Fiberglass on Main hull

It took me a few days to get all the edges filled and rounded. Weather had again turned cold.






When we were promised a week of very warm weather, I made the push to get everything ready for laying the fiberglass cloth and pouring the epoxy.


Last Thursday, January 14, was the day. My friend Manfred came over to give me a hand. Though it was around +12 in the shed, it was pouring rain.
It took us about six hours to spread the epoxy over the cloth. I was so glad to have his help.

When we were finished, I left the lights on in the boat shed to keep some heat and I left the door open too.

I went back out after dinner and found the epoxy setting up quite nicely. I decided to use a small paint roller and put on a filler coat of epoxy. That went very quickly. When I was finished, I thought I would slow the curing so it would be ready for its next coat when I woke next morning. I closed the shed door but left no heat.

Very early next morning, I returned to find the boat was slick as fresh-caught salmon. I noticed the shed reeked of epoxy fumes too. I left the door open, turned on the exhaust fan and left the lights on too. I came back in the house realizing it was not uncured epoxy on my hand. Too greasy. A quick trip through the epoxy sites made me think of 'amine blush'. I had to go to work and didn't want to leave my door open, so I closed up and left some heat on. Six hours later, the epoxy had lost its greasy feeling and had gone to feeling more like curing epoxy - tacky like masking tape. Still smelled like it had not cured. I continued the heat and fresh air treatment for the following few days and was happy to find yesterday that the epoxy was no longer tacky and the shed no longer smelled.

I gave it a good scrub with hot water and an abrasive pad. When that was dry, I risked the sander and found it was ready. It did not gum up the pad. Hooray for that! I do have one small area that was gummy yet, but if that doesn't set, I can easily cut it out and refill.

Every project has its tense moments. There seems to always be a 'fix' even though I may not know what it is. Good training for the next phase of the build and good training for sailing too. Calm down and think. There is always a fix.

Because the weather warmed up in the last week or so, I have rushed to make progress on the main hull. Before Christmas, I screwed the frames to the building jig then cut out the bottom panel. At that point, the case for the center board had to be installed.

I made some strips of wood to follow the profile of the bottom of the boat and glued/screwed them to the matching places of the case. While that was clamped in place, I traced and cut the opening for the center board in the bottom of the boat. Taking a deep breath, I glued and screwed everything together. In this picture, I have also added the stringers to the frames. The frame with the big hole cut in, stays in the boat, but the two behind the centerboard case are temporary.

In the last few days, I got brave and brought in the side panels I had glued together in August. It was an easy job to rest the first panel against the side of the hull and trace its shape. Took it out to a cutting table and with the skil saw set very shallow, cut out the finished shape. I checked to make sure it would fit and predrilled for the screws. Once the epoxy was spread on both faces, I screwed the panel to the side of the hull. Then it was the time to attach the side with the bottom of the boat. As there was no stringer there, I drilled little holes now and again and stitched the side to the bottom with wire.

As the other side panel was not in place, it was easy to reach inside and apply little fillets of epoxy to hold those panels together.

Yesterday I took the wire ties out and put the epoxy fillets where the wires had been.

Repeated the process with the second side. That took longer as I was not able to reach inside the hull, but had to crawl underneath around the building frame.

Now the boat has a bottom and both sides. Feels great to be making progress again.

January 2010

It has been far too long since my last posting . Too many things keeping away from the project.

One of the things has been the weeks of work in the house as well as the weeks of very cold weather, keeping the epoxy work inside the warm house.
This picture shows the case I made to hold the center board. Plywood sides and caps made of pieces of spruce. The box is lined with epoxy and fiberglass.
The centerboard is shown below. The spine is made from a two by four and has sides made of eighth inch plywood. Since that picture was taken, it too has been covered with epoxy and fiberglass cloth.

After much searching around on the net and locally, I decided I would make the folding beams out of pieces of laminated spruce. I found the local lumber store had nearly clear spruce one-by-fours in stock. I bought an armload of those and set them to dry a bit in the living room. Once they were all glued and screwed together, I cut them to length, dressed the stacks then filled the gaps with runny epoxy. A few trips to the freezing shop to use the drill press and the hinges were bolted in place. Bolt holes were drilled oversize to help the bolts line up with the hinges and once the bolts were in place, the holes were filled with epoxy.

Happy New Year! Happy to be boat building again!