Candlefish 16

Twisting the final wire stitch marked a small milestone in building a utility skiff. She is a Candlefish 16 by Sam Devlin and will be a gift to my son. A 20 hp Honda motor will drive her. My son will use it mostly for fishing and crabbing in Oregon. This is not a boat that will be treated like fine furniture and I intend to use a stout fiberglass layup. Tomorrow the seams will be tabbed with epoxy. Hopefully, she will be launched in April.
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Great gift, with a 20 hp it will fly. What type of ply did you use? I'll be building a nesting dinghy soon, design by B&B.
You're seams look tight, good job.

Rob your question about the ply keyed right on what I consider a deviation from my previous boat projects where I've used higher quality Occume or Sapeli. I selected 9mm Marine Sandeply from Ecuador. A non-marine versions of the same ply is available from HD and I haven't been too impressed with that wood. I also believe that it's a false economy to go cheap on marine ply. However, at the time of purchase I had access to the Sandeply at wholesale prices. It was too good to pass. I brought some home and put a small chunk in the dishwasher for about a month. I followed that with several boiling and freezing cycles. It looked good after the torture test - no delamination. There are zero voids. The downside is that it has two less plys than Occume and has a lot of adhesive bleed-through on the outer plys. It is only suitable for a paint-grade finish. There will be no surface that isn't covered in fiberglass. All the bulkheads and transom were glassed on the flat prior to mounting. I look forward to getting rid of the wire. In my crowded shop it's like having a giant porcupine.

Post the fillets when they're done. I hate s&g but love the results.

glad you got a good price, always a consideration, haven't seen it available around here. I'm going to buy what I need from
Hardwood Store of NC, they aren't too far from me and have marine ply in stock, 6mm okoume for 63$

Just screwing and epoxying planks onto my Arch Davis sanddollar. 12 foot row and sail boat. Got to keep the heater up as it is in the 20's here. West system slow hardener is working out nicely. Your lucky...nobody here stocks okume, took two weeks to get four sheets. Your price is right to.

I've gone through a lot of epoxy in the last few weeks. Briefly, all the seams were reinforced with 9 oz. 6" tape, then entire hull was covered with 6 oz. cloth. I chose 50" wide fabric where 2 full length runs gave me and overlap of about 4" along the centerline. That was followed by another single run of the 6 oz. cloth that covered the bottom and most of the middle panel. The keel was then attached and covered with 9 oz. tape that flaired alongside the keel a couple inches. All total there are 5 layers of fabric along the centerline. I've been fairing for several days and fortunately I have finally run out of fairing additive. Turning is within sight. However, prior to that it needs a final epoxy coat, gunwale installation, priming, painting and a brass half oval with be screwed to the keel. Attachment 182543

Bruce, who are you getting the brass half oval from?

John - I'm getting the brass half oval from Jamestown Distributors. It comes in 6' and 12' lengths and in the 1/2" width it can be rolled. As such, there is no extra shipping charge. They also have stainless, but it is a lot more expensive.

The white oak gunwales are attached and sealed with epoxy. I have used QSWO for the keel and gunwales that is leftover from building a kitchen. It would be my choice to paint the gunwales and perhaps all the interior (except the floors). But the customer (my son and his girl friend) want enough clear finished wood to make it "look like a wooden boat". I sprayed the first coat of primer, but it took too long to clean the hardened primer from the gun. The second coat was put on with a foam roller and it is just a smooth as the sprayed on primer. I haven't figured out if I need to use bottom paint. This boat will live on a trailer and will see salt water probably less than 10%. The ablative paints can receive some extra wear on the trailer bunks so I'm leaning toward just using topsides paint. At least this decision can be corrected in subsequent boating seasons.
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Nice work Bruce. I built Devlin's Mudpeep with a lower sheer line about 10 years ago and use it for a duckboat. I had good success using rolled on PPG Omni 2 part auto paint for a top coat. My boat was made from Marine Doug Fir ( I worked for Roseburg Forest Products at the time ) and fully covered in glass and epoxy - no problems anywhere with 10 years of outdoor storage.

Attachment 184353We flip her on Monday.
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Looks great! What paint did you use?

Thanks Gary. The paint is a marine alkalyd enamel. It will be soft for a few weeks as it cures. My shop exhaust/heating doesn't work well enough to allow more sophisticated two-part coatings.

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Tedious and slow. That's the only way to describe the taping. The schedule is 4" 12 oz. biaxial tape followed by a 6" layer. The whole thing is then covered in 6 oz. cloth. All the longitudinal seams are done.
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If your boat is as you say primarily a trailer boat and only occasionally in salt water, I would not think you would need ablative paint. Take a look at Petit EasyPoxy. Most marine supply houses have it, I painted my bottom of my sailboat with it and kept it in the Muddy Mississippi for 8 weeks. When it came out, the grime just hosed off.

Nice paint and went on with a roller and tipped with a foam brush like cream. Self leveled. Really nice paint. Here are before and after pictures.

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I've been installing the interior bits. The fairing is almost done thank goodness. Progress has been slowed by a complete tablesaw failure. I had to rip it apart to replace the arbor bearings - a real PITA. It is easy to appreciate the saw when it's not available. Fitting the decks, foam flotation and hatches comes next. This boat is a gift to my fully deserving son. A launch on his 4/19 birthday seems possible.

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I used the better part of two sheets of 2" styrofoam for flotation. The underdeck pieces are held in place with foam adhesive and nylon straps. I figure that I've installed about 50% more positive floation than specified by the designer. The center deck is sheathed with 1/2" ply (3/8" is used in all the other applications). Probably overkill. I was concerned that the hatch would resist conforming to the curve of the deck, but it proved to be no problem with 3 underside ribs. I'm concerned that condensation may build up in the sealed floation compartments under the rear seats. It will probably require the instalation small access ports to vent the moisture. The half-circles of ply on the gunwale aft of the center deck are for oar locks. The oar locks will serve double duty as recepticles for rod holders. A battery platform is located as far forward as possible inside the center storeage area. The Welsford Rifleman and the Lobster Bay Skiff designs really caught my eye. Both of those boats have the throttle and steering gear located forward for better weight balance. In the end I picked the Candlefish for its simplicity but I remain concerned about the weight balance. The 20 hp motor is about 110 lbs not including the gas tank. The anchor, rode and line will go in the forward storeage area. That may help the balance a little. It's all conjecture until it floats.

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It is getting close to launch time, perhaps this coming weekend. We were going to purchase a new 20 hp motor. However, we found a used 15 hp Honda that was half the price of a new unit. The boat will sit on a galvanized EZ Loader trailer. The motor has a 6 amp. alternator that feeds the battery in the fore part of the center storeage area. The simple panel has separate fused switches for the fore and aft navigation lights and the GPS/fishfinder (it will mount to port of the panel). There's a fused outlet for powering whatever. A hinged cedar-framed piece of plexiglass will cover and seal the panel from excess moisture. I never expected this project to last 4 1/2 months and I missed my son's birthday by a couple of weeks. He's pretty jazzed none the less.

That is a beautiful boat. I'm sure your son will have a lot of good times with it.

When working with Jim Brown I learned that they did their tapes over the main glass. I liked to put the coth over the tapes in an effort to fair them out with the cloth. Their method was cloth followed by tapes in decending widths. Pretty much all done in one wet-out. Then when it hardened they would scrape the little hard edges on the tapes, and do a very little sanding, and on to the finishing. very fast. Plus less chance to sand through the glass. But it all works once one has it actually on.