Week 1 - Materials, Cutting Panels

Week 1 started with downloading Goat Island Skiff plans from Mike Storer's website, reviewing them and printing the plans and putting them in a binder.

I contacted Edinsaw woods in Port Townsend, WA about supplies.  After some discussions with Sam at Edinsaw, and faxing over the materials list from the plans, on day 1 of the build I headed out early in the morning for Port Townsend.  After meeting Sam and discussing hardwood options, we settled on a very fine board of 5/4 Sapele.  Sam had Okoume plywood already picked, boxed and wrapped for me.  The warehouse guys quickly had the sapele wrapped and loaded on my roof rack with the plywood in short order.
For plywood, I ordered 4 sheets of 6MM okoume and 2 sheets of 9MM okoume.  I decided to differ from the plans and use 9MM for the bottom panels, centerboard case, and a few other bits.
After the trip home and unloading the Edinsaw supplies, I headed to Renton for a visit to The Lumber Market and picked a load of cedar and clear vertical douglas fir.  Back home and unloaded, it was time to turn all this great material into boat parts.

With the plans, ruler, some panel nails and a batten, I quickly had the ply marked out for the side and bottom panels.

                                                                  marking out bottom panel

Here are the bottom panels after cutting out with a jig saw and trimming to size with a block plane

Then the same was done for the side panels and frames

Next, I marked out centerlines and framing outlines on the frame panels, sanded them a bit and coated them with a couple coats of epoxy.

I'm using Quick Silver epoxy by System Three.  They are a local company to the Seattle area.  I picked up the epoxy right at their home office in Auburn, WA.  The epoxy is great stuff.  It has hardly any odor, no waxy blush to clean up between coats, and mixes very easily.  It will actually have a silverish haze while mixing, and when it goes clear again, you know it's mixed.
Here is my epoxy station set up on a stool.  mixing cups and mixing sticks are in the box.  I use an electronic mail scale to measure the epoxy by weight.  With the cups I use, epoxy batches are measured out to anything from 15 to 150 grams.  The scale is covered with plastic wrap to keep it from getting all gooey.

 That's about it for week 1.  Still on target to complete the goat in time for the boat festival.