BYYB Forums

Alright, I'm cutting the side panels tomorrow (Sun.). If anyone has any tips please let me know. I'll probably attach one side by Monday. Y'all haven't let me down yet.
Thanks

Hey there,

The sides are very forgiving. Follow the dimensions on the plans, and you should be alright. You'll end up patching in a piece either at the bow or stern, or both, depending on how you place things but it calls for that in the plans anyway. You will find that the panels get real close to the deck around the front of the cabin for a foot or two, but other than that, there's room for adjustment.

Will you have a second pair of hands for the proceedure? It makes it easier, but I've heard of people doing it on their own. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Place them higher rather than lower. You don't need to drop them down over the edge of the bottom plywood. You will be rounding over the edges of it and just taking it off anyway. Just be certain that they cover the stringers on the bottom completely.

I painted the interior prior to attaching the side panels. I placed them in position and held them there with a screw in each corner. Then marked off the contact areas with pencil and masked those areas off and then primed and painted the entire inside of the panels along with the bulkheads, bottom side of the deck and all those hard to reach places once you can't get in there. Lots easier to do it that way than trying to crawl down inside the forepeak to reach things.

Hi Barry,
I thought I should epoxy and glass before I painted. Will the glass and epoxy stick to the painted surface? I looked at Alda's site for the 1000th time (Thanks Alda) and I liked the way she glassed the inside with the 1 panel off.
One more question. What type of paint should I use for the interior?
Later, Van

No glass or epoxy over painted surfaces.
hock:

It is a lot easier to finish the interior prior to closing it all up tight unless you are going to glass over all the surfaces. And I'm not sure why you would need to do that except for perhaps lockers or areas that you can't get to to repaint or work on easily.
If you are going to glass the interior, then don't do anything to the wood first except run some 80 grit paper over it to create a little tooth to the plywood panels.
Once you have glassed the interior if that is the way you choose to go, then depending upon how "finished" you want it, you prep just as if it were the exterior with filler and epoxy coats to fill the weave and then fair it out to whatever degree you will be happy with.

Then high build oil based primer, couple coats at least and sand to prep for paint. Try to avoid sanding thru the glass or into the glass fiber itself. Once it is primed and surface ready then I would paint it with Behr Exterior Gloss Latex Enamel. At least two thin coats rather than one heavy coat. Should be good to go for a long time.

If you are single handing this part of the project, like I did,..... I would recommend dryfitting the sides on, sinking maybe three screws up top and two on the bottom. Then you can draw some reference lines on the sides and deck for easy reference when installing with glue. Another tip is that you should consider pre drilling your holes after dry fitting, then running some sand paper over the holes. Otherwise, if you drill during installation, you will have shavings wedging between your sides and stringers. If you go this route of dryfitting and pre drilling, I would recommend starting at the bow, since this area of the side panel is easier to wrestle with. There is alot of geometry here, so placing the panels your self is tricky. But a little dryfitting will go along way. Good luck to you. Be sure to have a bucket of hot water and a rag ready, the glue gets messy!

the pics he looked at barry were my glassing the interior prior to paint....

glassing over paint isn't preferred -

but, i will say that when it came down to the last couple of weeks and my hurry to launch - that there were areas that had paint that also had to take a bit of glass (like when i did the interior and seats - some glass went up against painted surfaces - not major areas) - any time that happened the area was sanded with 60 grit paper and i don't worry about it at all. Nope --- least of my worries.

it might have seemed like overkill at the time to glass/epoxy everyjoint - but the boat is sooo strong and so dry (kevlar on the chines)...

my only regret was using satin paint - when I should have used high gloss for maintenance and clean up...but that will soon be remedied!

i am glad you enjoy the site VanSavage --- it helped me tremendously to see other people build.

a.