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.