JEM Watercraft

Nice looking work, Surfman. You're going to enjoy that boat. With tips and information coming in form all over the world, it is truly an international project.

Heya Surfman,

Nice Lines!!
Lovely work too.

How long and wide is your boat? I am getting more and more interested in this boat as she is taking shape. It reckon this one has the potential to be a serious bass boat.

Keep up the good work mate.

I forget exactly. I will measure it tonight when I get home. It is 14' long. It actually is looking a lot better than I imagined it would. I am having a lot of fun with it. I am also learning a lot from this project. After stitching it together some of the plywood edges did not line up too well. I thought I was going to have to redo some of it using the pvc backing method I saw someone else use. I started doing that, what a pain. That turned out to be unnecessary, all I had to do was a little prying and the edges would line right up. Seems the tie wraps have a tendency to twist or pull the edges as you cinch them down. It is the tie wrap that causes the wood to miss-align. A screw driver inserted into the gap and pried against the overlap straightened things right up.

Okay, at the widest point, the two bottom panels measure out at 23" it is a heavy 32" at the water line and flares out a bit more to a heavy 34" at the wides point. I guess I should have measured the transom width too, but I think it is around 18" or so.

Been doing a lot of sanding and I don't think I will make much progress in the next week or 2. Spring turkey season opens here in Florida this Saturday and I am going to try to see if I can out smart a gobbler. For me that is going to take some doing, yuk, yuk.

Thanks mate. I reckon she is going to be a great fishing outfit.

confirmed: Designed width is 34"

Well what I am calling the waterline is the top of the second panel. The boat may sit a little lower in the water than that but i don't think much, it will depend on the load of course. I think the transome is wider too maybe closer to 21". Anyway, I can't wait to get it out and fish in it and I promise I will post some fish pictures when I do.

I should say the 34" is the max beam, not waterline. Your measurements are correct.

Okay, I got a little more work done. I glassed the bottom using 2 pieces. I thought this would be easier and I want more glass along the keel anyway so I kill 2 birds this way. The first time I started gluing I mixed way too much resin and half way through it started setting up on me. I got mad and just ripped the glass off the boat and scraped the resin off. That was dumb of course. I wasted a big piece of cloth doing that. I should have just tossed the resin I had and mixed up a new small batch I think that would have worked just fine now. It is getting warm here and if I mix up about 8 oz or less I can get that spread, once it is spread it can be worked for a while sense the heat build up is not going to effect the resin as it does in the pot. I am learning. Anyway, here it is.
Before resin;


Don’t have a picture of it with the resin on the glass I flipped it to do the inside before I took the picture. I will get one when I flip it again.

Boat flipped and installing the transom;



As I mentioned in the questions section, I somehow got a slight twist in the hull. I re-clamped the hull down to the horses in order to glass the inside. This made it a little more difficult as I will have to work around the straps. I hope I don’t loose my cool with this setup again. I will take it slow and probably do the inside in 3 lengthwise pieces in order to make it easier and less stressful. I think it will go okay. Actually 4 pieces, the transom being the 4th.

Filleting the joints, boy that Mick is full of great ideas I noticed he used a plastic bag to apply the resin. I thought that was a bit too much but, the more I thought about it the more I realize that is the way to do it. It is like a baker applying icing they use the same technique. Getting the resin in the bag is the hard part. It made applying the resin a snap and you can squeeze it out on all the seams first. Again once it is thin it won’t set up very fast. I first squeezed it all out then came back and spooned it into the joints. I did about 8 oz of resin-flour at a time.
The bow;

The Transom;

All clamped down. I removed the concrete block, I was using it for ballast;

All filleted;

A zip lock bag ready for resin, just snip a small corner off and go;

Very, VERY, nice clean work!

And that's a great idea clamping the bag open for easy "loading" of the epoxy/filleting material.