Peeler Skiff build with Ollie Weiss

   Ollie Weiss  Day 13 Tuesday, May 25, 2021 8:42 pm Hours spent: 10am - 4pm  After my final advisory meeting, I headed back behind the hockey rink to finish my trailer. Once I did the same thing to the other bunk, I headed back to the woodshop to get hardware mounted on the boat. This meant I needed to drill holes through the boat, which was a little nerve-wracking. I ended up drilling 6 holes in the boat and test-fitting all of the hardware before heading to the metal shop to trim off the excess length with the help of Gordan. Once everything was lined up and cut, I filled the holes with 540 Marine Grade Polyurethane Sealant to keep the water out. Then I tighten the bolts with a wrench and spent the rest of my day cleaning for a quick photoshoot with Jack. 

Ollie Weiss Day 12 Monday, May 24, 2021 8:33 pm Hours spent: 10am - 4pm  After a well-deserved rest, my morning began sanding epoxy for 3 hours which was incredibly itchy and uneven full. Later in the day, I headed to the back of the hockey rink, where George was kind enough to let me park my trailer with the plans to replace the bunk of my trailer. It seemed like a relatively easy job, all that would not take me long at all.  I started by removing the old 2x4's that were warped, and the carpet was ripped. Those came off pretty easy, considering all the rusty bolts had come loose and fallen off. After throwing out the old pieces, I drilled 3 holes in a brand new 2x4", then drilled a larger hole to countersink the screw. Once I had everything sitting the way I wanted it. I cut a section of carpet and stapled gunned it to the boards. 

 Ollie Weiss  Senior Project Week 2 Reflection  Sunday. May 22, 2021  Hours Spent Total: 30  Over the past week, I have been making lots of progress on my boat; however, it is not necessarily noticeable at first glance. I spent most of my time this week sanding, and it was not my favorite part of building the boat. Most days, I would glue something up in the morning than sand for 4 or 5 hours at a time. There were most definitely times this week where I absolutely dreaded going to sand because I knew I would spend my day listening to the rumble of the sander and be covered from head to toe in itchy fiberglass dust. Still, I managed to chip away little bits at a time. With the majority of senior projects behind me, it had become apparent to me that it is physically impossible to do all the work needed to have the boat looking its best. Still, I was able to attach all the pieces and do 95% of the work.  Heading into next week, I will probably spend most of my time in the shop working eve

  Ollie Weiss  Day 11 Friday, May 21, 2021 6:15pm Hours spent: 10am - 3pm    My morning began in the shop grinding the corners of the rub rail to round them over and lots of sanding. I was able to swing a compass and match both of the corners in the transom and trace the angle of the bow to match almost perfectly.  After I was done with a majority of the rail sanding, I was able to take a router and 1/4 of an inch bit and round over every square edge of the boat. In areas where the router would not fit were all done by hand with a 40inch disk of sandpaper. Although everything is looking good, there is still lots of work tedious, time-consuming work left. 

Ollie Weiss  Day 10 Thursday, May 20, 2021 6:00pm Hours spent: 9:30am - 4pm       This morning my parents drove up to proctor and dropped off the trailer for the boat. I met my Dad in the parking lot during assembly and helped him park the trailer. He also brought up a few parts for the boat, including a bow eye and a drain plug. At some point next week, I am hoping to spend a few hours replacing the carpet and adjusting the bunk to fit the boat. After saying goodbye to my parent, I got back to work and started taking down the rub rail. I used an angle grinder and block sander to level things out. It took a few passes, but I was able to get the rail completely flat. 

  Ollie Weiss  Day 9 Wednesday, May 19, 2021 5:45pm Hours spent: 10:00am - 4:00pm  Around 10:00 am, I made my way over to the woodshop with the hopes of removing all the clamps and be able to sand the rub rail and inwale. However, I found some small gaps in between the pieces still visible. These could easily be pushed tighter with clamps, so I spent my morning filling all of the seams, holes, and gaps with epoxy and sawdust to match the color of the wood. Once the Rail was clamped up again, I began to chip away on my sanding and get a few edges and most of the floor complete. The next few days will be mainly sanding until I am pleased with the finish and ready to paint over it. 

  Ollie Weiss  Day 8  Tuesday, May 18, 2021 9 pm Hours spent: 10:15am - 4:30pm      My morning started off removing nearly 40 clamps that were holding the 2inch spacer blocks to the boat well the epoxy was curing overnight. These blocks are 1/4 of an inch thick, and the inwale is clamped on top of them.  Once those were cured up, I test fit both of the pieces and was able to bend the wood to the boat with lots of clamps. Eventually, I had the piece in a position I liked and removed all the clamps, sealed the wood with epoxy, and clamped them together with epoxy between the pieces.  After getting both pieces clamped up, I was able to scrape off all of the excess epoxies, hopefully saving me some sanding work for later.  After everything was clamped up and waiting to cure, I started some of the sanding work that I am hoping to have done in a day or 2.   (It's just as unpleasant as it looks) 

  Ollie Weiss  Day 7 Monday, May 17 2021 9 pm Hours spent: 10am - 4:30pm  5:30pm - 7:45pm          After two months of fiberglassing, sanding, filling, and painting I was finally able to flip the boat. I spent the earlier hours of my morning sanding and hand planing the walls and cutting small rectangles of mahogany for the rails to be glued to. Around 12:30 I was able to round up enough guys to help me lift the boat outside and flip it over. We were anticipating the boat to weigh much more than it actually did but many hands make light work. A huge thanks to everyone that helped flip, Now it's time for me to do lots of sanding, varnish, and paint work!

Ollie Weiss  Senior Project Week 1 Reflection  Sunday. May 16, 2021  Hours Spent: 38.2  In the first week of Senior project, I have accomplished far more than I expected and was able to work ahead into a few of next week's tasks. At the beginning of the week, the boat started bare fiberglass, and as of this morning, it has a blue and green paint job with a white stripe coming at some point next week. In addition to rolling a total of 7 coats with three different kinds of paint this week, I started working on pieces that need to go on once the boat is flipped over.  As of now, I am planning to flip the boat first thing Monday morning with the hopes of getting all 4 of the 17ft long inwales glued up tomorrow. Once those are clamped up and drying, most of my time will be spent sanding the interior and getting it ready for paint and varnish. This process will be very time-consuming and tedious, but I hope to stager everything out so I can work when coats are drying. I also have a lit

 Ollie Weiss  Day 6 Saturday, May 15 2021 10:39 pm Hours spent: 10am - 3:30pm My morning started off by scratching up the first coat with a 220 Scotch Brite hoping to get another coat on the boat before the shop got crowded. I whipped the hull off with a tack cloth before repeating the same steps as yesterday and was less than satisfied with the second coat.   After working clockwise around the boat applying paint, I finally finished, and the side I had just finished look great, but there were a few drips and sags on the other. Obviously, these are minor imperfections and incredibly hard to find unless you know where to look. With time winding down, I really need to flip the boat by Monday in order to start sanding, varnishing, and painting the interior. I have decided to leave the drips, for now, and fix them at some other point or touch them up next week well, and I am waiting for things to dry inside the boat. 

  May 15, 2021  Ollie Weiss  Day 4 Friday, May 14, 2021 10:10pm Hours spent: 9:00am - 4pm  I made it into the shop on the earlier side this morning and finished up a little bit of sanding to ensure the bull was smooth. After reading the directions on the back of the paint can and watching a quick video on youtube, I felt pretty confident in my boat painting abilities and got right to work. I thinned the paint 10% like the directions said and "rolled and tipped" the paint to get rid of bubbles and patterns left by the roller. After about an hour of painting, I was covered in little drips and drops, but the boat looked really Good.  After hand planning down the Inwals and working on the Console for the majority of the day, the paint was finally dry enough to tape over. I wanted to put one more coat of bottom paint on the boat and was able to tape over the grey primer and roll on another coat of Seafoam Bottom paint. 

 Ollie Weiss  Day 4 Thursday, May 13, 2021 10:15pm Hours spent: 9:30am - 4:00pm After drawing out the waterline earlier this morning I was able to begin taping off the lines with the hopes to roll on the first coat of Flag blue Total Boat Wet Edge topside Paint.  With the help of Grayson, I was able to get all the lines taped pretty close to perfect.  After Taping everything off the shop was still too crowded to paint in and began gluing up pieces for later. Was able to get spread epoxy on all of the scarf joints and clamp 6 different 17ft long mahogany inwales that are later going to get attached and varnished. I was also able to spend a good chunk of time working on the console. 

Ollie Weiss  Day 3  Wednesday, May 12, 2021  10:15pm Hours spent: 9:45am - 3:00pm My day began at 9:45 am, mixing grey two a part epoxy primer with the hopes it would magically dry faster than expected, and I would be able to sand and continue along. However, that was not the case; after watching paint dry from different angles for almost an hour, I decided to work on the Console.   Opposed to using glue or screws to hold pieces together, I drill small aligning holes on each board and tie them together with copper wire. The tension from the copper wires allows me to run a thickened epoxy fillet along with the corner bonding the pieces together once it has time to cure. I spent a few hours this morning stitching the marine grade plywood together and running the first epoxy filletts along the corners.    Into the afternoon, I realized that the waterline work was going to be much harder than I originally thought. Most boats that spend the majority of their time in the water have two paint

  Ollie Weiss  Tuesday, May 11, 2021  Day 2  9:00 am  - 4:35 pm  Yesterday morning started with me removing various clamps from the boat that were holding the gunwale doublers in place overnight. The glue-up went great and did not leave much of a mess, so I was able to quickly sand the pieces with an orbital sander and a 120 grid disk. In no time at all, I had the doublers sanded and taped off.  For the remainder of the day, I focused on prepping the boat for paint. I will be using various colors to protect the hull from moisture and started with the Total Protect 3:1 Epoxy barrier primer from Total Boat. This paint will act as a barrier coat between the fiberglass and paint, keeping out all the moisture, especially underneath the waterline.  I gave the entire boat a once over with 120 grit disks making sure it was as flat as I could get it, before whipping off the boat with a tack cloth. After the hull was clean, I mixed up the Epoxy primer and rolled the first coat of primer over the

Ollie Weiss  Monday, May 10, 2021  10:10 pm  Follow along on Instagram @TheSkiffBuild    Over the next two weeks, I will be trying my best to finish up the boat I have been working on for some time now. For anyone reading this that is not aware, I have spent the last three years cutting, assembling, fiberglassing, and soon to be painting a 15ft Flat Bottom Skiff. The boat's design and instructions come from Chesapeake Light Craft, and many of the materials I will be using are from Total Boat.       My day started at 10:00 am, where I began preparing to glue up the port and starboard gunwale doublers. I began by sanding both of the large pieces with 120 grit sandpaper until they were smooth. Once finished, I test fit the pieces on the boat's sides and drilled pilot holes that I will later use to hold the pieces together.  After minor tweaks, I had everything sitting the way I wanted It. I took the precautions to tape off the surrounding area to save myself from sanding down slop