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Okay, despite our best intentions, many of us have left things undone all summer. And now labor day is here and we've done squat!!! I just realized I've been putting off FUN stuff, thinking I had all summer to get off my butt and get going. Maybe you did too?

Not terribly interested in major home upkeep, landscaping, repairs, etc. Those (many of them "honey-dos") don't count on this list unless they're actually fun hobbies you enjoy. What I'm looking for is the simple entertaining stuff that we just didn't get around to yet - and now it's getting dark a little bit earlier every evening. The gloomy fall monsoons haven't started yet, but seeing kids go back to school is an unmistakable cue to quit procrastinating.

Lists of 3 are probably good. Things I still need do/get this sumer:

- Waterskis
- Tennis ball lobber
- Paint the spare tins on my old motorcycle
 
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Time to get out the ol hunting rifle and play with it. Also, time to check all of the gear needed when hunting season starts.
 
I've been shooting a lot (for me) this summer but I also plan to keep doing it so that's all good.

Things I havn't done or done enough of:

-BBQ'ing (I could always go for more cooked meat lol)

-Defrost the freezer to make room for venison.

-Swimming (I love to soak in the above ground pool when it's hot). Have done some but the summers been so busy that I wish I had made more time.


Fall rocks though for a few reasons for me:

-Hunting seasons starts

-Tattoo season starts (I hate healing tats in the summer heat)

-School season means a bit more time to myself to work on some winter gun projects and things I can do inside.

I'll miss the sun though...
 
As a sailor and a son of a sailor, the water has always been in the blood. No matter what ocean or stream or lake it feels right to be in it or on it. Took the kiddos down South to visit the Grands and realized yet again, how much I really miss the water. The annual white water trip just isn't cutting it any longer...

So, I've been jonesing for a canoe - has to be aluminum.

Definitely need to BBQ more

#3?... Well, could always use more time at the range or in the woods. Found out that Lousignont Road is no longer available for target shooting... kinda bummed about that... it was never crowded like the quarry near Browns Camp.
 
I bought a nice rowing dory back in June, figured I'd go rowing all summer. Then I effed up my shoulder, haven't been rowing for a couple months. Time to get back to it.

I always like to take some time off in September, it's still nice out but the kids are back in school so nothing is really crowded. It's a nice time of year for recreation.
 
Feel pretty good about my summer! Took a trip to the Southwest, had a new patio cover and garage door installed. Did a lot of repairs and improvements on my home, bought four guns, joined ARPC where I've been shooting a lot! Ate good, relaxed and fooled around with my wife who retired this spring! Life's good!:D
 
Past time to get the damn boat finished so I can do some dry fishing!!!!

Same here. My boat build project was *supposed* to be a quick build, in the water by June. HA. It's September 1st, I still need to buy fiberglass, paint, a motor, a trailer, some hardware... It's boat shaped, interior is epoxy coated, exterior needs sanded, faired, glassed and painted. I might add a forward seat as well. I'll be lucky if it's in the water by Dec 31st at this rate. o_O
 
Same here. My boat build project was *supposed* to be a quick build, in the water by June. HA. It's September 1st, I still need to buy fiberglass, paint, a motor, a trailer, some hardware... It's boat shaped, interior is epoxy coated, exterior needs sanded, faired, glassed and painted. I might add a forward seat as well. I'll be lucky if it's in the water by Dec 31st at this rate. o_O

What design are you building? Boats (building, repairing, using) is my other hobby.
 
What design are you building? Boats (building, repairing, using) is my other hobby.

Walt Baron's Lumberyard Skiff - with some intended and some unintended modifications o_O

She's supposed to be 15'6" LOA - but mine turned out t be 15'1" - and instead of 6'6" beam it's 6'9". The first time I got the bottom on, I noticed it wasn't right. As in the rocker was reversed. Off with that bottom - three new sheets of plywood later - along with tugging the bow in, pushing the sides out further - got the bottom shape I needed. I think what happened is that I mixed up the measurements when going through the plans - when you buy the plans from Walt he sends drawings for 3 versions of the boat - and the two "16 footers" have slightly different transom and side lines - I think I cut side panels for the traditional LYS, and a transom for a "Sport Skiff" which has more rocker and is a tad narrower than the original version.

Here's a shot of current progress:

GbvTVyg.jpg

After getting the new bottom affixed, I flipped the boat to build in the center thwart seat. After getting it in, I coated the interior in epoxy to help waterproof it before the weather turns to crap.

Now she's flipped back onto the "legs" (stem and stern posts) and I've got to plane and sand the oversize edges of the bottom and get the base coat of epoxy on. Lots of fairing, fiberglassing, and painting left, plus I need to add the vertical frame members inside, an exterior rub rail at the sheer and the breast hook.

I also still have to get a trailer, motor, fiberglass cloth, and paint. Still not decided on paint colors. I'd like to find a good used 30-40hp tiller steer Merc to hang off the back (being realistic, if money wasn't a big deal I'd really prefer a new 4 stroke Yamaha but that's not in the cards right now).

I also want to get some UHMW blocks for oar blocks.
 
That's great! I built a Brockway (the design that was the basis for the LYS) a few years ago, it was a great boat. You'll love that boat.

When you did your Brockway did you go "old school" and use roofing tar and nails, or glue & screws?

I can see now why, when I was batting ideas on this build around on iFish guys kept telling me not to add casting decks, raised floors, or too much extra crap - this thing doesn't even have all the wood on it yet and it's heavy - and there's still another seat to add, at least 2 more gallons of epoxy, the glass cloth, paint etc. Ounces = pounds and pounds = pain for sure when it comes to moving this beast around. I really hope I can find a 35 or 40hp tiller to hang off the back of this, as I'm not sure that a 20 or 30 will push it as easily or as fast as I'd like her too - though any gas engine will be an improvement in speed over my last boat - a 12' tin can with a 30lb thrust electric.

It certainly has been a learning experience building this so far. I'm also thinking my next / bigger boat will be a factory production, not another backyard build. I was having hallucinations of building a 20' Tollman some day, or maybe a an 18-20 Garvey if I wind up moving the family down to Texas like we've also talked about. Not so hot on that idea now. We'll see in a few years. I love wood boats - how they feel, how they ride, their inherant sexiness, the warmth on cold days vs plastic or tin boats. I do however, like how much more abuse a welded aluminum can will take. Or even a riveted aluminum. I want a bass/walleye type boat eventually, and I really like the 16 and 18 foot Lowe FS series boats, also a fan of Tracker's boats.
 
When you did your Brockway did you go "old school" and use roofing tar and nails, or glue & screws?

I can see now why, when I was batting ideas on this build around on iFish guys kept telling me not to add casting decks, raised floors, or too much extra crap - this thing doesn't even have all the wood on it yet and it's heavy - and there's still another seat to add, at least 2 more gallons of epoxy, the glass cloth, paint etc. Ounces = pounds and pounds = pain for sure when it comes to moving this beast around. I really hope I can find a 35 or 40hp tiller to hang off the back of this, as I'm not sure that a 20 or 30 will push it as easily or as fast as I'd like her too - though any gas engine will be an improvement in speed over my last boat - a 12' tin can with a 30lb thrust electric.

It certainly has been a learning experience building this so far. I'm also thinking my next / bigger boat will be a factory production, not another backyard build. I was having hallucinations of building a 20' Tollman some day, or maybe a an 18-20 Garvey if I wind up moving the family down to Texas like we've also talked about. Not so hot on that idea now. We'll see in a few years. I love wood boats - how they feel, how they ride, their inherant sexiness, the warmth on cold days vs plastic or tin boats. I do however, like how much more abuse a welded aluminum can will take. Or even a riveted aluminum. I want a bass/walleye type boat eventually, and I really like the 16 and 18 foot Lowe FS series boats, also a fan of Tracker's boats.

I used PL Premium and coated deck screws for the structure with epoxy and cloth coating the bottom with a final layer of graphite epoxy. The screw holes were all filled with thickened epoxy. I also used MDO plywood for the sides so I could just paint it without having to epoxy and glass the sides. I did bed the false stem in roofing tar though, just for historical purposes :cool:

I'm guessing that the guys on iFish consist mostly of Eric from Spokane (I forget his username) and maybe some of the dory guys? Eric built a nice LYS that he uses as a knockaround on his lake that works pretty well for him. FWIW, I added a raised foredeck to mine and put a built-in fishbox underneath it that worked very well. Yes, it's heavy, but the boat is strong as can be and (IMHO) is at least as strong as any of your standard production aluminum boats of similar size. Plywood and epoxy makes for a strong boat.

A friend of mine had a 9.9 Honda on his Brockway and it worked well. I had a 40 2-stroke on mine and it was too much. The LYS has less rocker in the bottom than my Brockway did and would probably take the larger engine better. Right now I have an old Dorsett cuddy cabin in the driveway that I was supposed to restore this summer, although I haven't touched it. Some day I'll get around to working on it....
 
I checked the link you sent - and realized I recognized the boat - Eric (who simply goes by EricS on iFish) or someone else had linked to a pic of your Brockway.

I'm glad I"m not the only one who had some "big" issues with their build - I was going with Walt's suggestions that you could use construction grade fir for everything - maybe he's getting better wood than we get round these parts - my doug fir standard or better grade stuff snapped like twigs when I tried bending them in for the chines. Well - the 2x6 that I ripped in half lengthways wouldn't bend. I wound up slimming it down and finally after shaving half an inch of thickness off, I got it to actually bend. The lumber I bought originally had some knots (some pieces were very knotty, or naughty) and those pieces snapped clean at the knots. After making three 16' timbers into 8' timbers - I said f-that and wound up at Parr Lumber forking over a kidney and title to my first born for a pair of clear grain cedar 16' 2x6s. The cedar, like the fir, wouldn't bend at it's normal 1.5" thickness - I took it down to about 1.25" and it bent in perfectly.

My butt blocks on the sides are also ugly - I didn't want to risk damage my side panels by chiseling or grinding full-height blocks, so I cut them 5 inches short from the start (to account for chine and stem height) and they wound up with a little bit of a gap - which I don't think will be a problem. I'm going to fill in the little gaps in the butt joint that formed when the sides bent with thickened epoxy, do a layer of 6" wide fiberglass tape, plus the full exterior glass work. Any gaps in the wood on the inside of the boat are getting filled with thickened epoxy. I'm thinking of doing a fillet of epoxy on the top of the chine, as I was lazy and didn't bevel the top of the chines before installation. I figure a fillet will work to make water run off the chine rather than puddle on top of it. After reading your build thread, I am kind of wishing I'd just gone with exterior chines/sheer - it'd make installing the vertical frame members so much simpler!

The worst though was re-doing the bottom. That sucked just because of the extra $$ outlay and the wasted time cutting the first bottom. I can at least repurpose some of that wood.

Oh - and when I decided to save time in beveling the bottom of the transom flush with the chines - using the circular saw not the jack plane... 90% turned out fine, the final cut though I deviated 1/8th of an inch - wound up having to fix that boo-boo too - "wood flour" thickened epoxy to the rescue there.

How is the house paint holding up on your boat? I want to use marine paint - but at this point I also want to have money for other crap like motor/trailer/guns/and other non-boat stuff. $50 a quart marine paint or $5-10 quart house paint, decisions decisions.
 
I'm fortunate that my local lumber yard keeps a plentiful stock of 1x CVG fir and MDO on hand at all times. Unfortunately I sold the boat; I reread my build thread today and I suddenly miss it.
 
I'm fortunate that my local lumber yard keeps a plentiful stock of 1x CVG fir and MDO on hand at all times. Unfortunately I sold the boat; I reread my build thread today and I suddenly miss it.

Since you're friends with Aurora Dan - get him to take you out on the boat he bought a couple years ago - the 16 foot inverted V hull red & white one. That used to be my boat. My adopted father build it when I was 4. Had to sell it when I was out of a job a cpl years back. He sent me a vid of that boat on the Willamette, after repowering it with a 50 (or was it 55) hp Merc, it had one of the old Evinrude Starflite 75's with electric shift on it. Nice motor when it ran, but no parts availability anymore. I miss that boat - because I grew up fishing and playing on it. It rode nice. I was going to re-do the interior and change the seating arrangement, but that idea got scrapped when I lost my job.

The old man was a good wood worker, and it was the only boat he ever built. Quite a project for a novice boat builder - I don't think I could do half the job he did if I tried building one myself. He built that boat from a basic set of drawings in a Popular Mechanics encyclopedia, and did it without lofting the lines to boot.
 
Since you're friends with Aurora Dan - get him to take you out on the boat he bought a couple years ago - the 16 foot inverted V hull red & white one. That used to be my boat. My adopted father build it when I was 4. Had to sell it when I was out of a job a cpl years back. He sent me a vid of that boat on the Willamette, after repowering it with a 50 (or was it 55) hp Merc, it had one of the old Evinrude Starflite 75's with electric shift on it. Nice motor when it ran, but no parts availability anymore. I miss that boat - because I grew up fishing and playing on it. It rode nice. I was going to re-do the interior and change the seating arrangement, but that idea got scrapped when I lost my job.

The old man was a good wood worker, and it was the only boat he ever built. Quite a project for a novice boat builder - I don't think I could do half the job he did if I tried building one myself. He built that boat from a basic set of drawings in a Popular Mechanics encyclopedia, and did it without lofting the lines to boot.

Small world! He'll probably be selling it soon, it could be yours again. That's a nice boat, very stable and comfortable.
 
I need to learn to winterize my own inboard/outdrive boat. I could pay someone else to do it once in November and put it away for 5-6 months, but I actually want to use the boat in between the 3-4 freezing spells we get every year around Portland.
 

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