Old Man Takes Up Rowing

Let’s start actually building a boat on April Fool’s Day, shall we? Encouraged by overnight experiments with the original epoxy, I glued up the sheer clamps. It’s tough to pour so little epoxy. I wanted 10 grams of resin and 5 grams of hardener, but though I was pouring slowly, I still got 16 and…

Let’s get started. FedEx handed me the epoxy from MAS on Monday morning. In the afternoon, I straightened up a little more, lined up some tools and supplies, and dry fit the sheer clamps. They were each shipped from Chesapeake Light Craft as two bundles of three sticks. The middle stick is scarfed at both…

Proper ratios of epoxy resin and hardener are almost always specified by volume (for example, 2 parts resin to 1 part hardener; or 5 parts resin to 1 part hardener; etc). The mix can also be prescribed be weight. To convert from volume to mass, you need to know the densities of the components. The…

The problem began with how to mount cameras to the aft deck. I was thinking of notching the sheer clamps and epoxying in some small steel plates to which I could screw whatever I wanted. Making that neat and structurally sound while not adding too much gratuitous weight kept me up nights and woke me…