Lewis Boat Works: Custom Boat building and Plans
First Attempt!
The name says it all.
This is the boat I started with. This one is 14 1/2 ft long and has a 62" beam. Bottom width is 48". Built out of 1/4" ply throughout (shoulda used something thicker on the bottom). Exterior seams are taped and the whole shebang has at least one layer of 'glass on it. Most of the corners have 3-4-5 layers. Inside seams are puttied (X3) but not glassed. As of 3-5-02, still am working on the interior. The boat is hibernating for the winter, along with the 4 or 5 others I have.
Here's a shot of the (unfinished) interior. The boat originally started as a flat bottom (Scow, Garvy, Punt) square bow boat of 12' in length. From the end of the gunnels forward is the addition I put on the front to assist in Ving the front of the bottom (see History for an explanation). The wood looks so nice I'm loath to take a sander to it as I don't know if I can finish it as nice (but without the ripples). Those gunnels are of Oak and were a real B....ear to bend. Not the one inside, Not the one outside, But the one on top, OOOeeeee! Sure stiffened the sides up though! Rock Solid! (if only the bottom was so stiff). Hoping to complete this one this summer.
This picture shows some of the problems I've run into. This is a shot of the inside of one of the side panels. The wood is delaminating. Reason #1 is that I picked a piece of wood that had a joint on the exterior panel. Reason #2 is that, although I resined the panel, I ground off putty drips and did not immediatly re-resin the areas that were down to the wood. Water was able to penetrate the wood and cause delamination. Had the same problem on the other side ( the wood was part of the same panel and delaminated in the same area. Wood or Builder, who knows?). I'll slit the bubbles, slop some epoxy under the veneer and laminate another piece of ply on top. That'll fix em!
New pics as of 4/1/02. This is a shot of the bottom. This came about because I had to dump about 300 lbs of water that had seeped through the "waterproof " boat cover. The mess to the left is some rags and tarps that were stored under the boat for winter. The frame in the foreground collapsed under the weight of the boat and water. The different color paint that you see is the result of my impatience. I pulled some masking tape off uncured paint and the paint came with it, right down to the primer. It WAS a nice paint job.
The mess on the ground is the wet leaves (which were dry when I covered the boat) that had to be scraped out of the boat. The epoxy covered wood stood up to the impromptu torture test fantastically. The white (light grey) pile by the fence is the supposedly waterproof $50 boat cover. I should have used polytarp. I cleaned up the mess after taking the photos, but I wanted some decent light for the pics. As you can see, I'm still working on the interior. This summer for sure!
