Making a mold of a clinker dinghy

Making a mold of a clinker dinghy

Making a mold of a Clinker Dinghy


This all started with a search on eBay for a car wing mirror...!



It has since consumed nearly every spare hour I have had in the past 12 months....





''Dont try this at home''.........unless you have a spare... thousand hours''





All I wanted was a wing mirror as I searched on eBay...when I found what I wanted I made the mistake of looking at...Sellers other items...

Amongst the other auctions this seller had, was a mold for a Clinker Dinghy....
It caught my eye as there was such a large number of bids for what, at the time, seemed a small uninteresting boat....

Anyhow I marked this down on my favourites, and over the next few days watched the auction progress...
Hundreds of people watched it, and there was frantic bidding activity...and at the end I was amazed at how much the mold sold for....

Consequently I then followed the progress of the winner of the mold, as he then produced a number of boats, which he also sold on the afore mentioned auction site...
These small boats were in high demand...and fetching a reasonable price...

My interest was now fuelled....why were these little boats creating so much interest...?



They were small and suitable for lake river and in-shore fishing, and easily handled on land by two people...and would more than likely go on the roof of a van or an estate car....can be powered by a small outboard motor, and would be desired by many...

Having made my own custom waveboards in the past....''How difficult can it be''... I thought.....''anyone could make one of those.... in their shed''...........

......Perhaps my shed...?

The Idea...

With this new found interest I told my son of my observations, and he said...


'' We could easily make a mold.....It would be dead easy....We can get a load of MDF, cut and shape all the planks...cut some formers...a bucket of filler ...a bit of rubbing down and polishing and before you know it we will have a mold''...


It certainly sounded feasible to me.......me who had never attempted anything like this before...


At the time I personally had limited experience of working with GRP....certainly not creating something from new...I had done many repairs to cars that were used by disabled people a few years prior to this.....and had also made many custom wave boards for windsurfing, using woven cloth and epoxy resin....Whereas my son was, at the time ... earning his living, making boats in GRP... he had all the skills...mold making, laminating, carpentry and finishing to a very high standard....


Perhaps between us we might be able to produce something......half reasonable ?


After really putting some thought into making a mold from scratch, we decided against it....the way forward was to get a donor boat preferably in good condition...and take a mold from that....


''That would be copying'' ... you say..........in actual fact we were going to alter various aspects of the original, and then it would be our own mold....and nobody could sue us........ in theory.


The search was launched...we started looking along the beach and the river banks...there were plenty Clinkers out there, but nearly all needed loads of work done to them before you could even start preparing it for the mold...


Eventually we went to view a boat near Chichester in Sussex...

It was perfect...9ft 6ins in length...and a true classic clinker dinghy ...lots of hardwood and copper rivets ... and in excellent condition...





The owner was very knowledgeable about wooden boats...and assured us that'' It had no rot'' and pointed out the only two small scarf repairs which had been professionaly done...


He also said..''That he thought that due to the clinker having lifting eyes fore and aft..that it would have been suspended on a much larger craft earlier in it's life...and have been a tender to such a vessel''...


A deal was struck and we were the new owners of this splendid little vessel...





We trailered it home and took some photos...



........Click on any photo for a high quality large image......



...

Let the work commence...

We turned the boat over and supported it on a couple of work benches, this made it stable to allow us to commence work....

Firstly the oak rails that protect the lower planks of the boat were removed....easier said than done....some of the brass screwheads which secured these rails to the hull were damaged...after a lot off effort, and a fair amount of blood... at the end of day 1... they were finaly removed.

We began to sand the hull with very coarse oxide abrasive paper...not only does it remove paint and wood with ease...it also removes your fingertips...

Little did I know at this point about how much sanding would feature in my daily life for the next year of more.....

Over the next few days we sanded for hours until we were happy with the finish..........and then we sanded some more.......

The alterations...

As I previously said our intention was to copy or interperate this boat...I expect the original boat builder was now making a set of gates for St Peter....and probably would'nt come out of the woodwork to sue us.....but none the less we would still alter it, to our... ''own design''...

Nothing too severe...because I know whoever built this boat knew exactly what they were doing

....we were just altering it a bit !

First of all we turned it upright and added MDF flanges along the gunwhales these were screwed in place...and the gaps filled with car body filler...guess whats next...some sanding....

Wrapping the abrasive paper in a block of wood, the filler was smoothed down onto the MDF flange...

Next we added a slight bow to the transom over it's width, and also put a curve in it after fitting a MDF panel onto the transom...

Boring...sanding

All the cracks and crevises around the MDF panels were now filled and sanded until smooth....when they were smooth... you change to a higher grade paper and sand again and again.............I really can't emphasize enough about this sanding... but I promise you it did go on and on for weeks...........till I heard those imortal words.....''I think we are ready for the Durabuild''......to anyone who doesnt know what that is.....it' only a reason to get the sandpaper out again...

Durabuild is a filler/primer which is painted on ....and the following day you can start to sand it, but the very smooth finish that is required....won't be acheived until weeks later when you are using very fine wet and dry paper.....infact I think it took around a month or more before we were happy with the finish....

The matt finish we had now acheived after our marathon looked decidedly dull....but things would soon change as the next step involved would soon be followed by ten more steps...

Ten coats of hard wax.......Yes ten coats....

The wax is going to be the release agent, for when the mold is removed from the boat

Remember we were doing this evenings and weekends only...it took a whole evening to apply and polish... one coat to only half of the boat...

Many evenings later.... the final coat was applied and enthusiastically removed....we had reached a milestone...

.............Halleluiah.........

The Gel-coat...

We now had the shiniest boat on the planet and that could only mean one thing...

It was time to apply the Gel-coat.........this is the layer that will eventually become the finished surface because when you make a mold you are actually creating something ...inside out...

If you follow that...?

The Gel is mixed with a pigment this will give you the colour you desire...so what you see in the bucket is what you get....no going back.!

Paint it on with a brush.......

Two more coats were applied over the next 24 hours...