once again, I have been very slow and slack in updating my progress. There has been quite a bit of progress since the turnover day although not quite as much as I'd hoped. That's because, it has been summer and I have a very big vegetable garden that is slowly becoming a market garden and also because we've had such good weather that it's been nice to take a break every so often to go down to the cove and have a swim or a fish.
What have I done since turnover?
- clean out all the gobs of epoxy that I didn't clean out while planking
- lightly sand all the planking on the inside and round off the inner edges then fillet the overlaps (I used bote-cote resin but with West 411)
- epoxy coat then attach all floors
- fillet and glass all the floors and bulkheads and transom to the planking. This was a slow and tedious job but one I wanted to get right as these must provide much of the resistance to twist in the boat. I used bote-cote thickened with their glue and fillet powder (which I believe is mostly colloidal silica). I mixed the gunk thickly and applied it after painting the zone to be taped with straight resin. I shaped the fillet with a disc of pine wood. I made a whole pile of these by ripping cheap pine boards into 3-4 mm thick strips then using a hole-saw to cut 30mm discs. I sanded the edges and they worked really well. Then, the advice of Chris Burke, a proper boat builder who works at Denman Marine, was really useful. Chris told me to polish the fillets with my gloved finger dipped in methylated spirits. He also told me to wet out the tape on a flat surface covered with a piece of plastic then put it over the fillet already wet. This was fantastic as it meant no squeegeeing of epoxy on curved surfaces in confined spaces. I just used metal roller with ribs running across ways to roll on the wetted tape and remove air. I then used a heat gun to further remove air from the surface and make the epoxy settle in. I used 420 gsm 45/45o biaxial tape and this conformed to curves really well without needing to have darts or nicks cut into it. After the epoxy went tacky, I rolled on another coat of straight resin using a shaggy roller.
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| floors in the cuddy |
I have also laminated the sheer clamp/beam shelf. As I am using swamp gum/mountain ash for this, I found that it was going to be way too stiff and difficult to try and glue in both pieces at once, so I did them separately and this worked well. I used bote-cote high-strength filler for the glue and a huge number of clamps ( I had to borrow some). The sheer is now really nice and smooth with no irregularities at all. I planed off the beam shelf with the deck camber allowed for. Gee this boat is going to be strong! Mine will, according to FV be about 30kg heavier, but it will be a whole lot stronger as the hoop ply I am using is F17 whilst gaboon is F8 (the hoop has many more laminations) and the swamp gum is >F17 while douglas fir ranges from F7 up to F11.
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| beam shelves in place |
Next, I put the longitudinal bulkheads, that define the flotation chambers, in place. They required several minor adjustments (shaving with a plane) and then I glued and filleted them in place. Vivier didn't say to glass these in, I don't think, but I am doing it anyway.
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| watertight compartments in place |
I have also commenced building the rear lazarette having glued on the side stringers and the cut in and glued the beam that supports the top of the compartment.
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stringers and beam in place
