Deck stringers

Hello again

Today I glued up the port side (left hand) deck stringer. Unfortunately I don't have enough clamps to do both sides so it will be done in two hits.

I also trimmed and shaped the deck stringer mounting blocks.

No boat building tomorrow as we are off to watch England Rugby take on the might Springbok team. If the head is in the right place we'll be back to it on Sunday.

Cheers Jay 

Hmmmm boat building 😁

Well I've been off work for a few weeks due to working time stand down (it's a long story) and I have been busy with other little projects around the house like paving, building drawers and drinking beer ( that's a project isn't it 😁😁😁) and I have not done much boat work............. until today!!!!!!! Enough is enough this boat needs to be built so I got out some ply some glue and some clamps set up the router and went to town.

First I made a jig to clamp to the bulkheads to rout out the slot for the deck beams.

Slots cut

Then I cut the slots in the beam sections. I have decided to use laminated sections as that's way stronger. So tomorrow I will glue them together and then take them off and finish them (sanding and rounding off the bottom edges (epoxy sticks better to round edges than square) and it's a bit softer if you whack into them)

I also cut and glued the blocks to place on the transom and the bow for these deck beams to mount into. To cut the blocks safely on my table saw I knocked up a quick cross cut sled.

Tomorrow I will trim and glue them in place.

All in all a good productive day. 

As always thanks for reading and following my progress and please feel free to comment.

Cheers Jay 

Yes bulkheads all taped

Hi Guys and Gals

Today I have a huge sense of accomplishment, I have finished taping in the last two bulkheads. All the bulkheads have now been taped into the boat. These were D and E which are the two just in front of the keel and fore and aft of the mast. These need to be extra tough as there is a lot of pressure in this area when under sail. The mast is keel stepped (through the deck onto the bottom of the boat) so there are pressures in all sorts of directions in this area. To help with this I have added one extra layer of glass tape between the bulkheads to tie in the two bulkheads and give a bit more strength and stiffness. It was amazing to see the extra layer of glass soak up the excess resin in this area. I put it on and within 2-3 minutes it was almost wet through. So what does this mean??? Potentially I had a resin rich layup. I had squeegeed the layup after a few minutes to remove the excess but clearly it was not enough. Looking at the rest of the layups they looked OK so I am not too worried, nothing has broken and it will only add a few extra grams to the boat. How do you solve that, you spend a bunch of money on peel ply and cover every layup in peel ply. This is a dacron fabric which will soak up the excess and when you pull it off it leaves a keyed surface that does not need sanding to prepare for secondary bonding. A time saver but extra cost so it will be sanding for me.

The red fabric is an old gazebo top to keep the heat in as it is getting a bit chilly here in the UK and I need to boost the temp a bit to ensure proper cure of the epoxy. 

Thanks for visiting 

Cheers Jay