> Pete, just curious, what makes the WR 164 the "hybrid boat from
> hell"? I am currently building the WR 162.

> Nice compass mount idea, I think I'll do the same. -Will

Okay, I got carried away. I'm sure the West River series is a fine design, just like CLC says. I, and not CLC, have made the boat the onus it's become.

What I did was take a set of WR 162/4 plans and try something different: Make all of the panels, which would have been plywood, out of strips instead. I thought it'd be pretty.

I've been joking to folks that it would have been less work if I had simply taken a 17' cedar log and carved a boat out of it.

As an example: For the designed deck, take an oversize piece of plywood, curve it over the already built hull, trace the outline, make the rough cut 1" oversize, and this is what gets nailed onto the hull. Simple enough.

For what I've gotten myself into, I've done all these things, but just to get a full-sized template which I used to assemble the actual deck panels out of strips (which had to be made first), which also had to be glassed on both sides, all of which the CLC design does not require.

This may be one of those things that sounded good at the time... .

Mind you, I'm not complaining, or at least not very much. I've certainly learned a bunch, and it is a pretty boat, which, after all, was my intent. How I'll ever sell it for a return on my labor greater than minimum wages is beyond me, but if it performs well in the water that'll be a moot point.

BTW, to make the epoxy black, this time I used ground-up blackened chunks of wood from the stove. It seems to make a more opaque mix with less additive than using graphite, in addition to being zero cost. You still need a thickener, though, but wood flour didn't make it any less black.

Good luck to you, Will; I certainly didn't mean to discourage you with my crude and simple joke. It was directed at myself, not the boat.