Flow Coat and Frames

After more thought, I decided to bag the router table option for making the hatch lid frames, and went back to my original idea of using my table saw, with rip and dado blades.

Worked great.  Now I wish I hadn't wasted all that time with the router table.

Shop smelled great with wonderful Port Orford cedar smell.


Frames are glued and ready for resin coat and installation.  After a little prep work under each hatch deck to remove the rough spots.

  Numbers written on bulkhead are reminders of the angle of each end cut, which I'll use again for the final wood frame bulkheads.  Range was from 5 - 20 degrees.

Flow coat was added to newly faired areas.

The Dory Dog shows no interest in going outside after the latest snowstorm, or helping with the boat in the garage.

Second Final Sanding and Flow Coat 😄

It was inevitable after the last post. Looking at the interior, while the top decking now looks good, I wasn't happy with the interior sides, which I hadn't faired.

So spent a nice sunny day fairing the interior walls and resanding. Got to make the insides look good for my passengers!

Meanwhile, I've been trying to get my router table working so I can shape the water drainage channel and recess for the weatherstrip in the frames and then get them installed. Had to build a new on/off switch but I think it's a go.

Vivi back for a quick visit and Dory Tour! 

Final (Ha!) Sanding & First Flow Coat

Yet more sanding.  Oh boy.

Spent most of Saturday afternoon with the dory outside catching some rays, doing a hopefully final rough sand. Cleaned up the newly faired areas plus some more I missed the first time. Not my idea of fun but a necessary evil. It would be easy at this point to just say, good enough, but I'm going to try to keep pushing for "best possible" since the final paint coats depend a lot on this.

Sunday AM up bright and early for the first thin flow coat on the deck and lids. Used some Cabosil (remember "thixotropic" for you earlier readers) to keep the sags and runs down.  Can't seem to keep all of the bubbles out, even with foam rollers.

Looks like some more finish sanding (much better than rough sanding) between coats.

Sex Nuts & Thunderdome

The dory has been getting some new jewelry over the past few days. Little bits of progress here and there after work each day.

Gunwale rails rounded over and hand sanded. Next time I'm going to finish the edge profiles before I attach the rails to the boat.

Added the spacer brass bolts with sex nuts.  Using a clamped piece of wood to help with hole alignment.

Decided to go with the finish washers despite others saying they are a bad idea b/c they cut the wood and lead to rot, because they look good. Fashion trumps function.

I may leave the protruding bolts untrimmed - as defense from invading rubber-raft pirates.

Maybe something from Mad Max?

Finally, drilled out the recess for the oar tower shaft.

Looking good. Now I need to decide if stainless steel bolts are good enough or maybe go with something like silicon bronze which would match better.