints. At first, I intended to use my routers to do the edges’ beveling, but switch to the frequently – used angle grinder instead. With the angle grinder, it’s harder to do the job, but it allows you to adjust the angle along the bilges, it’s steeper toward the boat’s aft and bow.

Next, I would add several layers of ‘penetrating epoxy’ onto the joined planks. This is my own experience in dealing with plywood, epoxy, and glassing. ‘Penetrating epoxy’ is nothing more than epoxy (with slow hardener, the B5) thinned with a solvent, I use xylene, which works best for me, mixed in 4/6 ((resin + hardener) / solvent) ratio. The plywood I could find here in Saigon is usually not of very high quality, I can see it absorb lots of thinned epoxy cause the veneer is so porous.

Using a slow hardener plus a solvent (applied in 3, 4 layers) causes the epoxy to cure slowly, usually within 12 ~ 18 hours. This prolonged time allows the plywood to absorb a significant amount of epoxy, and hence strenghthen the veneer. I estimate that the ‘penetrating epoxy’ adds up about 1 ~ 1.2 kg to the boat’s final weight, but that also helps glassing in the next steps to be more clean and strong, no more ‘white spots, white areas’ in fiberglass cause the wood is already well – saturated.

‘As usual’, I have the unpleasant feeling working with these long, narrow stripes of plywood. At this stage, they are very fragile and delicate, easy to break at any moment. But all would gradually build up strength once stitched together into a structure, have the seams filled with putty, and especially after being reinforced with fiberglass and epoxy. Nevertheless, it’s a very good feeling at this step to see the boat takes its initial shape, I work first on the hull, then proceed to the deck part.

Initially, I’d planned to use dovetail joint (or finger joint) to combine the plywood pieces together, but after cutting them, the 4 mm ply is quite thin and fragile to work on, so decided to use scarf joints instead. I used this Bosch laminate trimmer to remove 2 mm of ply on the surfaces, apply the TiteBond 2 glue, then clamp them together overnight. The Bosch fixed base router is an excellent tool, easy to adjust the bit’s depth, small enough to be handled comfortably.

I’ve finished the scarf joints with almost no mistake. Next I would slightly sand the joints, bevel the edges, then apply a few layers of thinned epoxy (epoxy mixed with xylene solvent, that is what they call ‘penetrating epoxy’, more about this in the next post). A layer of fiberglass with un – thinned epoxy over the joints would make the scarf joints strong enough. Some notes about epoxy below, and I hope the information would be useful for anyone having to work with the resin in Vietnam.

There’re several kinds of epoxy resin, the ‘component A’, but for most tasks, the vendors will sell you the correct, most – frequently – used one, just say ‘epoxy resin’ and they will understand. For the ‘component B’, or the hardener, there’re at least 3 types that I know, named (after the local nomenclature): TETA, B5 and T31 (guess they’re the abbreviations of some chemical formulas). The TETA can be called the fast hardener, would cure within a few dozen minutes (in tropical weather).

TETA can be mixed by any ratio from 1/1 to 10/1 by weight (I usually mix in the 2/1 ~ 5/1 range), it produces a very hard but brittle output. The B5 can be called the slow hardener, it takes hours to cure, and need to be mixed at the exact 2/1 ratio. B5 produces a hard, but flexible result, with very little bubbles (but it’s more expensive than the TETA), also it has to be stored in the dark to remain its chemical behaviors. Both has a light ammonia odor. For the T31, I haven’t tried to say anything about it.

Having put no pressure on a launch day, I spend my free time thinking over about the implementation details, trying to apply lessons learnt from my previous boats. From what I’ve learnt from the internet, boat building forums, books… to the reality is a quite different thing. Here in Vietnam, the materials, tools are not the same, no West System epoxy, no marine grade plywood, no good carbon fiber, even the vendors don’t know what is S – class fiberglass.

“The epoxy can be mixed at any ratio”, said the seller, no reliable way to mix paints to the correct desired colors, etc… even the “words”, the “terminologies” used to communicate between the seller and buyer is kind of mess, no standard, no common understanding. Well, a bit off topic here but, Vietnam has always been a very bizarrely unorthodox country, anyone has the same thinking as me!? At least I’ve been feeling so ever since I was 17, 18 years old or even younger.

Hence, my boat building progress has been a tedious learning curve, as I have no trustable standards here, and many trials and fails have to be done. Anyhow, after 2 builds, I’m quite confident now, to start the third boat that I think will meet my quality standards. Begin to measure, draw, and cut of the plywood today, then joining the parts together, then stitch them up. Stitch and Glue is no longer a challenger for my skills now, maybe with the next boat, I’ll try another different building method.

But that’s another thing, just concentrate on the building of Hello World – 3 for now, simple things that need to be properly executed! In total, 22 pieces cut, and 15 joints need to be made just for the hull and deck. The overall structure of this kayak is like nutshell, you will be building 2 halves, then stitch them together. Cutting only takes me half a day, but joining will take considerably much more time. I used 4 mm plywood for both the hull and deck, as I had difficulty purchasing the 3 mm ones.

I am making a slow start, working mainly on the implementation plan. It’s better to think out all building details beforehand carefully and thoroughly. Unlike a software project though, which is more flexible, in a hardware project, you would have little chance to correct something that went wrong, or correcting it would cost much time, effort, materials… There’re many things to be considered, and require experiences to get done right! One important concern is weight.

HW – 1 weighs at 35 kg, HW – 2 is roughly 30 kg. With my previous two boats, and with my inexperiences, I did put lots more materials into the building, hoping for strength, but they turned out to be really heavy indeed. If HW – 3 could be built at 20 kg, it’s a great success! Imagine that your boat is 10 kg lighter, and that 10 kg saved could be used for additional food, drink on longer trips! And of course, the weight saving should come without any compromisation on quality and durability!

HW – 3 is a really complicated boat, the hull will be stitched together with 4 plywood bilges , while the deck has 5 main bilges. And since the 5.5 m hull length exceeds twice the standard plywood sheet length (2.44 m), there will be 2 joints in each of the hull’s bilges, which I’ve decided to be dovetail joints to further reduce weight and increase strength. In all, every parts of this boat will be more complicated (compared to my previous boats), and hence requires ‘astute’ planning and execution.

Below, I’m building the two halves (hull and deck) of the framing box that would help forming the kayak from plywood planks into the precise desired shape! With the new air compressor and nail gun and glue, all these frames are just quick and easy task which takes just several hours to complete. I’ve switched to using the excellent TiteBond 2 wood glue instead of other normal Polyvinyl Acetate (PVA), which has much better water resistance capability.

All preparations is almost finished, to “lay the keel” and start the building of Hello World – 3, my next boat, a Nick Schade designed, 18 feet (5.55 m) S&G Night Heron sea kayak. Many would ask why building another boat, while I’ve already had the Hello World – 1 & 2. Actually, HW – 1 is just a simple, slow canoe for poking around, HW – 2 is a recreational kayak suitable only for short trips, as proved in my last paddling to Vũng Tàu in June this year.

First, consider some facts, many of Vietnam islands are around 100 km off from shore. Phú Quý island is about 85 km from Mũi Né, Phan Thiết; Phú Quốc island is 110 km from Rạch Giá, Hà Tiên; Thổ Chu island is another 100 km from the southern most point of Phú Quốc; Côn Đảo island is about 95 km from Hậu Giang estuary, Sóc Trăng; Bạch Long Vỹ island is also 100 km from Cát Bà, Hải Phòng… Some are nearer such as: Cồn Cỏ, Chàm, Lý Sơn islands… all around 30 km.

Second, consider some other facts. If your sustained paddling speed is around 5 ~ 6 kmph, it’s not really possible to reach those islands, at least with a coastal – cruising small kayak which is, by design, not suited for multi – days sea crossing without resting, 14 ~ 16 hours of continuous paddling is almost the upper limit for an average man like me, after which you would need a good sleep to recover. Obviously a boat capable of sustaining 8 ~ 9 kmph and beyond is very much needed.

Third, is the target of 100 ~ 110 km in 24 hours really feasible!? The answer is: ça dépend! It depends on too many things: the weather, the wind, waves, the current, the temperature, all of the unknown factors. And for the known factors: your boat, your equipments, your physical preparation, your planning and strategy… all need to be the – very – best – of – class to push the limits and reach the target. That’s why I would invest lots of time and efforts into the building of this HW – 3 kayak.

Day after day, I gradually… felt in love with my new kayak. Although quite sturdily and heavily built (around 32 kg), it behaves well on water. The longer and thiner hull offers much better speed (compared to Hello World – 1), but the most important thing is that the hull shape provides and maintains sufficient “kinetic energy” for the boat to make sustainable headway into unfavorable winds and waves!

The added retractable skeg works perfectly! Within the storage compartment lies the skeg box, which houses a 30 cm skeg blade that can be controlled (lowered or raised) via a steel wire which runs into the cockpit on the right of my seat. With winds coming from astern, the skeg is lowered to reduce the boat’s drifting and yawing, or when waves are large, the skeg helps reducing rolling motion.

I now have the excellent Fein Multimaster oscillating tool into my woodworking collection. Watch a demo video here to see what the wonderful Multimaster can do. There’re some other accessories needed for this Hello World – 2: a paddle, a hand pump… For the paddle, it’s the first time I experiment with carbon fiber fabric, it seems to be very solid, but I need to learn more to get the most out of this special material!

The hand pump is quite simple indeed, it takes just a couple of hours to get it done. Two check valves (one way valves), some PVC parts, and a toilet pump (available at most super market). The hand pump is a crucial accessory for my kayak, as now it’s turned into rainy season, and as I’m paddling into rougher water. There’re some more accessories to be made and tested, before… the voyage begin!

From the outlook, she gonna be a nice boat with simple and sporty curves! I proceed slowly and carefully, as I intend to use this boat for white – water (near coastal) areas, where it gonna be rougher and wavier, compared to the almost – calm rivers around Saigon. It need to be ‘engineered’ with a focus on durable & strength!

6.     Canopy

It is extremely hard to bend the 5mm plywood into the curvy shape of the canopy (I used 5mm for convenience cause I’d bought 8 sheets of them, I should have used 3mm instead). The ply cracks a bit at the bow section, forcing me to apply a layer of fiberglass to repair and reinforce. Also, I would need to change the painting plan to better conceal the faults!

7.     Coaming & hatch

Finished the canopy part, now the jobs of fixing the plywood cracks, fitting the cockpit coaming, the hatch and its locks, sealing the compartments to be water – tight, installing the seat… lots of miscellaneous jobs. Still some way to go, but I’m already very excited to see the desired watercraft taking shape!

8.     Glassing

I was considering over and over again about whether to glass the hull or not, cause glassing will add more weight into the boat, which is quite heavy already (estimated final weight at about 25 kg). Eventually decided to glass still (stiffness is important out there in rougher water), plus an additional layer of glass at the bow & aft sections.

9.     Painting

I chose quite an unusual color scheme which diverges from my favorite colors of blue & white, I just feel that this boat needs something bold and strong, so I go with black & white, plus the wooden color of the canopy. The result is quite satisfying, at least to my eyes, now I know why this model’s code name is: Dart!

10.     Finishing

It takes some more time to finish this boat: the seat mattress, deck lashing lines, hatch’s lock, and some decorations: boat name and contact information, and boat’s eyes of course. Some more accessories need to be built for this boat, but that would be after then, can’t wait until launching and trialling this beautiful kayak!

Six months have passed since I’d started Hello World – 1, my first build, a general purpose canoe. Now it’s time to let this planned Hello World – 2 to say Hello to the world. She gonna be a kayak (of Selway Fisher’s Dart 14′ design), which I hope to have better performance and somewhat better ‘open – water’ capabilities.

1.     DRAW & CUT

Having gained much experiences from the building of Hello World – 1, I’m expecting Hello World – 2 to be finished in 2, 3 weeks or so. Apart from the canopy, the underpart of this kayak requires only 4 bilges (compare to 7 of the previous build), which would ease and speed up the progress. I did all drawing, cutting & joining in a single day.

2.     TRIM & JOIN

After cutting, pairs of bilges are clamped together (port & starboard) and trimmed to the same shape. Then simple butt joints with additional ribbons of plywood would do the job of joining to the full length of 14 feet (~ 4.2 m). All these joints would be hidden inside the hull under the canopy anyhow, so I don’t really care if they look good or not.

3.     STITCH

Stitching does not take much time indeed, there’re only 4 bilges to put together. The hull is simpler, the plywood is easier to bend too. I guess more hard work would come with the canopy part, but for now, I’m really pleased to see the hull quickly take initial shape. Check geometries, fasten the wires, then come to the next step!

4.     GLUE

More and more hands – on with epoxy and fillet. I think the suitable mixing ratio is somewhere between 1:3 and 1:5. That is (applied for), in Saigon, there’s no West System’s epoxy or such things, what I can find is kind of ‘raw chemicals’. Also, humidity greatly affects epoxy curing, avoid working when it rains. Absolutely keep acetone from the messing in!

5.     Bulkheads, deck’s beams, stringers & gunwales

At this point, I decided to change the original design. The fore and aft sections are water – tight compartments serving as flotations, next to the aft section is the added storage compartment with hatch, to store gears for, e.g: a weekend trip, and cockpit in the middle. There’re so many small details to be cared of at this step…

Boating progress has been stagnated lately… But really I’m interested in experimenting with rowing, another way of propelling the boat besides paddling. Rowing can help building other groups of your muscles, it could produce more torque to push the canoe forward under unfavourable wind and current conditions, it should increase sustainable speed significantly, furthermore, it’s good for long – range tandem trips: with two hands aboard, ones can take turn to row and to rest. First, I make a pair of 8 feet oars: 5 planks of wood is glued and screwed together to form the oar’s handle and blade. Next is scraping and planing them into their final shapes using my new, very useful tool: a power planer. Then the 4 feet 8 inches outrigger and flotations.

For the oars, I use a lighter wood, Vietnamese name: thao lao (Lagerstroemia calyculata Kurz); the white, fine grain wood traditionally used for building paddle, oar and rudder. Having density at about 0.9 (900 kg/m³), the wood is not as heavy and hard as căm xe (Xylia xylocarpa), but resists better to water. The oars handles’ ends would be attached with short aluminium tubes, which serve two purposes: 1. lengthen the oars to the full length of 2.4m (8 feet) and 2. the hollow tubes will be casted with about 1.5kg of lead each, to better balance the oars once they’re put onto the oarlocks, and hence reduce rowing effort. I’d also decided to use ready – made plastic fishing buoys for flotations, to make the outrigger construction simpler and easier.

Today, I took Hello World – 1 to dry dock for inspection, maintenance and more fitting. After almost 2 months on open water and under direct sunlight, mistakes in the building phase have been shown: 2, 3 small cracks on the outer fiberglass and epoxy layer at bottom aft, water has leaked into the aft watertight compartment (about a gallon), and the paint has been scratched at places… Also, I should have taken more care on the canoe’s storage and usage. Now I need to make some repairs: find the seal the leaks, repaint some small areas, lower the seats to improve stability, before being able to fit the rowing kit and other miscellaneous accessories: cleat and anchor, the light pole… It could take the next 2, 3 days to finish all these things!

Today, we tested the preliminary rowing kit, the result is very unsatisfactory, but somewhat encouraging still. I’ll need to rethink about the designs, various flaws are spotted and to be rectified: the oars are too long and heavy, the oar locks are placed too low that they limit the rowing movements, flotations are not done yet… The only promising thing is that speed would surely get a huge improve, we was expecting to be able to sustain somewhere around 4, 5 knots (7 ~ 9 km/h), a great advantage (compared to paddling) for long – range cruising. But that would be the jobs of the coming (Lunar) new year, for now, all boating works will be temporarily suspended, as I’ve already got in my TODO list many other stuffs which have higher priority.

The canoe construction has reached about 3/4 of the overall progress, but there’s still much work ahead. Lots of small errors and mistakes made here and there, lots of lessons learned, but I’m happy to see the general status of the canoe standing well. Since I’ve put more materials (epoxy, fiberglass, hard wood…) into the boat, its final weight might far exceed the projected 20 kg, but that’s not very important anyhow. If it’s too heavy to be easily carried on one’s back, I’ll make a simple carriage to help moving the thing (with my bicycle) around then! Although designed to be mostly a solo canoe, for now I see it can easily accommodate two persons and some little gears, making it a nice weekend fishing canoe very soon in the next 10 days or so!

10.     SEATS

One of the most important things when go paddling for extended time is… the seat. If you spend several hours mostly with your upper body in action while the lower part doesn’t move much, you’ll understand why a comfortable seat is very much needed. I’m gonna install two seats, to prepare the boat in tandem configuration. Usually, seats are just mounted (hang) against a single bilge, but I think that installation is too weak. Instead, I will make 4 legs to support a seat, each leg also serves to link 3 bilges together, hence strengthen the boat overall rigidity. It could take some times to cut and install the 8 legs into the correct shapes and positions, but if done properly, the boat structural strength would be much improved, that’s worth the efforts.

11.     PAINT

Next comes the job of painting… Unlike the old – day, one – part paint, which is simple to use, today two – part PU (polyurethanes) offers superior properties, but is more complex to work with. First I would need to sand the hull at 120 grit in preparation, then apply two layers of primer, sanding after each layer (150 & 180 grit), then apply two other layers of main coats, then briefly sanding again at 240 grit, finally a topcoat of gloss. In total: 5 layers of paint and 4 times of sanding are required for the interior and exterior, a huge pile of work. I allocate 5 days (could be more) just for this painting job! Actually, I don’t expect a really fine, shiny finish, and the topcoat would only be semi – gloss (or even satin – gloss), it just need to be smooth, that’s already good enough for me.

12.     FINISH

There’re still many small jobs that need to be done to finish the canoe: polish and varnish the naked wooden parts, cut and stick the decal decorations (boat name, owner’s contact information and especially the boat eyes, a must – have, intrinsic part of Vietnamese boats); apply the topcoat (a semi – gloss on top of the decals to protect them from the weather), adjust and fit the two seats, fit two handles at two ends to help lifting the boat… and some other miscellaneous items (styrofoam fenders…) I intend to build also a simple trailer (some wooden planks with two small wheels) to reduce the burden of moving a 35 kg mass on longer distances. Thinking like if I can wait one and a half month to get the boat done, I can wait a few more days to go paddling in it!

Having worked with epoxy resin when setting up the workshop, I’ve gained some experiences with it. When mixing component A & B together, the pot time is so short in tropical climate, as the rule states that: reaction time is reduced by half when room temperature increased by 10° Celsius, I usually have less than 3, 4 minutes before it hardens. The average day temperature in Saigon this season is around 33° ~ 36°, it makes a tedious task working with epoxy, quite many times did the mixed epoxy burn hot into smoke before I can use it all. Epoxy also exhibits the characteristic of a “chain reaction”: it easily burns hot when the mixing weigh exceeds a “critical mass” of just 30 grams or so (depending on temperature), forcing me to mix into smaller batches.

7.     GLASSING

Finally, I devised a trick to cope with the situation: before mixing, I put the components A & B into the fridge for an hour, to cool them down and lengthen reaction time, giving me more time and flexibility. Also, I would glass at night to avoid the higher day temperature. For the fiberglass fabric, I can only find cloth of 1m width at the current time, not enough to cover the whole canoe’s beam, but decided to proceed with it anyhow. The missing part will be left as is for the interior, and will be covered by other fiberglass pieces for the exterior. Though glassing would add about 2 ~ 2.5 kg to the final boat weight (just estimate, I use 6 oz, or 200 gram/m² cloth), it would re – enforce the hull with more stiffness, anyhow this is my first build and rigidity is a bigger concern over weight.

8.     FITTING

The hull is now completed, the next step involves many small works that help building up the boat structurally: fit the forward and aft bulkheads (I decided to seal the water – tight compartments permanently and not to use hatches for later maintenance), fit the inner gunwales, fit the forward and aft thwarts, then fit the outer gunwales, then fit three bottom runners (to protect the boat when touching ground), and some other miscellaneous works. It seems there’s alway more effort and time spent in each step than I originally planned, partly because I’m an inexperience first – time boat – builder, partly cause I want to do it carefully to learn and improve my skills. It’s just like when you go on long – range paddling: don’t think about the destination, concentrate on each steps!

9.     MORE FITTING

For the gunwales, thwarts, seats… my chosen wood was a very hard and heavy tropical one, Vietnamese name: căm xe (Xylia xylocarpa) and the choice was not quite right. Having density at 1.15 (1150 kg/m³), the wood is too hard to bend into desired shapes, it’s even hard to saw or to chisel. I was thinking of setting up boiling devices to steam and bend the wood, but it requires much more effort, so finally I decided simply to compromise and change the design: instead of “flush decks” at bow and aft, I lower them a bit to fit with the “sunken” gunwales. Also, I’m worrying that this wood would add much more weight into the boat. On the plus side, hard wood makes the boat more sturdy, and if done right, its grain and colour would be very nice after polishing and varnishing.

I was having quite lots of work, those coding stuffs, and suddenly I recall a popular joke of the IT field: Question: how many software engineers does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: none, it’s a hardware problem!. Plus the burden of many nameless tasks of the canoe building, sometimes I feel a bit tired. But occasionally on the way back to my workshop, I stop on the bridge, look out the wide scenes on the river. Boats of all kinds and sizes come and go, waves gently flapping the banks, the tide quietly rises and lowers, and the breezes murmur into my ears a long – forgotten melody: Moon river, wider than a mile, I’m crossing you in style, some day… And I felt that, the rivers are calling, they are calling me… To the next steps of the boat project…

4.     STITCH

This gonna be a fun part cause it resembles a kid’s game when he/she just cuts pieces of paper and stitches them together with glue. Forming the boat hull from plywood planks is much the same way, on a larger scale, hence the boat construction method named: stitch and glue. Starting from the center bilge, I drill 2.5 mm holes at 22 ~ 24 cm intervals to stitch the next 2 pairs of bilges together using short pieces of steel wire. Then I fit the forward and aft bulkheads, also the center mold, then stitch the final upper bilges. Let take a look at this photo album to see in details, how, in just a couple of hours, the hull gradually takes shape. It’s really fascinating to have completed this step, it produces the first impression on how my canoe would eventually look like!

5.     GLUE

The bilges are just temporarily hold in place by steel wires, next is to permanently glue the seams with thickened epoxy. I used a mixture of silica and wood flour (the collected sanding dust) to thicken epoxy, then apply to the seams with a small masonry trowel. The two sides of a seam are covered with duct tape in advance so that epoxy won’t mess around, and duct tape is removed when epoxy half cures, leaving a clean fillet line. The next steps are glueing the bow and stern sections, cutting steel wires, filling remaining empty slots, then turning the hull over and do the same thing on the exterior side. There’s actually not much work, but it require leaving epoxy overnight for it to completely cure before glueing more, it gonna take the next few days to finish this step.

6.     SANDING

Now the labour – intensive task of sanding (even with the help of power tools). But first, I would need to fair the seams’ fillet curves a bit with the angle grinder using 60 grit sand paper. Then fill all drilled holes left by the steel wires, then proceed with the random orbital sander through 3 levels of fineness: 80, 100 and 120 grit. Since the glueing was a bit messy, it puts more work into this step, to really smoothen the hull’s surfaces before being able to move to the next step. Sand the hull, wipe out all dust, sand again with finer sand paper, repeat 3 times and for both outside and inside, that means: lots of work, given that next week would be a busy week for me with my job! But those “gorgeous curves” gave me lots of joy and encouragement on the to – be – finished – product!

My first boat project now officially starts! I’ve been thinking about building my own boat for a very long time, but still couldn’t arrange for it. Now, just have to stop daydreaming about “the ultimately – beautiful watercraft of my life” and roll up my sleeves. Given my poor woodworking skill set, after lots of consideration, I’d decided to start with a simple design and construction method, a 12 feet (3.66 m) Selway Fisher’s Asymmetric Baby Raven, intended to be my general purpose / fishing canoe with the given name: Hello World – 1. In the upcoming blog entries, I will try to keep a log on the building progress, which is expected to finish within a month or so, cause I would mostly work at weekends, and some limited hours in the weekdays.

1.     PREPARATION

It took almost 3 weeks to make all necessary preparations: building myself a table and a shelf to store tools and materials, a simple workbench to work with the boat on. Also, I built a bed, a smaller shelf and a chair, all of the simplest kinds, as household objects. That is to get myself familiarised with woodworking, gain some experiences with wood, epoxy, fiberglass fabric… There were lots of new stuffs for me, whose hands have rarely touched those kinds of job before. Anyhow, my small workshop setup is now basically completed: hand saw and power jig saw, a drill kit, random orbital sander, a disc cutter, hand plane, chisels, clamps, pincer, hammer… paint, brushes and rollers… I even have a small electronic scale to help epoxy resin mixing more accurate.

2.     CUT

It’s easy to find exterior – grade plywood to WBR (Water and Boil Proof) standard, but it’s hard to find really – good exterior – grade, not to mention marine – grade ones. First, many of the so called “water resistant plywood” out there in Vietnam market use melamine, not the superior phenolic glue. Second, most of them are laminated from cheap poplar veneers, the best I can find so far are those with interleaved layers of poplar & tropical hardwood veneers, usually marketed as: meranti or okoume, but I guess they’re just other tropical hardwood equivalences. Today, the ordered plywood sheets have arrived (I use 5mm thick ones), it’s time to draw and cut the planks. As usually said: measure twice, cut once, I proceed slowly & carefully to this initial stage of the canoe.

3.     JOIN

I was too busy during this week to actually got any boating bit done, need to get all the cutting and joining jobs finished this weekend… Finally, the complete set of planks is cut out. Before joining, all bilges need to be trimmed down to the precise shapes. I clamped each pair of port and starboard bilges together, then used an angle grinder to trim the edges and smoothen the curves. Since the plywood sheet has length of 2,440 mm, they need to be joined to the 3,660 mm length of the canoe. Bilges are screwed down to a piece of wood to fix the position, a layer of bin bag is placed in between to prevent the wood from sticking together. Then I applied epoxy, pieces of fiberglass, and epoxy again until the glass is completely wet out to form simple butt joints which get the jobs done.