(Reports from 2003)

The Depoe Bay Wooden Boat festival, in beautiful Depoe Bay, Oregon, is in two weeks -- April 24 & 25:

https://www.boat-links.com/DepoeBay/

For more information about the festival, or to enter a boat for display (free, it's all free!), contact Jack Brown.

John kohnen


Westchester Creek

The human mind evaluates by comparison. There is no forte without piano, no fast without slow, no elegant without plain. Also, unfortunately, no beautiful without ugly.

These philosophic thoughts are inspired by Westchester Creek, a small river that I have passed by many times while commuting during the past year. I was going to wait until later in the year so the sun was higher in the sky at commuting hour before I stopped to take pictures, but my commute is going to change so it was now or never. Here, in the rosey glow of a late winter NYC morning is Westchester Creek. For those of you following along on your map of New York City, look in the Bronx, near the north end of the Whitestone Bridge. The rest stop on the southbound Hutcheson River Parkway offers a good vantage for picture taking; watch out for the broken glass.

click images to enlarge

Peter Vanderwaart

2nd Annual Kingston Messabout
to set 2nd Annual World's Record!

by: Bruce Hector

Last year the participants at the Kingston Messabout set the World's Record for the Longest Boat Assembled and Sailed in a Single Day at 96 feet, albeit on a beam of only 4 feet.

That was then, this is now!

On Saturday, September 11, 2004 the participants will break the world's record for the most masts on a schooner by bringing and attaching homemade masts and sails for TIMS (The Infinite Modular Sharpie) and sailing it on all pints of sail on the Rideau Canal.


The current record is seven masts, on the schooner Thomas Lawson from the 19th. century.

We'll break that handily as Messabouters bring an unstayed mast made from a common lumber yard 2 by 4 and attach a homemade sail to it. The mast should be a minimum of 8 feet tall. The foot (bottom) of the sail should be set at least 26 inches from the bottom of the mast to clear TIMS 2 foot high hull sides. The mast and sails can be painted any way you wish. Sails can be any style the maker wishes, sloop, square, viking wool, lug, gaff, whatever. Sailmakers are limited only by their imagination.

The tallest mast will be set the furthest back to qualify TIMS as a schooner.

Captain Bruce will make up two mast partners in each Tim'sBit set 4 feet apart for the 2 by 4 masts to slide into.

Strong galvanized cleats, donated by your favorite boatbuilding eZine, Duckworks will be installed for sail control.

A pivoting lee board or two will be installed on Tims and a rudder will be added to the stern. I anticipate that we'll remove the cabin to allow more sails.

For details see https://www.brucesboats.com

If you're coming please email me and let me know what boat(s) you'll bring and if you're bring a TIMS mast & sail.

See ya'll there.

Dont forget the second annual Duckworks messabout

Chuck:

Click the logo above for a press release about the new Titebond III glue, reputed to be waterproof and solvent resistant. I bought some today for testing, as it was just released in my area (St. Paul-Minneaplis) in the past few days.

This could be of interest in boatbuilding, eh?

A part of the text (physical properties list) suggests this glue might be a film former. This in turn suggests it might function to some degree as an encapsulant. If a film-former, could it be mixed with additives and used as a filler?

Alas, until they come out with GAP-FILLING, waterproof Titebond IV, there is still no substitute for epoxy.

David B. Kagan


Midwest Messabout

The 15th or 16th (can't remember which) Midwest Messabout will be held the weekend of June 11-13, 2004 at Gun Creek Campground on Rend Lake in South Central Illinois, USA

You can make reservations here:

We had lots-o-them home-made boats last year; hope to have an equally impressive turn-out this time.

Saturday supper is a "group effort;" As always, everyone will vote on the menu, which will be hamburgers and hot-dogs, and then a couple of us will run into town to pick-up the supplies. You can bring a dish if you want, but it is certainly not necessary. Donations to the "food fund" always appreciated.

Max

Rascal Website

Hi Chuck

I have been receiving many emails about the rascal article that I wrote for your site. Because of this I have started a web page dedicated to the rascal. I have spoken with the designer Ken Bassett about the site and he as approved and contributed the this. The purpose of the site is to promote the boat and to gather information on the builders, to get an ideal of how many are out there. I hope to have a gathering of these boats some day.
Happy Boating
Chris

https://www.geocities.com/rascalrunabout/

My new web site is for a boat building school in Georgia. It is for all the people who want to build a boat but are not sure they can.

https://www.northeastgeorgiaboatbuildingschool.com

thank you
Michael T. Brown
MTB Yacht Repair

Old-fashioned schooner pleases tourists

From CNN News


Two-Part Urethanes & Clear-Coats

By Paul Oman
copyright 4/04

The following is an introduction into 2-part urethanes and 2 part urethane clear-coats. These 2-part paints are perhaps the best performing coatings (low yellowing, high gloss, durable and tough physically and chemically) available for brush, roller or conventional spray application. We’ll apologize up-front for any errors that our more urethane knowledgeable readers are certain to find!

Most, of not all, 2-part urethanes are either acrylic polyurethanes or polyester polyurethanes. Sometimes the prefix “poly” is left off. These are also called linear (or aliphatic) urethanes, or LPUs (linear poly-urethanes). In any case, lots of ‘keywords’ for generally two kinds of 2-part polyurethanes.

Polyester (poly) urethanes are considered the ‘best’. Compared to acrylic (poly) urethanes the polyesters are more abrasion resistant and more chemical resistant. You’ll find polyester urethanes on jet airplanes, and on the floors of the hangers these airplanes live in. Boat owners should note that operating a boat in water, especially seawater, is very much a chemical environment. Two very well known 2-part marine paints, (we will not say their names) are polyester urethanes or acyrlic/polyester urethane blends.

Acrylic urethanes are a bit cheaper and generally one notch down from the polyester urethanes in terms of toughness and chemical resistance, but still above ‘regular’ paints. Acrylic urethanes are found in clear-coats used in the automobile industry and ‘city water towers’ that grace many small towns in America. Boat owners should note that Awlcraft 2000 (tm) is an acrylic urethane, as probably are most of the 2 part urethanes sold in marine catalogs that don’t specify if they are polyester urethanes or acrylic urethanes.

APPLICATION PROPERTIES: Both kinds of urethanes contain large amounts of solvents and thus have a strong solvent smell. That said, additional solvents are often added during application. In the urethane world solvents are called reducers. There are ‘fast reducers’ for spray application. These speed up the time it takes for the urethane to ‘gel’ on the surface. “Slow reducers” slow down the gel time for more working time when applying by brush.

Brushing on a two-part urethane is not like brushing on a varnish or oil based enamel. The thin, almost watery urethane (you’ll probably need two coats or more to cover) starts to ‘gel’ on the surface quickly. Unlike varnish, you’ll get 2 or 3 brush strokes and then, like it or not, it’s time to move on. An application method called ‘tip and roll’ gets almost sprayer like results by applying the urethane with a roller and then gently removing the roller marks with the tip of a brush.

In my experience, both the acrylic and polyester urethanes go on about the same, but the general view is that the acrylics are slightly easier and friendlier to apply and, perhaps, repair.

Urethane’s weakest link is their adhesion. Because of that they are often applied over an epoxy primer. Besides priming the surface the epoxies tend to ‘level the surface’ too, important because the high gloss urethanes will show every flaw in the subsurface.

Recoat window for two-part urethanes is about 6 to 16 hours. Beyond that, sand lightly. Apply only in good, dry weather, as urethanes are moisture sensitive during application and curing. The coating will become dry overnight, hard in about 3 days, with maximum hardness in 7-10 days.

EVALUATING YOUR TWO-PART URETHANE: Obviously, the first question is, is it an unmodified polyester polyurethane or an acrylic urethane? Next, what is the price (two part urethanes sold in marine catalogs are priced sinfully high)? Finally, look at percent solids.

Percent Solids: these coats, like most other coatings, consist of some amount of solvents which evaporate away (called VOCs - volatile organic compounds) and what is left behind is the ‘solids’ of the coating. A coating with 40% VOC has 60% solids. Apply a 10 mil (1/1000 times 10 in inch units) coating of this product and when dry you will have 6 mils on the surface. Some manufacturers describe it in terms of coverage for 1 dry mil of their product. A coating with 0% VOC (most epoxies) will have a dry 1 mil coverage amount of 1604 square feet. A coating with 50% VOC will have a 1 mil dry thickness coverage rate of 802 square feet ( you applied 2 mils over the 800 square feet and 50% of it evaporated away).

The higher the solids (the lower the VOC) the more paint you are actually getting on your surface. One of the leading vendors of ‘boat hull’ 2-part urethanes does a wonderful job of providing their technical product information on their web site. Their web site reports 1 mil dry film thickness of 570 square feet for their original polyester urethane and 846 square feet for their version 2 polyester polyurethane. Their acrylic urethane product (introduced around 2000) reports 512 square feet at 1 mil dry coverage.

Progressive Epoxy Polymers (www.epoxyproducts.com) sells a white unmodified (i.e. not a blend, but 100% polyester) polyester polyurethane with a 1 mil dry coverage rate of 960 square feet ( 40% VOC – $135 for 1.5 gallon unit). Our white acrylic urethane has the same coverage and VOC level ($70 per 1 gallon unit) while our clear acrylic urethane UV Plus (contains max. UV blockers) has 800 square foot 1 mil dry coverage (50% VOC). The difference between the clear and the white is the addition of the white pigment to the polyurethane which increases the percent solids.

URETHANE CLEAR-COATS:

Urethane Clear-coats are almost a different topic from pigmented urethanes and much of that is due to UV blocking. UV rays damage and fade coatings. It yellows and damages epoxies. One of the best blockers of UV rays is pigmented paint. The pigments block the UV, limiting their affect to the very surface only. Clear coatings, of course, have no pigments to block UV, hence, while they add additional gloss and ‘depth’ to a fine paint job, they are generally considered to be performance inferior to the pigment coatings they commonly go over.

There are UV blockers that can be added to clear 2-part urethanes, but surprisingly a very minimal ‘UV Package” is generally added to these clear urethanes (I’ve heard that automobile Clear-coats are an exception). The additives are expensive (about $8 per gallon) and since most clear urethanes are applied over pigmented urethanes the manufacturers tend to let the pigments in the bottom coating perform the UV blocking.

The Acrylic Poly UV Plus offered by Progressive Epoxy Polymers (mentioned above) is also an exception. This clear-coat acrylic polyurethane has the maximum amount of UV blockers that can be added ($78 gallon), while their regular Acrylic Poly - available in white only - ($70 per gallon) has the tradition minimal amount of UV blockers found in most other pigmented acrylic urethanes. Progressive Epoxy also sells both ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ urethane reducers, as well as moisture cured urethanes and, of course, all kinds of epoxies!

THE HIGH SOLVENT LEVELS IN ALL THESE 2-PART URETHANES PREVENTS PROGRESSIVE EPOXY POLYMERS FROM SHIPPING THESE BY AIR OUR OUTSIDE THE USA.


DELTA® extends CONTRACTOR’S SAW® line
WITH NEW 10-INCH MODELS


JACKSON, Tenn. (April 13, 2004) – The recognized leader in the woodworking industry, DELTA® has expanded its 10-inch CONTRACTOR’S SAW® line, 36-675, 36-680, 36-681 and 36-682, for the high-end beginner and intermediate woodworker. The table saws are equipped with a deluxe miter gage, straight grind table surface and the choice of three fence systems to provide improved cutting accuracy.

The deluxe miter gage featured on the 10-inch CONTRACTOR’S SAW® line has nine positive stops including the standard 45 degree and 90 degree stops. The positive stops enable woodworkers to produce more accurate cuts. In addition, the table surface has a new flat grind, which produces a smoother, flatter work area that is more visually appealing.

To provide further accuracy, there are three fence systems available that all have front locking mechanisms and are functionally the same with slight variations. The versatile UNIFENCE® is surface adjustable, which allows for fine-tuning without having to remove the fence from the saw. The fence can be used in a high or low position and is capable of being positioned forward and backward to add extra support in front of the blade or to be used as a cut-off fence. The T-Square design of the BIESEMEYER® fence is made of welded steel and the fence faces are made of laminated plywood, hand-sanded to within .006 inch. The fence itself is accurate to within 1/64 inch using the scale system. Similar to the BIESEMEYER®, the DELTA® T2 also includes a one-piece solid front rail and a T-Square fence design. The steel construction is lighter than the BIESEMEYER® and the aluminum fence faces are removable.

The fences are adjustable for various widths of cutting depending on the system installed and each CONTRACTOR’S SAW® allows up to 30 inches of accurate ripping capacity with the fence. The 36-675 and 36-680 come with 30-inch DELTA® T2 fence systems, the 36-675 has two steel extension wings and the 26-680 has two cast iron extension wings. The 36-681 comes with the UNIFENCE® system and the 36-682 is equipped with the BIESEMEYER® fence system. The 36-681 and 36-682 both have one cast iron extension wing on the left side and a laminated table board extension on the right.

All saws operate with a two capacitor 1 ½ HP, 120/240 volt motor and have a see-thru blade guard with splitter and anti-kickback fingers, 10-inch saw blade and table insert. The 36-675, 36-680, 36-681 and 36-682 will be available in mid-May 2004 ranging from approximately $499 to $799.