A Boat Story Part II Woodbury,

I used more Bondo on this project than I would have liked, even though I love the smell of Bondo in the morning (It smells like Victory!) The back side of the flooring material had relief grooves every 8 in. or so, which worked to my benefit when bending it, but which had to be filled before I could fiberglass. Then after glassing it, there were voids here and there that needed to be filled, then sanded again, then I used an automotive sandable primer, then more bondo, then another coat of resin. I'm sorry to say I don't have pictures of that phase of the project, but the pictures I took early in the project were part of my self motivation regimen; I would take new pictures into work every couple of days to show the slackers at work what I was doing at home. By this point, I was in so deep that i needed no other motivation than the approaching deadline I had set for myself (Apr.1) This being my wife Judy's birthday, as well as the time when the stripers show up in the Delaware, My intention was to name the boat Judy April (cause April's her middle name as well). My last boat, which I didn't build, was named Emma Nevada, my daughter's poetical name, and I got some grief from her about not calling this one Emma Nevada II. Tough luck, little girl. As it became apparent that i was to miss that deadline, April Fool became a more obvious choice for a name. Ultimately, and for reasons you can probably guess, the boat was named April May.

Anyway, once I was satisfied with the surface of the outside, it was time to paint. I ordered some expensive copper laden marine bottom paint for the bottom, but I was having a hard time choosing a paint for the sides that would be durable and waterproof enough. I considered automotive paint, but it's very pricey, and is another two part product, and I wasn't real keen on trying that out for the first time on this boat. On a trip to the Farm store (still love going to the farm store) I found the aisle of Tractor and Implement paint. It's oil based, which is increasingly hard to find anywhere, and obviously intended to be durable, since what gets more abuse and exposure that tractors and implements? The color I chose was John Deere Green, but when I got it home, I decided it was a little mossier than I was looking for, so I doctored it with black pigment, resulting in just the forest greeny color I was looking for.

Then it was time to turn it over, and see what we had.

Not Bad. A couple coats of marine spar varnish on everything

Regretfully, I have no pictures of building the fore deck, the kind of hood that you can see in the finish pictures. It involved making two curved frame members, then laying on of the same flooring material I used on the sides. The original plan has no gunwales (pronounced gunnels), which is the capping on the sides of the boat, and I wanted some on mine. I had made the tops of the side supports wider than in the plans, just for this reason; to give me something to screw the gunwales to. At the front, around the deck area, I used brass screws with brass finish washers, but on the rearward part, I countersunk the screws and plugged the holes with oak plugs. Because of the curve of the boat, I had to use 1x8 oak on the sides in order to make the 3"wide gunwales using only 2 pieces per side. I laid the 1x8 in place and traced the contour of the side, then cut it on the bandsaw, and finished it with my trusty#20. Then I just followed the curve with a divider, and cut out the other side.

I was now in the "cook until done" phase of the project. There wasn't much in the plans that would help me now. Since I had cut out the stern early in the project, there was a problem where my gunwales met the stern. I tapered the sides of the boat down a bit toward the rear so that they were 3/4 below the top of the stern. I had cut out the support brackets shown in the plans, because they were a nice graceful ogee shape, and I kind of liked it. I joined these to my gunwales, and then mortised the stern to accomodate them, then sanded everything again and put on a couple more coats of marine spar.

p>The seat supports are just 1x2 oak routed round on two edges and screwed into the side suppoirts, pretty much like in the plans. The seats are made from 12" oak stair treads. For the floor decking, I found some 5/8 x 1 1/2 pressure trated material at my local home despot, stained it with deck stain. Put on the Hardware, and this baby was ready to go.