Continued from… 5 Professional Tips for Building A Better Boat – Part 1

3.  Make Fillets the Easy Way

When it’s time to bond the inside corners of your boat, a fillet is generally the way to go.  This can require the use of a special tool and a lot of patience.  Or you can make them the easy way using ordinary, disposable plastic spoons. To create the curved shape, just use the back of the spoons.  The spoons are sturdy enough to handle the thick epoxy.  They are also durable enough to hold up without dissolving in the resin.  Using disposable spoons makes cleanup easier, too!

4.  Clean Up Epoxy Stains Before They Cure

Have you ever tried cleaning epoxy stains off a surface?  It’s not a pleasant task.  Stains from epoxy on a boat are a pain to remove after the epoxy is cured. While it can be done, smart boat builders take the time to stop and clean the stains when they occur.  It’s ten times easier to do it before the epoxy cures.

5.  Bend Curved Panels Slowly During Assembly

There’s a bit of an art to bending panels for a boat.  To get the best results, you need to have a little patience.  Oftentimes boat builders are not aware that bending wood/plywood is much easier and requires much less effort if done slowly, just a bit at a time. Using this method, the natural fibers have a chance to stretch.  Also much less force is needed to bend wood panels slowly than forcing them with one quick stroke.

Above all, take your time and enjoy the process of building your boat.  You, like millions of others, can find this to be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life!

Do you want to read more? Do you want to learn more about boat building? Try check out my Boat Building Master Course. Available as paperback and for Amazon Kindle.

Click here to read more and order the Boat Building Master Course… 

Happy boat building,

Morten Olesen, Naval Architect
http://www.boatplans.dk/