Blazer Lauterbach Build Thread

[Bob Blazer]

Looks good there "Honey Buns" I'm watching to see if I make any mistakes on my builds.
Bob

 

[Rich Jones]

Looks good there "Honey Buns" I'm watching to see if I make any mistakes on my builds.
Bob

Well great, now the “Founder” is watching. My first mistake was not having you build it!

 

[Rich Jones]

Ok well I’ve missed building a few days as last Wed I had to have a root canal redone or retreated. I figured it would be easy since the tooth was dead anyway. Ha! Nah! Today was the first day I was able to move around without feeling my heartbeat in my cheek and jaw and dropping to one knee in pain. Ugh! Anyway dentist put me on steroids yesterday and they are helping as I’m back in the shop feeling buff and with a little attitude! . So other than decks, this next part is about as stressful as anything I can think of building a boat, and that is tacking the frame together. It looks like everything is square and with some strategic clamps I will get that done as soon as I get sick of looking at the CA bottle. Note that I squared up the bottom keel part to the milled side of the surface and screwed it into the building board.

 

[Rich Jones]

Got everything tack glued with CA up to Frame 6 yesterday. Laminated the sponson insides and doublers with epoxy last night. Installed those tonight with CA and clamped up some other parts to check the fit etc… If you are thinking about building this boat, there have been some changes in a few of the parts (for the better I might add) over the years. The changes aren’t reflected in the pdf instructions on their site. I was able to look everything over and take notes and figure out what I thought was going on. I then emailed Bob Blazer and he confirmed everything for me. For those that don’t know, Bob is SUPER responsive to emailed questions. I will cover those changes in detail in my next post as I am out of time for now.

 

[Rich Jones]

So as promised here are the talking points/questions I sent to Bob regarding the current revised version of the kit. These have been confirmed:

1.) The instructions indicate that bulkheads 4,5, and 6 are supposed to have a 3 degree dihedral on the left side. I have checked and checked again and I can't see any difference between right and left. They both appear to be dead flat on each of these bulkheads. Did you guys remove this dihedral or angle on the left?

2.) Frame 25, the sponson outer chines are listed as having right and left versions. The straight back part of each are listed to measure .520 left and .625 right. Both of these are identical and measure around .372 in. Were these changed as well?

3.) The front and rear radio box frames are listed as #15 in front and #13 in back. 13 is a shorter frame so it appears at one time the box height tapered front to back. Frame 14 also tapers front to rear in the instructions. At first, I thought I had 2 frame 15's and no frame 13 but all frames, front back and side are the same height and everything seems to line up, so can you confirm that the box was changed to be uniform in height?

4.) Frames 18, 19, and 20 in the engine well appear different from the instructions, but everything lines up. I'm assuming the doublers go to the outside?

5.) There are 2 parts shown on page 3 of the instructions called shingle and front pad ( or recovery pad). Were these parts combined into one part?

6.) Frame 23 at the front of the boat that meets in the middle in a male/female fashion looks like it was re-designed as well. As far as I can tell it incorporates the bottom side frame 30 and 2 frame 28's to either side, all of which used to be separate parts. Can you confirm? I believe all the previous frames did was extend frames 29 (keel piece) and 27 on either side of 29 to the nose .

His replies are as follows basically confirming everything:

#1-0 degrees on both sides
#2-same
#3-yes the radio box was changed
#4-line up the engine rails to fit into the cutouts on frame 6. The id should be 5”. The short doubler 11-18 goes to the inside
#5-yes they were changed
#6-the pictures should help

Also, frames 21 and 22 should be laminated with side sheeting pieces prior to assembly. Hope this saves some of you a little time when you are doing inventory and marking your parts for the test fit!

 

[Chuck Mason]

I have been watching closely to the build and it is looking more impressive each post.
I fear dentists almost as much as doing taxes.
Back to my build I go. CAM

 

[Rich Jones]

I have been watching closely to the build and it is looking more impressive each post.
I fear dentists almost as much as doing taxes.
Back to my build I go. CAM

Thanks Chuck! Keep plugging away! Ask questions if needed.

 

[Chuck Mason]

TY, yes I have a few now that I have reached the Chines, Inner & outer. I am posting a few picks on my build as well as a few questions.
Excited: USPS Just dropped off more goodies

 

[Rich Jones]

So after a few days of a car show and helping my daughter move, I’ve been able to get back to work and finish getting the front end of the frame in place and tacked with CA. It is now time to move further back and work on the non trips and sides of the hull. I tacked on the rear sheer battens today and got started on shaping the non trips. Once those are done they will be glued on followed by the sides.

 

[Rich Jones]

Finished up with the non trips and the sides. Just have to sand up the seam between the non trips and sides and trim and sand the overhang at the transom. Starting to resemble a vintage GP Lauterbach hull.

 

[Chuck Mason]

Starting to resemble a vintage GP Lauterbach hull.

Lookin Vary classic Fast. Cant wait till she reaches the water.

 

[Rich Jones]

A couple mock ups with the center deck pieces and the cowls set on. Transom has been trimmed. Front side extensions wrapped around the front. On to the sponsons. I used thick Ca and accelerator for this step. Everything going relatively smoothly. The next step will be starting to add a majority of stringers

 

[Rich Jones]

Larger stringers on the top and bottom of the front of the boat installed. Up next will be the smaller 1/8 x 1/8 basswood stringers where the framing calls for it and anywhere else where more gluing area for the decks and bottom is needed.

 

[Chuck Mason]

The compound bottom is quite cool, She is an Impressive Build R.J. Glue Glue, CUT ONCE.
I went ahead and purchased a few power-plants today, also watched a few of the GAS Nationals (YT) and noticed if you want to be competitive, many run the Blazer Lauterbach MAN! IS IT FAST ! ! !
or the SG500H-GSRC from the Boat Co. AND THE INSANE round nose seemed to as well.
Looking Great.
C

 

[Rich Jones]

Thanks Chuck. I’ve built a few wood boats and it is getting easier the more I do it. The laser cut kits have something to do with this, man, I just can’t express how much easier it is to build these nowadays. There are still “tricks of the trade” that you gain as you build a few of these boats. One of them is the use of CA. Tacking with CA makes the frame go together quick. Epoxy provides strength later on. I even used CA to attach the bottom on my Backlash and added filets of epoxy to the joints and sealed the rest with thinned epoxy. And that boat bounced off the beach HARD this year with no structural impact. THIN CA. The thin ca works great when you have an almost seamless joint while adding some pressure. Not so much when there are larger gaps. I’m likely going to use epoxy to attach the bottom on this one though. The Lauterbachs are beautiful boats. And yes they are fast. The Blazers are in my club and I’ve known them for a long time. They spend countless hours designing, building, tweaking, etc… There’s a reason you see Brian in the impba record book. I’ve seen the Zipp Kits boats run very impressively though as well. I’m just partial to the Lauterbachs. If you ever decide to build one, hit me up for some help. What power plants did you buy?

 

[Wasted wages]

I gained a lot of experience building RC planes before the ARF craze hit. Building light is a must with aircraft, so I learned all I could about CA glues.

Thin Zap is great for building tight joints with
good penetration as the glue is like water and wicks into the wood fibers. I used it a lot for fabric hinges on control surfaces, it worked great for those.
I don't use "kicker" with thin CA as it is too "hot" and can swell up the glue joint and make sharp inside corners hard to fit the next piece into place.

I can see on these wood boat builds that it would be very useful to Zap the frame together and then use thinned epoxy to seal and strengthen it prior to sheeting.
30 minute epoxy mixed with sanded sawdust or micro balloons for critical and wide gap joints.

I've been wanting to build a wood boat kit, as I miss the "building from scratch" part of the hobby... when I was flying planes, I really liked building kits, it was a very rewarding part of the hobby. I also built several cut/plan kits from magazines articles etc... those were fun to build !!

 

[Rich Jones]

I gained a lot of experience building RC planes before the ARF craze hit. Building light is a must with aircraft, so I learned all I could about CA glues.

Thin Zap is great for building tight joints with
good penetration as the glue is like water and wicks into the wood fibers. I used it a lot for fabric hinges on control surfaces, it worked great for those.
I don't use "kicker" with thin CA as it is too "hot" and can swell up the glue joint and make sharp inside corners hard to fit the next piece into place.

I can see on these wood boat builds that it would be very useful to Zap the frame together and then use thinned epoxy to seal and strengthen it prior to sheeting.
30 minute epoxy mixed with sanded sawdust or micro balloons for critical and wide gap joints.

I've been wanting to build a wood boat kit, as I miss the "building from scratch" part of the hobby... when I was flying planes, I really liked building kits, it was a very rewarding part of the hobby. I also built several cut/plan kits from magazines articles etc... those were fun to build !!

Yeah Frank I like working with wood or I wouldn’t go this route for sure. Building definitely requires patience, and whether you build from scratch, build from a kit, or build from a pre made fiberglass hull, its all cool. I’ve done all of it, but the wood boats are the most rewarding, My girlfriend, whom I’m building this for, mentioned that the boat was being built from scratch. I told her that I’d normally call it building from scratch when you start from slabs of plywood and sticks and set about to cutting out your own parts, so I was trying to get her to see the difference. She said, “To me, it’s building from scratch”. I thought that was kind of amusing. However you want to look at it, it’s fun and all the work is worth it.

 

[Rich Jones]

Build Update: I got the small sticks put in where the notches called for them and all the extra spots the instructions pointed out. I did add a couple that weren’t called for to the ride pad area because I didn’t want the front edge of the ride pad to not have support in the middle. I think I may also go back and add them to the recovery pad area as it curves down to where it meets the side and the sponson deck. Then I’ll move on to adding the angled basswood to the inside corners of the radio box and epoxy on the box lid. Once that is done, it will be block sanding of the entire bottom of the hull and sponsons and the bottom will go on. So no real issues to this point, knock on wood.

 

[Wasted wages]

Rich, I see some people either nail or screw down the decks when they glue them on, and then pull out the hardware and fill the holes.
Any plans to do this ?

 

[Rich Jones]

Rich, I see some people either nail or screw down the decks when they glue them on, and then pull out the hardware and fill the holes.
Any plans to do this ?

No I’ll do strategic clamping. I’ve got veneer applied to my top decks and I don’t want to put holes in that. I put both decks on a once on my Backlash by taking some time to plan out the clamping and doing a trial run. That worked out well.