4 panel ply and ding resistance
but, if a guy could make a 4 panel out of 3/8’s ply using lightweight chine logs versus tape and seams on the inside you would have incredible ding resistance and zero additional epoxy/tape weight. Just a few ounces per side for the clear grain logs (screws would come out after epoxy sets up). The hull (sans deck) would weigh essentially the same amount of the sheet of ply, plus the wee bit of additional… say 33 or so pounds. Granted, a heavy deck, sheer clamps, tape and 'poxy for the outside seams, your layers for the keyhole. etc. are going to increase the weight but I think I am going to try this idea with some offsets out of one of Chris’s books. I will make room on the carport. The obsession is getting too great and I have a few dollars in my mad-money stash…
Now to get those walls in the basement done so my wife won’t say anything…
ding resistance
1/4ply is more than strong enough with chine logs,when I say ding resistance I mean breaking into the wood and staining it. I think the mix of 4mm and 6oz/4oz glass on both sides is optimum.
They all use the same materials
* 4mm okuome plywood (though other kinds can be used, this seems to be the most common)
- epoxy
- fiberglass
- varnish
For boats of similar size and roughly similar shape, big differences in weight would have to be due to how much glass and epoxy is used. It’s not like one kit company has secret-special-superlight plywood and epoxy.
Even though there are people who use carbon fiber for cockpit coamings, rudders, and other exotic bits and pieces, that’s not what the kits include.
Someone showed me his 32-lb wooden boat. But doesn’t glass his wood boats either inside or out. To me, that’s too much of a durability reduction for the light weight.
Yeah but
what I am getting at is exactly that… “Breaking into the wood”. Your not going to break into anything with 1/4 unless you hit it real hard. What is there to break into? Should there be a (god forbid!) a void in your piece of ply and it happened to be layed out in a particular panel and you just happened to get hit right there… On the other hand, if you hit a wood core laminate then yes, you could “break into the wood”.
At best with thick light wood, your going to dent it. Cut it. Abrase it. You would have to really be intent on damage to penetrate the veneers.
I am not trying to change anyone’s opinion or make a statement about anything. Just carrying my theory out to it’s conclusion. Can you imagine that guy with the 12mm canoe banging into the sharp corner of a rock? The boat is going to get a nasty groove or dent or shred on top of it’s first veneer and bounce off. Something easily repairable. The same could be conluded about 1/4 or 3/8 to a lesser yet theoretically acceptable degree.
actually
a CLC Chesapeake 17 will weigh about 4lbs more than an Arctic Tern fitted out with bulkheads and hatches and thigh braces. The weight of the sheerclamps, deck beams, oversized endpours (the setback on the sheerclamps necessitates/invites more goop than necessary), tendency for gaps to develop at bulkheads requiring goop, and doubling of 3" tape with 6oz glass all tend to put more “stuff” than needed to float one on the water. If you change the 4oz deck glass to 6oz and add aft compartment glass and under deck glass (to approximate similar durability as paneled deck)you end up with another couple pounds extra.
The Mergansers have the potential to be a tad lighter than the Tern by maybe 1/2lb simply because it’s a bit smaller and the thigh braces are integral.