JEM Watercraft

you can do butt blocks. The reason I recommended not to is getting 10 wood scab patches lined up and looking the same would be a tough one. Plus you need to bevel the edges so they don't touch when assembling the panels.

But if you're down for that, go for it!!

Went fishing Wednesday and hooked this nice little rio grand perch

Untitled by neonwill, on Flickr

Things are a fighter and fun to catch this time of year. I also thought about it and decided to use the fiberglass butt splices. It will look better in the end and not have to mess with all the fitting panels, filleting and glassing over an irregular surface.

Got started on splicing these panels together.

Sasquatch 14 by neonwill, on Flickr

I'm on a mission to splice these panels together Still have to glass the other side. I will develop some sort of a system to do this. 18 more to go!

On another note I thought I saw a UFO today. At my boys cross country meet in Comfort I looked up and said what the crap is that? Its just above the roof of the building.

Sasquatch 14 by neonwill, on Flickr
It turned out to be a blimp. We dont get those over here so it was a pretty big deal.

Glassed the other side of the first 4 panels today!

Sasquatch 14 by neonwill, on Flickr

Getting back in the groove of working with fiberglass, its been over a year. Starting to get a system worked out.

neon14 wrote:On another note I thought I saw a UFO today. At my boys cross country meet in Comfort I looked up and said what the crap is that? Its just above the roof of the building.
It turned out to be a blimp. We dont get those over here so it was a pretty big deal.

Oh a blimp! I thought maybe it was somebody's canoe with a little too much flotation stuffed into the bulkheads.

[quote="neon14"]............. Made a couple of benches last saturday. Put them end to end and it makes one 15 foot long bench. Will make gluing all the hull panels together a whole lot easier.[quote]


I'm guessin the bench in the photo is 3 feet wide, is that about right?

Les, there only 2 feet wide. Three feet would have been really cool. Especially right now joining all these hull panels together.

Got all my frame panels, and the bow-stern jigs cut to shape.

Sasquatch 14 by neonwill, on Flickr

Then all the blasted misquotes came out and started attacking me Gonna put some repellent on and go back out there in a few.

4 more panels done! 2 more and I can start stitching one of the canoes together while I keep on splicing more panels! Got sidetracked a little bit went down to Corpus Christi last weekend to watch some dirt track racing. Just got back from Austin today, went to a wedding. Next weekend is the Texas Mile, and the following weekend the wife and I are going to San Antonio to hang out on the river walk for our 19th wedding anniversary. Busy as usual

Started splicing the last 2 panels for the first canoe today. I need to get everything ready for the stitching process. Have to move some stuff around and get the shop situated.

When I was in Austin this weekend I stopped by one of my favorite places of all time. Austin HomeBrew Supply.

Sasquatch 14 by neonwill, on Flickr

Picked up 4 beer kits. A toasted coconut porter, 2 light ales, and one IPA.

I have two of the best hobbies in the world! Boat building and beer building

Had a great time at the Texas Mile. Got to see a bunch of cool cars and stuff. A Ford GT40 went 278mph, thats super fast! And I thought I saw another UFO but it turned out to be a camera drone filming the event. As long as I keep looking up one of these days I will see a real UFO

Ok, back the boat building. Been stitching the first canoe together a panel or two at a time. Everything was going good until I got to the 4th panel. It wasn't matching up with the forms very well and I was getting bummed out pretty big time. It turned out I stitched it on upside down! So I flipped it over and it fits perfect

Sasquatch 14 by neonwill, on Flickr

I found an error with my mid frames that I made when I cut them out. Its small but going to redo them. Thats why they are not in this pick.

Sasquatch 14 by neonwill, on Flickr

This boat is stitching up nicely, its pretty neat to see it take shape!