What's your worst boatbuilding type %^%$!-up?

[ErikH]

As I was posting on another thread, I asked for any "make sure not to do this" advice.
It made me remember things like the first time I tried to fill a big hole with epoxy: I mixed up a large pot, dutifully poured it in, and then watched in horror as it begand to smoke, bubble, foam, and generally go nuts. Suffice to say that was a poor repair. Or of course the many times I've measured carefully, at least twice, and proceeded to cut some sort of valuable material about 1" shorter than desired. And of course the time I tried to fill a drilled hole with epoxy and right around the time I started thinking "boy, that hole sure is big!" I realized I had forgotten to tape the other side before pouring in the stuff. Or...

Now, given all of you interesting folks, I know you have sme good ones. Let's hear 'em! :D

[John B]

Nope , never done that. Never had a smoking pot of epoxy getting pushed outside with the broom. nope. wasn't me. :D
well perhaps......

[imported_Conrad]

Gotta be letting the darn boat follow me home in the first place! :D As my wife says, "honey, it's OK to let some of them die". I think this rule probably applies to cars also, but have yet to see proof. tongue.gif

Oh yeah, I once vacumn-bagged an entire canoe, three layers of meranti, without putting any hardner in the epoxy.....talk about a large mess. :eek:

[ 06-04-2003, 05:36 PM: Message edited by: Conrad S. ]

[Concordia..41]

Gee, and I was about to admit to all of the above :rolleyes:

Early on in my first battle of wits with epoxy, I thought that 5 to 1 meant 5 squirts of the big pump and 1 squirt of the little one :rolleyes: That was in '96 and I doubt it's kicket yet :D

I'm afraid though that my worst mistake is one I haven't even realized I've made :rolleyes:

[ 06-04-2003, 06:12 PM: Message edited by: Concordia..41 ]

[Keith Wilson]

Oh, this should be a really good thread - if folks are honest, anyway :D

Mine was not knowing the diference between finishing and layup resin. Polyester resin will not cure when exposed to air, so with plain (layup) resin, most of it cures fine, but there's always a thin layer of nasty-smalling uncured goop on the surface. Finishing resin has wax dissolved in it. The wax floats to the surface, forming a barrier and letting the stuff harden completly.

I didn't know enough to use the right stuff, and went through an astounding amount of 25-grit sandpaper trying to get that last layer of goop off. I probably could have just painted over the sticky stuff, actually, since the paint also forms an oxygen barrier and allows the resin underneath to cure (poor man's CPES?), but I didn't know that either. I still start to twitch when I think of it redface.gif

Oh yeah, there was the time I very carefully mixed two parts of System Three resin with one part of System Three resin, added some graphite, and attempted to put the final coat on the bottom of a 12' skiff. . . .

[ 06-04-2003, 05:49 PM: Message edited by: Keith Wilson ]

[Wild Wassa]

I once followed a manufacturer's instructions, :rolleyes: .

One time I put 5 coats of w/b polyurethane on a 40 year old marine ply stitch and glue dinghy, in one day. The boat hadn't been on the water for over 20 years.

The paint shrunk so much and so quickly, it popped the transom. It took me two months to reduce, fix, fair and repaint. I was trying to save time on the dinghy. I've learnt to slow down, ... to save time.

Warren.

[ 06-04-2003, 09:35 PM: Message edited by: Wild Wassa ]

[Ken Hutchins]

None of that epoxy stuff for me, only real wood boats and I don't screw up I make BTU's, :D wood stove don't like epoxy :eek: But of course there is a plank I made last week, got it all nicely spiled and cut out, real nice until I checked the thickness of the stock :eek: I guess it will make good plugs for the rivet and screw holes. :D

[garland reese]

Used some very cheap luan to build a boat that had some fairly tough bends. Spent way too much time doodling with the stuff to patch up the bad spots. Contemplated using a stripped deck. Took the plans on a business trip. Lost the plans. This hull is still in my garage. I'm fixing far too many of the non-wood boats right now to even care to fix my SNAFU. :rolleyes:

Note to self: Self, a nice design is deserving of good material.......... :D

[skuthorp]

One (or two) too many passes with the power plane on a new mast that WAS almost finished! Gnash! Gnash!

[George Roberts]

Long time ago ---

I laminated a pair of H.Mahogany stems using epoxy with a wood filler.

After they were cured, I dropped one.

Then I had six single laminates ...

[Bill Perkins]

Conrad I think you're winning so far .Reminds me of a bow hunting story of a guy who got his first clear shot at a deer .He drew and released three times befor he realized he wasn't shooting arrows !

[JimD]

hmmm, lessee...I switched from 5:1 epoxy to 2:1 and mixed it like 5:1. After removing the mess with acetone and reapplying correctly I painted with 2 part polyurethane and mixed it 1:1 instead of 2:1. After removing the mess with acetone... And once as a 10 year old I sawed a half inch off the top of my grandfather's bedroom door so it would swing clear the newly installed carpet.

[Thaddeus J. Van Gilder]

hmmm, was it the baby snake that tried to craws across the rudder I was epoxifying on the ground, and became a fossil...

[garland reese]

This is a huge goof!! New design. Will be produced in 'glass/epoxy :confused: What a bummer.
http://www.norseboat.com/images/tech2new1024.gif

[Stu Fyfe]

Since this thread is beginning to sound like a confessional, I'll try to get this one off my chest after 10 years of denial. I once emptied out the oil to a 9 hp Farrymann as I was winterizing the boat and forgot to put new oil back in. The boat sat in the yard for the winter and all the internal parts froze up solid without any oil in the engine. Come spring time, the engine wouldn't move. Mystery oil, hammers, pry bars, nothing could loosen it up. Final solution, engine replacement. There, now I feel better.

[Scott Rosen]

Since we're on the subject of oil . . . this has to do with a car, not a boat.

Back when I was a wee teenager, the first time I changed the oil in my car, I drained the transmission by mistake and added another five quarts of oil to the engine. For about two months I was driving with 10 quarts of oil in the engine and none in the transmission. When the noise became scary, I took it to a shop and learned of my goof. The car was okay and I drove it for another 80,000 miles.

[Ken Hutchins]

Hey now were talking about oil screw-ups, yup, done that. :eek: We were using a '29 Model A for every day cheap transportation. That A had a noisy transmission, so one winter I check it out along with the engine and rear end. The trans didn't appear to have any particular problem, so it went back together as is all nice and clean, inside & out. Figured on putting in the oil at the same time I filled the rear end. :D Got the car back on the road in the spring, still noisy trans, so live with. We did live with it for 2 years and about 25,000 miles. Finally started getting serious noise from down under, so out came trans. took top off and :eek: no oil :eek: . The only problem was the input shaft bearing, so replaced that, put oil in this time and wow - no noise. :D

[Bayboat]

Strange, or perhaps not so strange, how many of these confessions involve googe. Apparently the learning curve is still going up. I never made any of those mistakes...well, hardly ever...or at least less then half of them...OK, quite a few...

[Rich VanValkenburg]

I think my worst was spending all day sanding and prepping for a final coat of varnish, and I wasn't watching the clock. I started laying it on at what turned out to be about 5pm. Next morning I had 38ft of blushed varnish.

Rich

[ishmael]

Polyester resin that wouldn't kick, because of cool temps.

I was hired to renew the fiberglass on the bottom of a Small Point one design. Twenty one foot one design, strip built and held together, late in life, with glass and polyester. Designed for a small gang of spoiled, relatively rich people clustered around Small Point Maine (there, I said it :D ). It was a pull and patch job. Ugly by nature. I'd not used polyester much, and the damn stuff just wouldn't kick. I lost a bunch of sleep over that boat. Luckily, the owner was very nice and came and taught me to use more kicker. It worked, but at base the whole arrangement was half-assed, and I hated it. Never agree to replace the bottom fiberglass on a wooden boat when it's sitting on its cradle.

Still have nighmares about that boat, occasionally.

[john welsford]

I've had a couple of stems that were not dead upright, funny thing was, either no oen else noticed or they were all too scared of me to mention it.

Murphies law on boatbuilding ( with aplogies to Murphy and frends) . " You wont discover the mistake until the glue has set"
Welsfords law on boatbuilding. " The mistake that cant be fixed with lots of epoxy and fibreglass cloth aint been born yet!".

John Welsford. ( who is generally happy if a boat that he has built looks ok from about 10 feet away.)

[Steve Lansdowne]

I carefully, and wrongly, measured the wrong porportion for the epoxy mixture for the bottom and put it on. Went into the house. SUDDENLY realized my mistake. Went back out and added enough of the missing component to the bottom and mixed it all around on the boat to get the proportion correct. Then realized the overall quantity of epoxy was way too much, so scraped off the excess. Next day, it looked great! Luckily I had used a slow hardener.

[Steve Paskey]

Okay, I'm in. Had two boats sitting in a rented space at Public Storage. The first was an absolutely beautiful Herreshoff "double-paddle canoe," the one in Sensible Cruising Designs. Someone had donated her to the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum, and I bought her for a great price. She had hardly been used and was superbly built. Very traditionally done: no goop, canvas decks, the works. No ply other than the bulkheads (as spec'ed by LFH).

The other boat was a Chamberlain gunning dory I bought from the guy in Florida who builds Sea Pearl 21s, built in cedar maybe 20 years ago, and sheathed in glass and epoxy on the bottom at some point. A bit ragged and in need of some work.

The dory had been out of the water for years, and the wood was VERY dry. Decided to apply some terps and raw linseed oil. Was in a hurry, had other stuff to do, left the rags in a corner.

Who would've thought they meant what they said on the back of the can, that bit about rags spontaneously combusting and all that?

[ 06-08-2003, 10:32 AM: Message edited by: Steve Paskey ]

[Lucky Luke]

Well well well...I knew I wasn't the only one....but I'm afraid there are only few who spent the whole week end (happy to be allowed to do some well paid overtime)...painting the wrong boat (33' Moody)....from white to a beautiful dark blue.
Yard Manager (Moody- Southampton) wasn't too happy on Monday!
....
And that isn't the only "ooops"....but after that, I was my own boss!!!
;)

[ 06-08-2003, 01:08 AM: Message edited by: Lucky Luke ]

[ken mcclure]

Back in 1994 I picked up a copy of WoodenBoat Magazine, and started reading about and looking at pictures of wooden boats.

[MJC]

Cheer up Ken, it could be worse, you could have got the wb "bug", then lost your (sob) workshop (sob) in the divorce caused by a monomaniacal obsession with building boats.

FWIW - I cannot recommend the use of iron-on cherry edge veneer to try to hide the gaps where the last two strips meet in the bottom of a strip built canoe. Nor can I recommend the use of googe's barrier coat with non-googe epoxy. Oh, and don't answer the phone while mixing epoxy.