update... still here

 I've been busy with work stuff, so the progress on the boat is at a stand-still for a while.

I did manage to get down to the club saturday morning.  It was nice to hang out for a while that was not work or home.  One of the members brought his mostly finished boat in and gave a talk and answered questions.  Afterwards another member and I assisted him in launching it for a trial.  He was testing the seating position.

It's propelled by a curious foot pedal mechanism.  The pedals don't go round like a bicycle, but push back and forth.  This causes the two blades on the bottom to flap side to side.  When moving each direction they tilt at a slight angle which translates to forward motion.

 

Epoxy Coating

 When I was repairing the old rowboat I bought a gallon of System Three epoxy, but since then I've done a lot more reading on epoxy.  One of the drawbacks of epoxy is that when it fully cures a by-product called 'amine blush' rises to the surface.  This must be removed before you can do another layer of epoxy.  Although amine-blush is a wax like substance, it is water soluble and is fairly easy to clean off.

But with further searching I found the MAS brand of epoxy whose formula prevents any significant amine-blush, so it does not require washing between coats.  It still recommends sanding between coats like System Three, but there's no messy washing and drying every little part.

I will use up the System Three doing the gluing of layers together and for filleting in the corners, but for all the surface coating and for the fiber-glassing I will be using the MAS brand. 

 I managed to get a couple of hours epoxy work done this last weekend, and succeeded in getting one side of all seven pieces coated.  I did the three larger pieces on Saturday and finished the others on Sunday.  Each session lasting about an hour.  During this hour, I mixed 3 to 4 batches of epoxy, so it was always fresh, but the foam roller began to gel and stiffen up by the end of the hour.

 My technique consisted of drizzling a line of epoxy at one end, scraping it out with a squeegee to cover as much area as I could, and then rolling over it with the foam roller to even it all out.  I was using moderate pressure with the squeegee so this may be a thinner layer than other people do.  All my reading has not turned up any specification for layer thickness (some recommendation saying how many grams of epoxy covers what area would be nice??).  This one coat of one side of these 7 pieces used about 11 ounces so far, out of the 1-1/2 gallon (192 ounces) jugs.

Whether I will do two coats or three coats at this point, I don't know.  This is a pre-assembly stage and there's plenty of opportunity later for more coats. 

All Frames Cut

 All the frames have been cut.  With the exception of the tops of 2, 4, and 6 which form the cabin top and motor well cover whose heights are yet to be determined.  In this picture I drew where 2 and 4 might be cut.

The next step is to paint them thoroughly with epoxy to seal the wood.  Two or three coats of epoxy will be required.  I've arranged them around the various tables of my basement so that I'll be able to paint all seven at once.  At least one side of all seven.

I'm concerned with how much garbage that working with epoxy generates.  If I use a brush or roller there is no cleaning it and it simply becomes trash.  My mixing bowls are paper soup bowls and wood stirring sticks, but those too become garbage.  Thus I will attempt to paint all seven in a single go.

Online Outboards

 Purchasing online from a company and website you've never dealt with before can be a risk.

Even after googling and searching forums for reviews still left a small chance it would be a total scam.  The feelings are only reinforced by the very good prices compared to known stores.

So if you're out there wondering about Online Outboards, I will add my review for what it's worth to you.

This place was excellent!  

The online purchase was easy and seemed secure.  The price on the motor's webpage was exactly what I paid, no hidden fees and free shipping.  All the confirmation and receipt emails were prompt and looked good.  The shipping included a tracking number within a couple of days of purchase.  It arrived across country in about a week.  The shipping was free and included having FedEx deliver using a 'lift-gate' truck.  The outboard's large box came on a special size pallet.  The outboard is spec'd at 118 lbs, but the whole package and pallet was listed as 190 lbs on FedEx.  But no worries, the driver used his pallet jack to move it from his truck right into my garage.

(This website is NOT monetized and I received nothing from Online-Outboards for this review.) 

Outboard Purchase

An early stage in assembling the hull in a Redwing is building the motor well.  To make this right, it needs to be designed to fit the motor that will be installed.  To get the measurements right I really need the motor in-hand to really figure this out.  Thus the motor is being purchased long before the hull is complete or the boat hits the water. 

The first thoughts were to get a Honda 8 h.p.  This boat is intended to be a slow cruiser and 8 to 10 hp should do it well.  Honda has a stellar reputation for reliability and quietness.

Further research found that the Honda 8hp and the Honda 9.9hp are in fact the exact same motor.  The Honda 8hp is just a throttled down version.  So I thought I would get a Honda 9.9hp.

The Redwing-18 is best fitted with a 'short' shaft outboard.  Also, the Redwing uses a ship's wheel not an outboard's tiller handle, so setting it up for remote control is needed.  Honda makes the short shaft versions, but does not offer a remote controlled version in the short shaft length, only on the long and extra long versions. This would mean that a few essential modifications to the Honda would be needed for remote control and some of these parts (Honda OEM parts) are not particularly cheap.

I had my eye on a Honda 9.9hp at OnlineOutboards.com, but before I could pull the trigger they went out-of-stock. After some weeks of waiting for Honda to be back in stock, I went to the local Boat Show.  Not a Honda in sight!  Nearly all the displays were Suzuki or Tohatsu.  

Browsing Online-Outboards, I found not only plenty of Suzuki but lots of Suzuki models in remote versions complete with the Suzuki throttle included.  In addition, the Suzuki 9.9hp remote version was on sale as an overstock item, $2,710.  This one is also their electric start and power-tilt version.  Just what an old man needs.  The motor comes standard with a 3-gallon fuel tank and the fuel line.  The included throttle handle came with the wiring harness that is plenty long enough for the Redwing.

The Honda 8hp and 9.9hp are the same engine (same 222cc displacement, bore & stroke).  It turns out the Suzuki line does the same strategy of sharing the same motor for different HP sizes.  In the case of Suzuki, the 9.9hp is the same engine as the 15hp and the 20hp (same 327cc displacement, bore & stroke).  So whereas the Honda 9.9 would be the maximum h.p. for that engine, the Suzuki 9.9hp is the 20hp throttled and restricted down to be 9.9hp.  A 20hp engine working along nice and easy as a 9.9hp version.
 

Signs...

 How can an employer tell if an employee is considering retirement??

There's an outboard motor under his desk!

 

The Frames explained.

 It dawns on me that I haven't shown a decent picture of what the frames are and where.

1: frame-1 is at the foot of the berths.  My feet will stick through this when sleeping.

2: frame-2 forms the front of the cabin area and so its upper portion is also a 'bulkhead' between the cabin and the fore-deck area.

3: frame-3 meets only the bottom and sides the hull.  

4: bulkhead-4 is the largest and is the bulkhead between the outside cockpit and the inside cabin.  It will contain a door.  The roof of the cabin also has a sliding hatch.

5: frame-5 is the middle of the cockpit area.

6: bulkhead-6 is the front of the enclosed stern area which includes the motor well, and encloses the outboard motor.

7: although the Transom is the back of the boat and is double thick plywood, in this case it does not support an outboard motor.  The outboard is mounted on the front of the motor well structure. 

 

So far I have completed the Transom, frame-4, and frame-1.  The others have been drawn on the plywood and rough cut around them with a jigsaw.  Getting all the frames done and coated with epoxy is the goal for the winter and can be done inside a warm basement workshop (I'm still working full-time during this period).