Tag Archives: #46

G-Wiz!

Russell Brown’s New Toy

By Russell Brown — Port Townsend Watercraft

Russell Brown’s G-32 catamaran on the cover of Epoxyworks 46, Spring 2018

The work of the Gougeon brothers has been like a guiding light to me starting when I was a young teenager. It wasn’t just the methods and skills they developed that inspired me (and led to my career in boatbuilding), it was the “outside the box” thinking about boat design they employed. While Meade Gougeon led the effort to develop and teach epoxy skills and building methods, it was his brother Jan who had the courage to design, build, develop, and race boats that were very unusual and often counter-intuitive, yet very successful. Jan’s G-32 catamaran is an example of his genius. Continue reading →

Wooden Window Repair

By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

Wooden windows frequently become weathered and develop rot due to their constant exposure to the elements. Often times repairing a wood window is much faster, cheaper and more aesthetically pleasing than replacing it. Over the years we’ve been contacted by architects in search of instructions on how to repair this kind of damage using WEST SYSTEM Epoxy. The following method is what we share with them to restore weathered wooden sills, sashes and trim:
• Remove all the paint in the affected areas. Continue reading →

Refinishing a Wood Strip Canoe

By Tom Pawlak — GBI Technical Advisor

About 30 years ago, I built an 18′ wood strip canoe. At the time, my family was young and I could only work on it intermittently. Over the course of six months, I had faired my mold frames, applied the redwood strips, faired the outside of the hull with a keen eye and applied the fiberglass cloth. Two months later I decided to take it off the mold to fair and fiberglass the inside. To my horror, the exterior hull bottom had a big dimple in the middle when removed from the forms. I immediately knew the cause. The humidity in my garage had skyrocketed since the outside of the hull was finished with fiberglass and epoxy. The unsealed inside of the hull had probably gained 4-5% in moisture content since the outside was fiberglassed. Continue reading →

Meade A. Gougeon

September 25, 1938–August 27, 2017

“The wind is coming up. Tell the boys they can commence with the race.”

Fittingly, these would be the last words of Meade A. Gougeon as he watched a fleet of sailboats, including his trimaran Adagio, assembling for the Great Lakes Multihull Regatta in front of his home on the Saginaw Bay.

Meade, along with his brothers Jan and Joel, founded Gougeon Brothers, Inc. in 1969. The brothers pioneered the use of epoxy in boat construction and repair. They got their start building DN class iceboats with wood and epoxy. Continue reading →

Railroad Repair

By Bruce Niederer — GBI Technical Advisor

“It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry…”—Bob Dylan

I received a call out of the blue from an old sailboat racing friend, Gary Plezia, who is now the owner and founder of Southern National Track (SNT) which he began after leaving Conrail in 1996. SNT is a regional railroad company based in Florida certified and licensed in the southeastern United States from Texas east to South Carolina. SNT specializes in building and maintaining railroad tracks and complex switches, track beds, gradings and drainage, crossings, signals and platforms as well as crane rails for ports and industrial clients. Continue reading →

A Penguin in Iowa?

By Ryan Krafka

I first got the idea for this project driving through a neighborhood in Iowa City where my wife and I live and work. “You have to see this awesome mailbox,” I said to my wife as we drove through a neighborhood one day this past fall. There it was, a dolphin mailbox. Not just a mailbox with dolphins painted on it, but an honest to nature fiberglass dolphin with fins holding a mailbox beneath its head. Continue reading →

Aluminum Boat Repairs

By Greg Bull — GBI Technical Advisor

After developing the Aluminum Boat Repair Kit we have had calls from customers saying they have a larger boat and cannot easily turn it over as recommended to work on the seams and rivets. They ask “will this kit still work on my boat?” The answer is, yes, it will. It will be a little messier but will work the same way upside down or right side up. Continue reading →

Joining Plywood

By Don Gutzmer – GBI Technical Advisor

Many boat parts require plywood lengths greater than the standard 8 feet, so joining together two panels of plywood is an important step. The most common methods of joining plywood are the butt joint with backer block, the scarf joint and a hybrid between the two. Each method offers its own distinct advantages and disadvantages in certain applications so it’s important to be aware of each joining method. Continue reading →

Readers’ Projects, Issue 46

The Wright Edge

Doc Wright is the owner/craftsman of The Wright Edge, an artisan woodworking business in Dallas, Texas. From start to finish, each piece is handled only by Doc or his business partner including sourcing/cutting down, milling, and drying. He uses locally sourced, 100% regionally native wood. Continue reading →