DISASTER AVERTED!!!!

Well firstly we had a magical sunrise this morning, the pictures don't do it justice. 

Hmm so I said earlier in the week that I was going to do the ugly as well as the good and today I had just that. Somehow I have had a batch of epoxy not set up properly so I have had to try and remove it. This is seriously sticky stuff and when it doesn't set it sticks to everything and is not easy to sand/scrape/grind off as it just gums up any tools you have. The only way to do it is to use heat to soften it and scrape away which is what I did. Eventually I managed to get it all off and I have now reapplied the fairing mix over that area and this time I have put a temporary tent over it to a) keep the heat in from the heater and b) to keep any moisture off it. This time it will work. The pics below are of the tent and the new filler.

I also managed to laminate the starboard side stringer to replace the floors as I did on Monday. I will bring that inside tonight to post cure this to increase the strength of the part. Post curing is a process by which you heat the part slowly to a relatively high temperature to allow the epoxy to gain maximum strength.

Over and above that I have been slowly working my way over the hull to remove any excess epoxy and filler so that I can start with the taping on the gunwhales, hopefully I'll be able to get that done before I go back to work next week.

Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave comments, hints, tips. 

Cheers Jay 

More!!!!

So we decided to use some more time and make more progress. Firstly I added some more fairing filler to the bow area, grey this time to use as a sanding guide. You sand away and once you see the white filler starting to come through you know you are getting close to the original level. If you then still have hollows then those are the only bits that need filler and one last resand and you have a fair hull.

I also decided to laminate the internal stringer that I am using instead of the internal flooring. The design specifies that you can leave the floors out but need to add a stringer from the main bulkhead forward to stop the hull bending under the force of the bow hitting the waves. It is specified as a 2x1 laid flat. I have gone for a bit of overkill on this and bought a bunch of 22x6mm strip meranti and laminated them together. Three reasons, firstly it is easier to bend and glue thin strips, secondly it was available at the wood yard and lastly it is WAYYYY stronger than one solid piece. Here's a picture of the laminate clamped up and the second one is me and my slav........ I mean helper after we were finished glueing up.

Yes it's dark yes it's cold and yes it's time for a beer but all in all I am very pleased with today's progress.

Tomorrow we go again. 

Oooooohhhhh shhhooooot

Right so I am determined to put it all in here, the good, the bad and the downright ugly. And today we have the ugly.

As you can see by the first pic I had a dip in the bottom and the lower chine panel at the stern of the boat. This was because I didn't put enough pressure on the sheets of ply to keep them aligned while glueing up. 

I have been toying with the best way to repair this, from adding filler to glueing an extra piece of ply onto it and last night it hit me like a solid wave over the deck. Cut and reglue eedjit!!!! That was a face palm moment. So this morning it was out with the angle grinder and thin cutting blade to chop that corner to pieces. This was the result.

Mixed up some epoxy and micro, refilled the holes and now we wait for it to set.

In the meantime I had time to kill so what next? Remember a few weeks back I built a scarfing jig and router table? Well today out came the router table with a roundover bit and off we went putting a radius on the inner edge of the gunwhale. This is the setup and yes the rope is to support the weight of the timber so it stays flat on the table.

And this is the result.

Final sanding and that's ready to go in the boat. BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!!!!!

Back to it.

So between working the last couple of weekends and the weather being a tad naff things have been a bit slow on the building front. This weekend was a long weekend and I have made some fair progress. The pics don't tell much of a story but I am happy with the speed with which it has been accomplished. So what have I done. Firstly I have started to fair up the bow area. Due to having to bend the ply quite severely to make it fit, just the nature of the design, there was a bit of deviation from the straight lines that it should be so I have had to fill and sand to establish the line. I have used a fairing mix made up of epoxy resin and glass bubbles which is a lightweight and easy to sand mixture once set.

There is a bit more to do but mostly there. The halogen lights are more for heat than light. There is more fairing being done around the hull as well.

I am slowly starting to fair the hull panel joints as well using any excess mixture left over from the other fairing. That way I don't waste anything.

I have also started sanding any epoxy drips inside the hull. There will be a single layer of 300 grams per metre square fibreglass tape inside and out and the drips inside will affect the tape laying down properly on the chine joints. No pics of that but I'm about 60% done with that.

Finally I have started to round off the outside chine joints to allow the glass tape to be able to take the curve around the joints. Fibreglass doesn't like to go round corners and the biax tape I have is very good at going round edges but still needs a bit of help which is why the rounded edges down to around 6mm radius.

I am on holiday the first week of December so hopefully I'll be able to make some really good progress, I'll keep you posted.

Scarfing (well it is autumn)

So work has kept me away from the fun for the last few weeks. Last weekend I had a little time so made a scarfing jig with a 12:1 slope.

I attached the jig to my table saw and the timber to the jig. As you can see I had to extend the bed of the router so attached a piece of ply to the bed. 

The scarfs did not come out perfectly but close enough to be useable. The problem I did have was movement of the timbers while routing despite using some sacrificial timber and wedges to hold them in and down. The gunwhale timbers are now glued together and setting up.

Thanks for visiting and I'll update again ASAP.

Cheers Jay 

Softly softly catchee..........

Started filling in the seams with microfibre thickened epoxy. This is a mixture of resin and hardner to which you add microfibres (I think it is milled cotton) until it has the consistency of peanut butter.  I used a plastic spatula to press it into the seam to fill it up and then removed any excess. I was getting a bit too much movement between some of the panels so I have stopped to let it set up and will continue later on when I return from work. I will also post some pics later. 

Hull prepped and ready to be tabbed

 Hi All  been a busy week at work so not much chance to do boat work in the evening. So today I have spent the day fitting the topsides and trimming/aligning all the panels before I tab them up. No real issues although I did have to readjust Bulkhead F a bit more over to one side as I did not line it up correctly the first time. Other than that she went together fairly easily and is pretty fair first time out. 

The last pic was taken upside down before I pulled the bow tight, gaps look ok, one or two spots that are bigger than I wanted them to be but not enough to be concerned about.

And finally a beer at the end of the day to celebrate some good progress.

 

Topsides all glued up

So we have topsides glued up and setting up. Hopefully tomorrow we final trim and start stitching up. 

Top hat, big top..... nope topsides

So topsides  rough trimmed and now we start glueing them together. I am about a day behind where I wanted to be but progress is progress. 

A bit more progress BUT I was caught napping!!!!!

 Hi all, today I started stitching panels to bulkheads. I have managed to get the bottom panel and the two chine panels attached and stitched. Not much effort was needed to get the panels to lay in well next to each other. Some of my gaps are a little large but the stitch and glue method of building is very forgiving with that. More 6mm ply to be ordered on Monday and hopefully next weekend we will have all the hull stitched up and ready to be tabbed up. 

One thing I have learnt the hard way from previous projects is DO NOT LOSE MOMENTUM!!!!! Even if you sand a 4 inch square patch and then stop DO SOMETHING!!! Momentum gives visible progress and that is vital to keeping the project going. Thanks for reading and I will post as soon as I can again.

some more pics from today

Ostar dreams step one.

 I started this little project a while ago and ad usual life threw up a curve ball or in cricket parlance a bit of a bouncer. Covid caused furlough so the money was for paying bills. I changed a job and trying to get fit again has also put a bit of a hand brake on building. Until today!!!! Building frame went up about 2 weeks ago and today I have placed and rough alinged all the bulkheads. I need to finish alignment and then we can start adding the panels. So far I have the bottom and chine panels glued up and trimmed ready to be added.