Main hull progress

When I look back on the previous entry, I see I have accomplished a few things.
I spent several days sanding the outside of the hull and adding extra filler coats of epoxy. I have the hull pretty smooth now, but it was too cold to do any painting anyway, so I decided to roll the boat upright and go to work on the interior.
First thing I did was to measure everything to make sure it was all lined up. To my horror I found that the center board case was leaning in relation to the sides of the hull! I got out a long clamp and a spacer board and returned everything to design. It has been tied in that position for a few weeks now and each time I release the clamp I find it more vertical on its own. I have to leave the clamp on it until I get a substantial bracing part of the boat built. That would be the dash board for the rear seat.

In no particular order, these are the additions to the boat in the past few weeks. I poured epoxy into the gaps between the stem and the sides of the bow.

I cut back the bulkheads to their finished size. I added bracing on the sides for the blocks that bolt the cross beams to the main hull. I drilled, beveled and notched the blocks for those beams and epoxied then bolted them into place.


I installed rails to the sides of the boat to support the seat backs and bases. I sanded the hull interior then painted on a coat of epoxy. I glued in the little bulkheads to support the centerboard case.

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!

REPEAT, REPEAT

In the last month, I have built the second ama, going through the same steps that I did for the first hull. Today, the deck was screwed and epoxied in place. In the coming days, I shall fill the screw holes, round the edges then apply epoxy and cloth over the deck and deck/hull chines.
I am recording my steps here in case some other builder is following and can learn from my mistakes.
Some days it feels like I am writing this for my own benefit only. Anyone else reading this blog?

Today was a small but significant step in the building of the boat. Today I took the first hull from the building frame and moved it to a car port for final coating of epoxy and sanding.
Which means that quite a bit of work has been done on that hull since the last post.
After the screw holes were filled and seams rounded off, I was able to cover the sides and bottoms with fiberglass cloth then coat it all in epoxy.
The hull was then turned over so I could work on the interior. The extra blocks of wood were bolted to the tops of a couple frames to give a solid place to bolt the cross-beams. The frames were then cut level with the top of the decking. Strips of wood were attached to the tops of frames to attach the decking. I epoxied an extra piece of plywood to the side of one section to give a strong attachment place for the chain plate for the mast shroud. The hull was cleaned out and given three coats of paint.
I cut strips of plywood for the decking. They were painted on the underside too and location of the bolting blocks was photographed. The decking was epoxied and screwed into place.
Finally, the corners were rounded and the screw holes filled in the deck. Fiberglass cloth was draped over and epoxied into place.

Planking

I have had a few long days in the wood shop. I have accomplished a few things.
I do not want to rush this project, but it gives me a great deal of pleasure to make progress. The hours seem to slip by and I emerge late in the afternoon covered in sweaty sawdust, but feeling satisfied and at peace.
After the chines and the support pieces at the stern were glued in place, I clamped long planks of quarter-inch plywood on the sides and traced the outlines of their new shapes. I was nervous to see how they would all come together, so I had some long days getting to the closed-in stage.
Yesterday I screwed the last of the planks in place. John Marples says to use dry wall screws to hold the planks in place until the epoxy has set, then remove the screws. Instead, I used stainless screws, counter-sunk and filled the holes with epoxy filler. I am never sure how well the planks are secured. Extra work, weight and expense to leave the little screws in, but the security is worth it to me.
The attached pictures show the hull with the epoxy filler over the screw holes and filling the gaps between some of the planks.