Wood_Ogre builds a Koa Kaholo 14 Kook Box

[Wood_Ogre]

With hull level (no twist ) I taped off for my fillets. Then I tacked the hull together with a small beed of thickened epoxy, carfull not to glue in the wires. When that was dry I cut and removed all the wires.

Then I mixed up my thickened epoxy and did all the fillets. It was a messy job so I was glad that I had masked off for them.

I pulled the tape while the epoxy was still wet and cleaned up the best I could.

[Wood_Ogre]

With the hull all glued up I needed to figure out what I was going to do for skegs, fins , or keels. So I turned the hull upside down and started to mess around with the skeg sizes shapes and placement. I discovered that I was limited to the placement because the hull kicks up from the last frame to the stern.  I had several desighns I want to try so I had to figure out where the skeg boxes would have to go as I needed to frame up inside the hull for them.

[Wood_Ogre]

I used my plywood layout pattern to build the double skeg box . Used white foam to hold everything in allighnment while glueing.

glued and clamped in place with 2 bricks

[Wood_Ogre]

Teddy the shop dog sleeping in the wood shaveings under the work bench.

[Wood_Ogre]

glueing the bottoms on the skeg boxes. The board will be turned over and the skin routed out and boxes filled with epoxy resin

These are the stringers that run the length of the bottom to stiffen the bottom panels. The 2x4 was used to mark the distance in from the side bulkheads then the stringers were glued with thickened epoxy and wired in place. I dont think it is a good idea to wedge or weight the stringers as that could destort the bottom panels.

[Wood_Ogre]

The deck stringers I made from scrap redwood. I cut them to the curve of the deck and glassed them both sides with 4 oz glass cloth. I wanted my deck to be super strong !!

Before I could fit my deck stringer I needed to plane the sheer clamps so they would be flat from side to side.

[Wood_Ogre]

Planeing the sheer clamps makes lots of wood shaveings.

More shaveings I like Wood shaveings.

[Wood_Ogre]

When I did the finger joints for my panels I made six extra strips and glassed them on one side with 4 oz glass cloth. Then I bent them untill they broke . As you can see they are very flexible and when they did brake none of them broke on the finger joint. Gives me peace of mind knowing they are stronger than the plywood.

[Wood_Ogre]

Now its time to make the Koa deck. Koa plywood is expensive special order and besides they don't make it in 1/8 inch anyway. So I make my own. No expensive machines here just a good straight edge and a humble veneer hand saw.

These veneers are natural taperd and because the kook box is taperd at both ends I used the natural taper when I cut my veneers. I book matched the veneers. Made two panels front and back then book matched the two panels end to end.

[Wood_Ogre]

The veneers are taped on the back side .

I put my pre cut deck panel (1/4 inch over size) on top of the veneer and weighted it down and cut the veneers around the panel

[Wood_Ogre]

here is the veneer cut around the panel. I havent cut the end yet

After the end was cut I put some tape around the edges to hold the veneers on the panel so I could turn it over and veneer tape the face.

[Wood_Ogre]

I don't use an expensive veneer dispenser because sometimes simple home made works just as good. I use a plastic lid with a wet spunge on top and cut my veneer tape to lenghth and just pull it under the wet spunge. The little spunge ontop is used for smoothing the tape on the veneer.

[Wood_Ogre]

front and back deck panel faces are taped with veneer tape, The blue tape is removed from the back.

The panel are stored ontop of the hull while I set up the vacume bag.

[Wood_Ogre]

The 1/8 plywood deck is covered with epoxy with a roller and the veneer set ontop and taped with some blue tape. It is sitting on a sheet of 1/4 inch melamine covered with 2 mil plastic. The black peel ply,breather is taped to the end of the melamine

slide it into the bag, seal it and pull vacume.

[Wood_Ogre]

take the skins out of the vacume bag and remove the veneer tape with some water and a steamer then clean off any leftover slime with alcohol.

all cleaned up and ready to book match end to end and cut the joints