2007 building logs

April 07 Joining the hulls

With the move to the new shed complete and the old shed cleaned and handed over it is finally time to join the hulls into one vessel. I anticipate that I should have the bulkheads joined and the bridgedeck up this month.

Apr 01 Preparing the shed for joining the hulls

With everything moved into the new shed, the first task is to put everything, including the hulls into the best place to work for the next 3 years. We literally finished clearing the old shed and handing back the keys yesterday. I managed to save a months rent on the old place (my lease was until the end of April) as a new tenant is moving in on Monday, but to do so we basically dumped everything we moved to the new shed anywhere to get the job done in time. Fortunately everything can be moved including the joined hulls but the better I lay it out now, the easier life will be and the faster work will proceed. I have decided to join the hulls parallel to the shed. There is more room to move around the hull, and there will be more room to work on the hull to deck planking and for faring and painting and just generally moving around the boat.

I have also decided to make a long flat table along the long back wall alongside the hull. Warren and I collected some un needed timber from a yard nearby (with permission!) and I bought 3 sheets of 20mm flooring chipboard, 900mm wide and 3600mm long each for a 10.8 meter table. We have made the table 900mm high. This is a good height to work at (the same as kitchen benches). Once completed, levelled and braced Warren is going to make himself a new dagger board, I may make mine at the same time.

 

Apr 05 Dingy 3 and 4!

With the Easter holidays upon us, we have Jo's son Jacob and one of his friends Bronson with us for the holidays. So as an ongoing holiday project we are building him a dingy but experimenting with 4mm ply to see if it still has the strength but is a lot lighter than the duflex. We are cutting 2 of every panel as Dennis, the owner of the other cat being built in our shed wants one too. We will still use duflex for the bulkheads but ply for the hull sides. We will completely glass the outside but just resin coat the inside. Marking the ply sheets for cutting the panels is easy as I have a set of full size templates made from mdf. Once I have successfully made these 2 ply dinghies I will draw up plans and a full size plot sheet print schedule so anyone can print off the templates and make one of these dinghies. Our hope is that we may be able to sell them for a modest fee to help Warren's cruising kitty. More on that later.

I don't have many larger pieces of offcut duflex left, as I cut most of them down to make moving easier. I also threw a lot away. I have to glue smaller pieces together to make the 4 bulkheads (2 25mm transom bulkheads and 2 19mm forward bulkhead in each boat). The boat design is 3 meters and the ply sheets are 2400 so I am also gluing panel extensions on each hull panel I cut using butt strap joins, basically I am gluing a strip of ply over the join by about 100mm each side of the joins. The real strength of the hull will be in the glass and I can also move the position of the joins to different places along the hull to spread the place where the joins are to minimize any weak spot.

Apr 08 Preparing the hulls for joining.

I am itching to join the hulls. Today I decided to get started. In a modest way anyway. I have the hulls in the position for joining. So today I cleaned the bows and sterns up ready to be joined together at the correct distance apart. I removed the overhang of duflex and glass past bulkhead 0. The front faces of bulkhead 0 is the 0 datum point, back from which all measurements are taken. The finished bow shapes will be made much later out of foam and glassed over, kind of like moulded bumper bars on a car. So with the bows and sterns cleaned and the centrelines re marked, tomorrow I can start on the first plane of joining correctly, the hull distance apart from the centrelines bow and stern. I will make two 6 meter long spacers and mark on them centrelines for each hull at the correct spacing, which in my case is 5880mm.

With the hulls and sterns locked together at the correct distance apart, the next step will be to ensure each hull is at 0 datum point.

Apr 09 First tentative steps to joining the hulls.

I have started to anchor the hulls in place (in relation to each other) in preparation for gluing in the bulkhead returns that finally permanently join the hulls together forever. Today I joined together some timber in order to make 2 6 meter spacers with which to set the hulls apart at the exact distance centreline (CL) to centreline of each hull. I have screwed the bows together with the spacer at 5880mm CL to CL. I have moved the hull into position at the stern but I didn't screw the spacer in yet. The plans suggest you screw the spacer into the balsa edge at the stern but I feel this will easily pull out (just the weight of the spacer would do it) so I am going to screw an mdf plate to the spacer top edge and screw the plate into the top of the stern hull panel with long screws. This should be far more secure.

Oh and I have been forgetting to show a pic of 9 Lives, the other cat being made in the shed. After just 1 week (the material arrived last Tuesday) James has transferred all of the bulkhead dimensions from the plans to the ply sheets and cut them all out (no full size plots or pre cut panels!) and has stood 2 of them on my strongback. I will keep posting pics from time to time as this boat progresses.

In the last pic above you can see how the bulkhead (5) on each hull almost align correctly but there are still 4 planes that still have to be set before I will know for sure that the bulkheads will line up correctly. Once the hulls are set at the correct distance apart and parallel, then next I need to be sure each hull is the same distance from 0 datum, in other words one hull is not going to arrive before the other. I thought I could just measure the distance from the front wall for the face of bulkhead 0 and I probably can but if the wall has a bend in it then so will the boat! The boat has to be correct independent of anything else. To do this correctly I measure from the stern of one hull to the bow of the other and note the measurement, then I check the same on the the other stern to opposite bow and if they do not match I have to move the more forward hull back until the measurements match exactly.

Then after that I have to start adjusting height and hull twist until all planes are set.

Apr 13 Hulls almost ready to join.

I have 2 planes set (of 5) and I am working on the next 2 now. The 2 planes that are set are the correct distance apart using the spacers, and then by measuring from port stern centreline to starboard bow centreline and then matching the starboard stern CL to port bow CL you are assured of 2 settings, you know the hulls both start and end at the same length and that each hull CL is parallel and that the hulls are square to each other. Mine measured 13330mm each side. At first I had 12990 and 13380 and moving one too far made the other side larger but with trial and error I got them exact, it was easy enough, the cradles are on wheels. Not for much longer! With these 2 measurements set I have to stop the hulls from moving so I have blocked up the cradles.

 

From now on the measurements are all height related so the hulls no longer need to move left to right or fore and aft so with blocks under the cradles I re checked the CL to CL measurements to be sure the hulls hadn't moved while I chocked the cradles. They didn't.

Next I got myself 30 meters of clear hose (I only needed 15 to 20 meters but Bunning's only sells pre cut lengths now. Warren showed me how to use it. You fill the hose with water, if you have poor eyesight you can color the water with dye or coffee. Once you have removed all air bubbles you clamp the hose to a height marker, in my case waterline + 1200mm, on a relevant bulkhead, in this case bh4 and bh7. The water will settle to a level and you raise the hose at one end until it is level with your mark. Once level at a mark if it is not also level at the other mark you have to raise or lower the hull to level. It is much easier to raise the hull than lower it so if you need to lower it move the hose to level at that end and you will find the other end is now low and you can raise it to level.

As you can see from the pictures above, I am levelling from the inside of the starboard hull using the bulkhead returns and the waterline 1200 marks on bulkheads 4 and 7. This will tell me if the hull is level fore to aft but wont tell me if there is any twist in the hull. To check that, I have to measure from the outside of the hull to the inside from various points both parallel (same bulkhead) and across (different bulkheads). Once I have the hull both level and with no twist, I will adjust the other hull to this hull, hoping that I don't have this first hull lower than the other because it is easier to raise a lower hull than lower a higher one. If the other hull is higher, I will simply repeat this process on that hull and come back to this first (starboard) hull and raise it to match. If it isn't, I raise the port hull to match this one and level it fore and aft and for twist as I go.

After that I can join the bulkheads of each hull together.

Jo is not good at keeping secrets. She bought me a sign for my shed for my birthday. My birthday is not for 2 more weeks but she couldn't wait and I am glad she couldn't. I just love it. I smile every time I look at it. Check out how far 9lives has progressed in the last few days! I have finished the bench, well almost, I have left an area to install a ripping saw (table saw) at the end. I have to now put everything into a place so I will know where to look for things.

I have to get moving on this hull join. Hopefully I will have at least one of the bulkheads glued this weekend so I can proudly announce I now have 1 boat!

Apr 14 A most frustrating day.

I arrived at the shed at 10am today excited about the prospect of joining the hulls together for the first time. I started the day with the starboard hull level and after some quick checks yesterday before I knocked off I thought the port hull wasn't far off either. Warren told me he spent 3 days levelling his hulls. He did his in his backyard, not on a levelled concrete floor so I thought I would be able to do mine a little faster. Little did I know!

I got the stern of the port hull level with the stern and the bow of the starboard hull at waterline 1200 and what seemed to be level with itself along the other bulkheads at WL1200. But the port bow was a little higher than the port stern at WL1200 on the hull centreline even though the CL1500 marks were level on both hulls at both stern and bow and level with each other along the hull. I thought perhaps that if I only had one line mark not showing as level that it could be a mark incorrectly scribed onto the bulkhead from the plot sheets. I checked it for level with a spirit level and the line seemed a little out. So I tested stern to bow from a different bulkhead but got the same result. The bow was low by about 10mm. No problem I thought, I will just raise it the 10mm and I am done. I wish!. This started a chain of changes that each changed some other levels. At all times I did not touch the Starboard hull considering it to be my datum. I raised and lowered the bow and stern of the port hull, I wedged the outside bow, then the outside stern and still I have 3 of the 4 corners of the boat level with each other.

Sometimes I got the levels correct along the port hull only to find it not level at some point with the starboard hull so I would fix that only to find that fixing it would make the hull out of level within itself (bow to stern), but fixing that made it out with the other hull and the merry go round went around again. Doing this on my own meant I probably walked (and climbed up and down ladders) about a kilometre today.

I now have the stern of the port hull about 10mm high and higher than the starboard hull also, and the bow of the port hull is higher than the bow of the starboard hull by about 5mm even though the WL1200 lines seem level and what seems like the rest of the boat level. If I lower the stern the bow moves up (and it is already 5mm too high), if I then lower the bow the amount it moved I am no longer level with the other hull or the stern moves again and so on, and so on. Are you confused yet! Imagine how I felt doing it!! I am resisting moving anything on the starboard hull but I am running out of ideas. Maybe a break and tomorrow I will come up with the answer but I am sure you can see how frustrating this is. Maybe I am being too fussy. I mean a few mm over 12000mm is probably not going to make any difference but for now I am determined to get it perfect.

I (well Warren actually) cut slots into the edges of the bulkheads and the joining bulkhead parts. The idea being to run glue down the join and clamp it down again creating a narrower edge of the sheet. Each saw slot is about 80mm deep so with both sides of the join (bulkhead and bulkhead extension part) done this way I should end up with a 150mm trough for the fibreglass tapes to sit in so that when the tapes are set I can run a little bog over it and fair it back to invisible. I did this wherever the bulkhead panel join will be visible when finished. Anywhere where the join is covered or closed in such as forward of bulkhead 5 which will be inside the curved up section and inside lockers etc. I didn't bother I will just tape this in the normal way and just feather it out but not fair it.

Finally, to cheer myself up (I wasn't really upset, in fact I kind of relish the challenge but it is a little annoying to work for 7 hours and really not achieve much) I dry fitted the first of the bulkheads I will glue in only to find it is too tight a fit by about 5mm. I have the correct hull spacing so I don't understand this either but that is a problem for later in the week! I may end up with a boat with a 5mm wider beam than I thought!

I must admit I am excited by these pictures and really look forward to getting the hulls joined and the bridgedeck up in the next couple of weeks. I wont get much done tomorrow because the Central Coast outrigger club is hosting the State titles and it was their trailer that moved my hulls so I feel duty bound to volunteer to help. It is the least I can do to thank them. It is an early start so I may get a couple of hours in the afternoon on levelling these hulls. Or not!

Apr 18 Groundhog day.

After 2 days in Melbourne I was keen to get some work done on the boat today. In the afternoon I decided to tackle the second hull level. To do so I had to start the port hull again from scratch. I removed the wedges I had put in to raise the hull to the height of the starboard one, but had got me into the hamster wheel of raising and lowering each end of the hull.

Although it is not wise to measure from the floor unless you are absolutely sure it is perfectly level, I decided it was a good starting point, so I measured from the floor to the waterline mark at the bows and made the port hull measure the same from the floor as the starboard, remembering that the starboard hull is level and higher than the port hull). I then put legs onto the bows to ensure the bows could not drop lower than this. The port hull could (and did!) still lift but with the leg screwed on I would not have to measure to see it had, I would instantly see that the leg was raised off the ground so therefore the bow had lifted.

I then measured from the ground to top edge of the stern at centreline as the waterline is not as easy to find with the shape of the stern and the antifoul on and then lowered the port hull to the same height as the starboard hull. To raise or lower the hull is really simple, you can simply move the cradles backwards or forwards and to move them easily I have a pallet jack that I use to raise the hull then move the cradle and lower the pallet jack again. Once I had the bow and stern the same I then used the water levels to check the heights and found that I had to raise the hull about 10mm at the stern to get the WL1200 at the stern to match the bow. Once I had done that I checked it against the starboard hull and found it was level at the WL1200 at the CL1500 marks on the bulkhead returns. So far so good.

I then found that because I had raised the stern, the bow was also raised (the leg was off the floor) so I lowered the bow the 10mm and rechecked CL level at WL1200, level again, and I re measured the distance from the ground to the stern and it was 5mm higher than the starboard hull but the water level showed it as level so I am willing to ignore this 5mm discrepancy as more likely due to the floor being out.

I decided to re check level of starboard hull at CL and this was still fine, so I checked from starboard stern to port bow at CL at WL1200 and I yelled out in frustration that it was a whopping 100mm out! I couldn't believe it. I was about to give up for the day when I realized that in order to measure at the centreline on the rear bulkhead you have to clamp a crossbeam to the bulkhead to the WL1200 line as the bulkhead is cut away, which I did, but I was levelling to the top of the crossbeam not the bottom, so effectively 100mm higher than WL1200 or WL1300 if you like! To see what I mean take a look at the picture above here and you will see that the bottom of the clamped on piece is level with the WL1200 mark. Bingo, there is my 100mm discrepancy and once I measured to the correct mark my hulls were level. Finally.

Because I am anal, tomorrow I will recheck the levels using the water level against different marks and points on the hulls at CL and CL1500 and at WL and WL1200 across the hulls from corner to corner, directly across from one hull to the other at the same bulkhead and along the same hull at CL and CL1500. After about an hour or so of this I will finally accept that the hull is absolutely level and ready to join. I may even get to join one of the bulkheads!

Apr 21 Milestone day.

After much consternation about getting the hulls as perfectly positioned as I could I have today finally joined them by gluing in BH7 the most rear spanning bulkhead and the back of the cockpit. In the end I decided that I was checking all of the levels as my procrastinating that I do before any major item. I put it off as long as I can justify out of fear of getting it wrong, when in the end was unjustified, because it always goes easily and I always worry far more than the difficulty warranted.

Anyway its done. They say you should celebrate major milestones such as turning the first hull and joining the hulls together for the first time. I didn't have any wine or beer in the fridge, but I did have grapes. Close enough!

 

I also glued the slots in the edges of the next bulkheads for joining, the ones I cut a slot in to form the tape trough. The rear bulkhead will have furniture on the front and I plan a raised duckboard on the rear so most of it will be hidden so I didn't bother with this cut on the rear bulkhead. I also only cut it into one side of bulkhead 4 as the front is hidden inside the curved section of the bridgedeck inside anchor lockers etc, the rear of that bulkhead is inside the bedrooms so I have done these. The same is true of bulkhead 5 the front join is visible in the bedrooms but the rear face is hidden inside the lounge suit and kitchen cupboards so again I only cut one slot. The only bulkhead visible from both sides is the one with the door in it (bulkhead 6) so I cut 2 slots in these edges. I have to wait until tomorrow for them to dry. I waited a while to see if I could get a second bulkhead glued in today but they were still tacky and I don't want to let the pressure off the joins until they are set so at 4.30 I went home.

Apr 22 3 out of 4.

I managed to glue in 2 more bulkheads today. I probably should have done all 3 but I am a bit slow. I also hit a minor snag that slowed me down a little but also showed just how forgiving this method of building is.

I didn't dry fit all 4 bulkheads before gluing them as some people do. Laziness I guess. Anyway, I successfully glued in the rear bulkhead yesterday and then today I glued in the forward bulkhead. This effectively set the hulls together at the correct spacing forward and aft. I then moved to the next bulkhead, BH5 which is around the middle of the boat and probably the strongest bulkhead, the mast is usually stepped on this bulkhead, it is the back of the bedrooms and the front of the saloon. I found that the bulkhead middle part was about 15mm too small, that is with it butted up against the bulkhead in one hull there was a 15mm gap to the other. I couldn't understand how this could happen given that the forward and rear bulkheads fit with only a 5mm gap and both were consistent meaning that all should follow this gap and the hulls are evenly spaced forward and aft.

You can easily use glue to fill a gap this size but it is messy, more difficult and more expensive than just cutting a piece of duflex to fill the gap, which is what I did. I am not concerned by the gap, it means that I have 15mm more boat to live in! Or that the panel is just too small in the kit which is more likely given I have the correct beam at the the bows and stern CL and at bulkheads 4 and 7 (the ones correctly glued in). The joined part is now neatly under the tapes and the boats structural strength is not compromised. Another crisis averted!

I will be creating a new link to a new page soon. I will document the construction of Nine Lives on its own page so that when it is done the whole construction will be on the same page rather than spread throughout my pages.

So now that the hulls are glued together I can remove the bracing that was holding the hulls at the correct spacing. I have to climb over them so I will be glad to get them out of the way. I hope to get the final bulkhead glued in during the week. I will then clear away everything between the hulls so I can start to join the bridgedeck panels together. That will be one huge panel when joined!

Apr 24 Ready to glue last bulkhead in.

I have glued the slots in the final bulkhead sides and middle part (bulkhead 6 saloon to cockpit door) so that it is narrowed where the tapes will sit. The method of getting the glue into the 100mm deep power saw cut is to try to pry the opening up with one finger and to slide a 100mm wide trowel or scraper loaded with glue into and along the slot. Kind of like buttering a sandwich with the 2 slices of bread already in place and sliding a knife with butter between them! I tried using a brush but it just gets clogged fast with the thicker glue and doesn't reach very deep into the slot. Definitely much easier and more effective with the scraper. Once the slots are full of glue I clamp the slot down with a pine batten on each side and screw them to each other pulling the slot closed tight and squeezing the excess glue out. I then just clean the glue up and leave it to set. In the case of this bulkhead there is a slot cut into each side of the bulkhead as the tape joins would be visible from either side (either from the cockpit or the saloon). The other bulkheads had either no slot in the rear bulkhead or only one because only one side would be visible.

I dry fitted the centre piece and found that it too is about 15mm too small so again I have to glue a spacer in. The bulkhead duflex is 25mm but because the slots for the tapes are making the edges narrower I have used 19mm duflex for the spacer which works out fine. I have to put a smaller spacer on each side rather than one bigger one on one side because there is an additional part for the cabin top shape that has to be glued above these bulkhead parts and that the door has to be centred on the bulkhead. I may still just fill the gaps with glue rather than a spacer, either way it is not a big problem and fairly easy to fix. The tapes go on wet and clean the whole joins up and puts the strength into the joins.

I will glue this bulkhead in on Thursday or Friday and start on the bridgedeck panels on the weekend.

Apr 29 Bridgedeck glued.

Thursday was my birthday and Jo bought me a Dewalt impact driver, 2 batteries and charger and a set of driver heads. Dewalt are probably the best (and most expensive!) battery tools there are. James (the professional boat builder) uses them and Jo must have seen me coveting them! His is 9 years old. I have burnt through 3 cheapo drills in 18 months! I told Jo that this driver will probably go around the world with us. There is definitely a place in your tool chest for both high end quality products and cheap throw aways. For example, I often use the driver whilst taping, but the problem with this is you get resin all over your tools unless you constantly remove and replace gloves which is a pain. This is where the cheap tools come in. You wont care about getting resin on a $20 drill that will only last a few months but you can bet I wont want to get resin anywhere near my new $400 machine.

With the last of the bulkheads glued in on Friday, I set about gluing the already large bridgedeck panels into one huge panel. The panels are so big I needed help to move them into position. They or it is now in roughly the position it will glue up into the bulkheads except that it is currently upside down.

I have glued and taped each of the panels together to form the full bridgedeck but before I can turn it over I also need to glue in and tape the bulkhead support strengthening beams. These are usually 50mm pvc pipes glued and coved in place and then taped using uni along the length then a biax over the top. I am considering using either a wider diameter pipe cut in half or a different shape. I have found that pvc rectangle down pipe will also cut in half nicely (more easily than round pipe). The reason for the cut in half is to save on coving. The full radius of full pipe requires a lot of coving to fill it compared to a semi circle or rectangle.

Once I have decided on the shape of the bridgedeck stiffeners (and how many) I will glue and tape them in and then fair and paint the panel before turning it over ready to glue up into place. I cant wait to get it up so I can get a much better idea of just where everything will be.

Nine Lives is progressing well. I will soon start a new page for the pictures. Here is what it looks like so far.

With any luck I may have the bridgedeck up in the next week or 2. The Sanctuary Cove boat show is coming up at the end of May (3 weekends away) and I want to have the boat to that stage before I go.