Epoxyworks 29 Is Also Available As A

BUILDING, RESTORATION & REPAIR with EPOXY Number 29 n Fall 2009 In this issue EPOXYWORKS® 1 The Gougeon 12.3 Canoe Editor / Designer Michael Barker The little canoe that has taken on a life of its own and Managing Editor / Copy Editor Grace Ombry spawned generations of diverse offspring. Contact / Subscriptions Kristen Lore 4 Turning a Gougeon 12.3 Canoe into a kayak Contributors Ken Filipiak, Greg Hatten, John R. Marples, Bruce Tom Pawlak added a deck to his wife’s Gougeon ca- Niederer, Grace Ombry, Ray Ordorica, Tom Pawlak, J. R. Watson and Julie VanMullekom. noe with parts molded from the canoe’s bottom. Epoxyworks is published twice a year by Gougeon Brothers Inc., 6 Kayak lessons learned Bay City, MI, USA. J. R. Watson passes on some useful tips he’s picked up Product number 000-605 over the years in the seat of his favorite stripper. ©2009 by Gougeon Brothers Inc. Reproduction in any form, in whole or in part, is expressly forbidden without the written 7 Drift boat building in the foyer consent of the publisher. To get the perfect finish on 16' McKenzie drift boat it helps that an Oregon man is married to a saint. Epoxyworks is a registered trademark of Gougeon Brothers, Inc. WEST SYSTEM,105 Epoxy Resin, 205 Fast Hardener, 206 Slow 8 Project Brighter World Hardener, 410 Microlight, G/5, G/flex and Six10 are registered trademarks of West System Inc. 207 Special Coating Famed boat designer John Marples builds an unusual Hardener, 209 Extra Slow Hardener, 422 barrier Coat Additive, prototype and puts a new spin on an old boat. Episize and Scarffer are trademarks of West System Inc. Epoxyworks 12 Readers’ projects Subscriptions, US and Canada subscriptions are FREE to US and Canadian addresses. Subscriptions do not Marine and non-marine projects from readers dem- expire. To start or stop a subscription, change address or onstrate what can be done with WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy. subscribe for a friend, complete and return the tear-out mailer or call 866-937-8797 toll free. You may also subscribe via 14 Pioneers of speed e-mail to [email protected] (be sure to include your Bruce Niederer looks back at the Gougeon Brothers mailing address) or by filling out the subscription form at contribution to fast sailing over the past 40 years. epoxyworks.com or westsystem.com. Our mailing list is strictly confidential and will not be sold or used for any other purpose. 18 Resurrection of the Dalotel DM 165 Contribute to Epoxyworks If you have completed an An Idaho man begins the journey of restoring a interesting project, or developed a useful technique or a one-of-a-kind aircraft. practical or unusual use for epoxy, tell us and your fellow epoxy users about it. Send a photograph or two, or e-mail 20 Testing, testing 123 digital photos (about 300 dpi). Include a note describing the Julie VanMullekom explains how important it is to de- project and how we may contact you. By sending photographs stroy things to learn how to make things last longer. you are granting permission to publish photos in Epoxyworks and other Gougeon Brothers print and online publications or 21 G/flex saves the race promotional presentations. After hitting a whale, Robert Patenaude repairs his Mailing address Epoxyworks smashed rudder and finishes in first place. P.O. Box 908 Bay City, MI 48707-0908 22 Building an ecosystem for salmon Epoxyworks online epoxyworks.com Ken Filipiak built a unique fish tank that provides the Browse back issues or look for specific topics by clicking on ideal environment for raising salmon. ‘Articles by Subject.’ Articles are arranged under Epoxy Techniques & Materials, Boat Repair & Restoration, Boat 24 Great Lakes Boat Building School Construction, Epoxy’s Non-Marine Uses, Readers’ Project The Cedarville, Michigan school partners with Van Gallery, and the Project Directory. Dam Custom Boats on a 30' cruiser project boat. 26 Artist Christopher Tully Epoxyworks is printed on paper The Minnesota sculptor creates large, kid-friendly certified by the Forest critters with clay and epoxy. Cert no. SCS-COC-00979 Stewardship Council. EPOXYWORKS 12.3 The Gougeon Canoe By Tom Pawlak The Gougeon 12.3 canoe represents several He built his mold a bit long and a bit wide to decades of experimentation by employees of allow room for stapling veneers in place Gougeon Brothers. Dozens have been built around the perimeter before covering the Cover story but no two are exactly alike. The evolution laminate with the vacuum bag. That way, af- of the Gougeon 12.3 parallels our love of ter the hull half was removed from the mold boating, passion for innovation and desire to he could trim away the stapled wood perime- build better boats—all of which contribute to ter. He fit and glued together the molded the products we produce today. halves to form the hull. Robert’s finished ca- It started 35 years ago with a personal pro- noe with a deck weighed about 25 lb. ject of Jim Gardiner, who was an employee About 24 years ago I wanted to build a small of Gougeon Brothers at the time. He wanted canoe for my children, who were 8 and 10 to build the lightest solo canoe possible using years old. Robert offered me the use of his wood and WEST SYSTEM® Epoxy. He based symmetrical half mold. He said I needed to its lines on the popular Wee Lassie canoe de- laminate two halves off of it and glue them signed by J. Henry Rushton back in the together to create a hull or if I wanted to A small sampling of the late1800s. make more hulls in the future, I should use Gougeon 12.3 canoe 1 the half mold as a plug to make two female family. Robert Monroe’s Jim planked his lapstrake canoe with 8" thick cold-molded canoe western red cedar veneer. The planks were molds. That way I could glue them together and create a one-piece female mold. With a (foreground) came from lap-glued together and sealed with WEST a half-mold that eventu- SYSTEM Epoxy. He made the ribs with unidi- full mold, hulls would be easier to build and ally resulted in the mold rectional carbon fiber tows. This 12' canoe result in a smooth exterior, eliminating the (behind it) which, over weighed just 10 lb and drew lots of attention need to make two halves and the work of the last 20 years, was at the Small Craft Workshop in Mystic Sea- glassing the seams and fairing. I was familiar used to produce nearly port in the mid 1970s. It turned out to be a with building molds so I took his suggestion. three dozen offspring that reflect a wide range bit fragile for everyday use, but inspired an- Because Robert’s mold was made for vacuum of tastes and technolo- other employee, Robert Monroe, to design a bagging diagonal laid veneer, it was ¾" wider gies. more robust version. than the finished hull half along the center- Robert wanted his canoe stronger. To ac- line. I decided the extra ¾" per side would complish this he chose to cold mold his hull provide a wider and more stable boat for my using vacuum bagging. He incorporated kids. This produced a boat that was 1½" 1 three layers of diagonally laid 16"-thick western red cedar veneer. Robert modified the original Wee Lassie design by increasing the volume at the ends of the canoe. This was around the time Gougeon Brothers experimented to improve overall performance of sailboats by increasing the prismatic coeffi- cient or curve of areas at the bow (both hot topics in the Gougeon break room during that time). Robert incorporated this feature into his canoe. To vacuum bag a cold molded hull, he would need a mold to form the veneer against. He built his male mold out of strip planked pine The venerable canoe and WEST SYSTEM Epoxy and sealed it with mold. The mold surface coats of epoxy so it would maintain vacuum is epoxy/404 without leaking. His hull was designed to be High-Density Filler/420 Aluminum Powder. It is symmetrical; both ends of the canoe had the backed by progressively same shape. This allowed him to build the heavier layers of glass, hull in halves off of the same half mold. totaling ¼" thick. Number 29, Fall 2009 1 better than the first canoe I built out of this mold. The decks were made in the hull mold by utilizing the bottom of the mold near the ends. Little mold becomes R&D tool In the years that followed, we used the little mold to prove concepts for producing the Gougeon 32 (G32), the first production-built epoxy boat that had a polyester gelcoat ap- plied in-mold. Long before the first G32 we used this mold to make experimental canoes. These incorporated polyester gelcoat and conversion coatings laminated over with epoxy, biaxial fiberglass fabric, end grain balsa and foam cores. All of these canoes were built using vacuum bagging techniques. Before building the molds to produce the G32s, we experimented with different tool- Chad Sinicki removes wider than Robert’s original hull and about his third hull from the ing gelcoats, fiberglass lay-ups and cores. mold. The hull, three 4" longer. The result was extra buoyancy for Then we produced a master plug off of the layers of 737 Biaxial paddling down Michigan’s shallow rivers. little canoe mold. We used experimental res- Fabric was the first one I built two canoes from this mold.

Load more