Milled Wood Reinforced Fillets - Skerry

Hello Forum Experts-

I'm building a Skerry and so far, so good, for a first-timer I think.  Just glassed the hull and getting ready to do the interior fillets.  Wondering if it (a) could be good, (b) would be wise, and/or (c) would in any way improve things to include milled wooden moulding in the fillets?

Specificially, for the fillets that reinforce the seats and other structural members, there are a lot of close-to-90' fillets where the fillet, in cross section, looks like a triangle-with-a-concave-hypotenuse.  For example, the fillet around the bottom of the daggerboard trunk.  I was thinking, rather than make that reinforcemenet with a fillet, why not just epoxy-in-place a piece of moulding of approximately the same dimensions?  

For example, below is an image of the profile of a 3/8" by 3/8" wood moulding available from Home Depot (I know, I know).  http://www.homedepot.com/p/House-of-Fara-3-8-in-x-3-8-in-x-48-in-Tinytrim-Basswood-Cove-Moulding-TT10/202087489  There are many variations, sizes, other woods (inc. Oak) etc.

This is partly driven by, it seems like if the wood is finished bright it might look a little bit nicer than the epoxy + sawdust fillets.  Not that they look bad.  And, it is partly driven by, I'm getting close to the end of my epoxy kit and nervous that I might run out at the end, it looks like there will be a lot of fillets so I wonder if I can save 80% of the epoxy material that would be in the middle of the fillet anyways and just replace it with plain old wood.

Any thoughts appreciated.


5 replies:

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RE: Milled Wood Reinforced Fillets - Skerry

   They will work fine. I would paint them with epoxy first so that when you actually glue them in place your joint doesn't experience any epoxy starvation due to the wood soaking up the epoxy.

Then glue then inplace with some epoxy thickened with cab-o-sil.

Boats have been built with clamp peices since the begining of time.

Of course, if you are going to glass over the joint, one of the major reasons for the fillet is to make sure the glass can comfortablely turn the radius. In that case your molding pieces are going to present some difficult corners for the glass to try to negotiate and a fillet would be a easier and maybe better choice.

Have fun,

Joel

RE: Milled Wood Reinforced Fillets - Skerry

   They will work fine. I would paint them with epoxy first so that when you actually glue them in place your joint doesn't experience any epoxy starvation due to the wood soaking up the epoxy.

Then glue then inplace with some epoxy thickened with cab-o-sil.

Boats have been built with clamp peices since the begining of time.

Of course, if you are going to glass over the joint, one of the major reasons for the fillet is to make sure the glass can comfortablely turn the radius. In that case your molding pieces are going to present some difficult corners for the glass to try to negotiate and a fillet would be a easier and maybe better choice.

Have fun,

Joel

RE: Milled Wood Reinforced Fillets - Skerry

lMy only caveat is to be sure those flats (along the cove strip edges) get nicely faired in when you epoxy them in place. You get to the glassing part that comes later, glass isn't gonna follow the right angle very well. You do NOT want voids under glass that have potential to trap water! Better to fair in the step when you're placing them, avoid the voids that otherwise might happen.

RE: Milled Wood Reinforced Fillets - Skerry

Not sure what you would gain by using the cove strips. They would definitely complicate the build and since the joints are never at 90 deg., there would be a lot of whittling and sanding needed. The fillets on the planks need not be very large and since the fillet mix is almost half wood flour, you won't really save much, if any on weight.

 

RE: Milled Wood Reinforced Fillets - Skerry

Following up here to report and also to thank everyone for the advice.

I ended up driving to the CLC store and bought some more epoxy, and made the traditional fillets with the sawdust, and everything came out (mostly) fine after a lot of sanding and filing.  

While I was there I saw how neat and small the fillets were in their demo boat in the store.  In comparison mine look like play-doh smushed into the cracks by a dog wearing mittens.

Something to improve on for the next one I guess!

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