2009 building logs

August 2009 Internal works

The work for a while now is going to be inside the boat. I have some plumbing and wiring work to continue under the soles before I can glass them down and some furniture is starting to be roughed in. I have many months of this and I am hopping from 1 job to another but will start to finish some of them before I can start others. Some of the work is time consuming with not much physical to show for it but it all needs to be done.

Aug 1 Perspective

I have been feeling a bit lost recently and that I was not getting anything done. I find that if I have goals and tasks pre planned am much more focussed. I have not been focussed this past month or so and as a result I have not achieved as much as I would have liked. To help me regain perspective some visitors that have not seen my build for 6 months or so were amazed at my progress which kind of puts things back into perspective. And Jo took a photo of me standing on the boat which also reminded me of the size of the achievement so far.

Aug 6 Rear bunk base glassed in.

Have you ever had a big job too do and it is so big you put off making a start? I started to feel that way late last month. There are just so many different tasks to complete on the internal fit out that I couldn't get my mind around a plan of action and I would jump from one task to another without really getting much done on any of them. In the end I settled on the rear bunk and got a start on getting the bed base down.

Under the rear bunk is a massive storage area so the top of the bunk needs to be removable so as to easily get things in and out of storage. We have in mind that we might like to have a motor scooter, like a CT100 postie bike. There is enough room in the storage area for it to stand and be strapped down upright but to get it in and out we would need a long hatch in the deck. We could then lift it out using the boom as a crane and swing the boom out over the dock to lower it. We figure if we stay at a place for a number of weeks it might be handy to have. There is a cool 125cc bike called a Sachs Madass that is 100kgs and is very slim, the tank is in the frame.

So with the future possibility of hauling a bike out it I have set about designing and constructing my bed base storage area lid. First I had to decide the height I needed. For that I was more dictated to by the width I wanted. There is a definite design fault in the 1230 layout. The plans indicate that you can have a double rear bunk, but because of the chamfer panel and the width of the hull at the height of the original bunk entry in the bulkhead, the bunk would only be a king single at best. So we needed to first add in some duflex to the bulkhead to raise the bunk height entry, which I did last week. I also added the duflex to the saloon cockpit doorway, we decided to reduce the doorway from the original 1200mm to 900mm so as to have more usable kitchen bench space.

I added 200mm of duflex to the rear bunk entry and this was barely enough to bring the bunk width to 1440mm (the width of a double mattress is 1370mm) at the front and 1350mm at the rear of the bunk, the hull narrows as you go aft from BH6 as you would expect. A double mattress is 1900mm long and the bunk is 2030mm so at 1900mm aft from BH6 the bunk is 1370mm wide, enough to accommodate a double mattress width.

Some readers might recall that many months ago (before I strip planked the side decks) I added 200mm to the top of BH7 so that I had more depth in the outboard wells in order to accommodate the outboard lifting well clear of the hull in the raised position so some kind of internal door can be fitted so as not to have the standard plate attached to the outboard skeg that adds drag when motoring. Well this added height has had an added benefit or more accurately has proven more needed in the aft bunk. With the increased height of the bed base, if we had not have raised the deck height as a result of raising BH7 then there would barely have been 500mm headroom in the bottom bunk. I assume people would put their pillows at the aft and climb in head first so this headroom would be as the name says head room. 500mm is not very much. All things in a boat are cramped compared to a house but having your head just a couple of hundred mm from the ceiling would be quite uncomfortable I am guessing. So I am very glad that I decided on that change. I now have 700mm headroom, still not great but acceptable.

The bed base is plywood (12mm) and I will make it in 3 sections. The outboard side is 250mm and the inboard side is 500mm leaving an opening in the middle of 730mm wide. Because the hull narrows as you go back, I will shape the inboard panel so that the middle gap is parallel. The side panels have a tab of ply glassed onto the underside as a lip for the middle panel to sit in. I will also need to run a removable brace across the middle to support the lid as across that big a span the ply will sag or bend under load, but above the base will be a mattress that will spread that load to a degree. So once I had cut the parts from a ply sheet, the first task was to glue and glass the tab strips on. I settled on an 80mm strip 40mm onto the panel and 40mm overhang as the support for the lid. I coved and glassed them both sides and let them set a day or so before gluing and glassing them into the boat. The outboard side was easy enough as the curve of the hull is only 10mm or so over the span between the bulkheads. So it was just a matter of getting it at the correct height and level all over.

Once I had it level I pulled it out a touch, buttered it with glue and pushed it back in tight and places a screw in the front edge to hold it in tight. I pushed glue down the ends with a spatula and then coved the top and glassed it with pre wet glass (I prefer to wet glass out on a plastic sheet, roll it up and then roll it out wet on the job) and applied peel ply. I had some glue left over and rather than waste it I coved a little of the join underneath. I had braces screwed underneath so I could not cove and glass underneath anyway but I placed the coving between the braces knowing that I would have to sand it before glassing.

Then during the week I started the more difficult process of fitting the inboard panel. More difficult because I needed to shape it to the amount the hull tapers so as to keep the middle opening parallel. Once I had that cut as close as I could get it so the gap between the edge and the hull was as small as possible I glued and glassed it in the same way I did the other side. I had pre angled the edge to the chamfer panel by angling the saw blade on the power saw.

Isn't modern technology a wonderful thing. I am typing this while sitting in the back of our car on the way to the snow, connected to the internet via mobile broadband. So no work on the boat this weekend as we have a few days off snowboarding.

Aug 15 Rear bunk keelson fitted.

The plans call for stiffening of hull from inside where ever there is not a web and sole (the web and sole performing the same task). In the bows I used 3 strips of 13mm duflex glued to each other and glued and glassed down along their balsa edge but in this case I have used a strip of 50mm plywood glued to the hull at 90 degrees to the ply layers and cut to 100mm and then trimmed at each end for about 700mm toward the centre from front and back leaving the middle 700mm at full 100mm height. It was necessary to shape the plank because the plank does not bend easily (it does a little over the 2 meter length but not much) across the layers (it will bend very easily along the layers but does not provide the strength that way). By trimming about 50mm off from the edge to 0mm at 700mm from the edge at each end of the plank it fitted the curve of the hull between the bulkheads. It still needed some coaxing down to meet the hull which I did with screws to hold it whilst the glue set and glue filled any other voids where it did not full meet.

Unfortunately I pushed one screw just a little too deeply into the plank trying to get some grip and it protruded through the hull, which meant I had to grind back a section of hull, removing the copper epoxy and bog to get back to glass and I glassed a patch on to reseal the hull. I bogged it wet on wet, the next day I sanded it all back fair ready for a re-coat of copper epoxy which I will do when I do the dagger case exits. This 5 second mistake cost me 2 hours work.

Once the keelson had set overnight I coved and glassed it on. The glass consisted of 2 layers of 600gsm uni along the top (50mm) and then 2 layers of 450 gsm double bias overlapped to seal it to the hull. I peel plied the glass so that I would not have to sand it again. Once the glass had set (overnight) I coated it with a thick coat of white epoxy. This has a double purpose. It acts to fully seal the inside of the locker and provides a smooth wipe-able surface so it will be easy to keep clean and the epoxy cures very hard so that it resists scratching from sharp edges of the stuff we might throw in there. I have not faired the inside of this or any other locker on the boat, I just want it smooth enough to touch so that there are no sharp splinters of glass to catch on and it wipes clean, other than that I don't care that it is not as fair as it could be and that you can still see tape lines through the white epoxy. It is the inside of a storage hatch. To me this is not a place that needs a shiny smooth mirror finish.

I also reshaped the rear bunk opening. I had marked out a new angle for the inside to make the shape symmetrical by turning the 90 degree upright side into the same angle as the outside but this would eat into the hanging space and I was not convinced this was the way to go. So instead of making the inside angle match the outside, I made the outside match the 90 degree inside to form a square. It works much better. The reason I felt I needed to change it is because I had to raise the base height. This made the opening feel too narrow, making it a square has opened it up again.

The way I have made the bed base/under-bunk hatch top is to have a lid hinged in the middle that sits inside the lip of the base. The hinge allows 2 things, first if you need to get or put something into the storage it can be done via the hinged lid without having to completely remove the bedding by just lifting the forward half against the hinge in the middle. If the entire lid needs removing it can be folded in half and lifted out. The end are also hinged (to each bulkhead fore and aft) which enables the opening to be the full length of the storage. We may be putting pushbikes or even a motor scooter in there, as well as a surfboard or short canoe.

Aug 20 Removing part of bulkhead 4.

The bi rig plans have changed and now the masts are inboard. I have already moved the doors across to accommodate this. But now I have to cut away part of the bulkhead temporarily because I have to lay 3 layers of glass onto the sole and up the inside hull sides in one piece directly through where the bulkhead currently sits. So the only way is to cut it way, lay the glass and replace it again then glass it all back to restore its strength. It is frustrating to have to do this and not a simple task but I cannot think of any other way even if I had known from day 1 of this. The glass must go onto the sole and the bulkhead must go all the way to the hull so it would need to be in place anyway, and it also is needed to shape the hull in the first place.

So first task is to cut the bulkhead away after first having marked on it where the sole will be. This is important because the bulkhead flush to the soles forms part of what I will be laying the glass mast bases to. It is virtually impossible to cut the bulkhead exactly to the height of the sole and flush against the hull side so some grinding is also needed and then later when putting the piece of bulkhead back will require glue or a strip of duflex to put back whatever amount I grind away. And it will be about 20mm or so of bulkhead.

Once I had the main piece of bulkhead removed with a jigsaw I used a hand saw to get as close to the bulkhead as I could and then I used a grinder to make it flush to the uni stacks that are either side of this bulkhead and to make smooth and keyed the rest of the hull sides, removing glue drips and generally tidying up ready to glass over this area.

Then I glued pine 25mmx25mm stringers in the soles against the hull sides to act as glue dams for the glue I will want to bed the soles into. I wont be able to cove and glass the sole from the underside so they have to bed into glue. The stringers also act as a level base for the sole to ensure it sits flat and level. In order to have them stay in place while the glue sets I put screws through. I was very nervous about doing this as I have already put a screw all the way through the outer skin. I don't want to do this again so I used screws that only just grabbed the inside glass skin, no way at all they can reach the outside skin.

Aug 22 Port sole glued in

The plans call for 4 layers of glass under the masts, and the masts are stepped, or at least their tube or post (in the end the designer opted for a male post for a female mast to rotate on) are stepped on the cabin sole. So the first task is to glue the soles down. A fairly simple matter, I have made glue dams by attaching pine stringers. I have not bothered to seal them with epoxy, they are not structural and if I get moisture on them I have bigger problems than rotting pine stringers, because it means I have a hole in the hull! Their sole purpose is to stop the glue I push down the gaps between the hull sides and the soles from continuing on down the hull side. It forms a dam so that once the gap is full the glue stays in place and overflows at the top, telling me the gap is full. Without them I could keep pushing glue down until the entire under sole buoyancy cavity was filled.

I pushed some screws through the top into the web but wad too scared to put any into the stringers, I just don't want to risk putting a screw through the hull. So just to be sure that the sole is bedded down into the glue I placed some weight on the sole while it set overnight.

The piece of bulkhead that was cut away in order to clear the way for the continuous mast pad had a missing section as a result of the way I moved the door across. The door is reshaped as a result of the move across out of the way of the masts and this left a small section in the bulkhead that needed to be filled in. This small section is now in the piece that I cut away, so I took the opportunity to glue it in on a flat surface instead of trying to fit it in place. Much easier. Once set the cutaway section of bulkhead will be glued and glassed back in and the glass will cover all of the joins and return the structural strength to the bulkhead.

Aug 23 Port mast base pad glassed in.

Glassing the first layer of glass was fairly easy. It was layers 2, 3 and 4 that proved more difficult. Firstly I cut the pieces of glass to size, each one a 100mm shorter each way (length and width) than the one above. I then put a plastic sheet down on the bench to wet them out on. My preference is to wet out the cloth on a flat plastic sheet then roll it up, take it to the job and unroll it and lay it down. I find I can control the amount of resin better and it is a much faster way to get the cloth wet out. I got the first layer on but decided against trying to get the next layers on until the first one had either tacked off or set completely. It is such a large section of glass and completely covers the floor of the hull that it is impossible to get to the next layer without standing on the one below and being wet, it was not possible to do that without disturbing the wet glass resulting in air bubbles.

The next morning (this morning) I expected the glass to still be green but winter seems to be over here and today we are expecting 28 degrees. In August!. Usually it is late October before the mercury nudges 30. Anyway the resin was very set. So I had to key the surface. Angle grinding is the most effective but messiest (dust) way. So for the first hour or so I ground the top off the resined glass and then vacuumed the dust up and wiped down the glass in order to apply the second layer.

I decided I would have a go at laying the rest of the glass in one day. It is warm so the resin is going off faster but this also helps in that it tacks off enough to put a plank down and reach over and do the rest of the layers wet on wet. So I wet the first layer out and applied half of it, leaving the rest of it rolled up. I wet out the next layer (each one a little smaller so less resin and faster wet out) and applied it over the first layer up to the point where I had the first layer rolled up. I then laid out the rest of the second layer, I helped it stick by painting resin on the dry surface. Once this layer was down with all the bubbles pushed out with the consolidating roller, I laid the rest of the rolled up third layer down onto it and again rolled out any bubbles or sections not adhered properly.

So with these 2 layers down I had a break for lunch. It was getting hot and sweat had been dripping from my forehead so I was pretty tired. The heat combined with the late nights watching the ashes and I was starting to feel it. Anyway after about an hour I got back into to it to lay the last layer of glass. This time I had to gingerly walk out over the wet glass using a couple of mdf planks covered in sticky tape.

I got the first half of it on by kneeling on the 2 planks, then I had to move the planks back and I found that as I lift them they lifted the glass away in places. I stopped them doing this by using my trowel to free up the suction effect of the wet resin on the clear tape and rolled the lifted sections back down, which was easy enough, then I unrolled the rest of the last cloth layer and applied it. I then rolled out the last of the air bubbles and breathed some relief.

Double Bias glass is amazing stuff. Because of the weave it is able to stretch and shape very easily and will absorb a lot of distortion and still remain properly adhered to the substrate. Bubbles you think will never level out do so with the finishing (consolidating) roller with ease.

It was now about 3.30pm and I was exhausted but I wanted to push on, but the other guys in the shed started spraying the hulls of the Nine Lives with yet another layer of undercoat. So I spent half an hour or so working out the rear bathroom layout wearing my breathing mask but at 4pm I decided that was enough. I watched the guys spraying Nine Lives for a while then took off home, satisfied with my days work.

Tomorrow I will set about rebuilding the bulkhead. Once done, all of this work is fairly invisible. It will be as if I had never cut the bulkhead away and the layers of glass for the mast are just flat layers of glass against the hull and sole. If I had not written about laying them I doubt many would even pick they were there. There is going to be a lot of this invisible structural work, not much to show for it, very time consuming, but work that must be done so that the boat and boat systems, the wiring and plumbing and all other essential stuff works as designed or planned so that the end result is a fully functioning home that sails. I will keep posting but sometimes there just isn't much to show for the hours of work done.

Aug 24 Port BH4 cutaway back in

My goal on the weekend was to glass the mast back and get the cutaway bulkhead back in. I could not get the bulkhead cutaway back in on the wet glass so I got that done today. I keyed the glass each side of the bulkhead. I gave the bulkhead part a grind either side to remove the excess glue and I dry fitted the part. It was a tight fit back in and there were voids that would need glue fill and also the 20mm strip against the hull side that I had to saw off separately including some grinding.

I cut a strip of 25mm duflex (bulkhead thickness) 20mm wide and to the correct length and I pushed it into the gap. It was a little tight so I ground it down until it was easy to fit, too tight and I would not get any glue to stay on the join, it would all scrape off as the piece went into the slot.

With all of the parts dry fit, it was a simple matter to mix up some glue and glue it all in. I then coved the join each side and wet out strips of glass tape and glassed it. It is better to glass onto the glue wet on wet rather than letting it set and then having to grind it smooth again. I applied some peel ply and left it to set. All that is left to do is to glass the bulkhead over all of the joins and it will be as if the bulkhead was never cutaway.

Aug 30 Starboard mast base

The port forward soles glued and glassed in, the mast base glass in and the bulkhead glued and glassed back in and then during the week a layer of glass over the bulkhead joins each side and the bulkhead is back in and as strong as it was before. Now that is done is is over to the other side. The starboard side is a lot more complicated because under the forward sole in that hull is the plumbing for the shower.

So first thing first, I cut away the bulkhead and cleaned up (grinder) the hull sides ready to glue and glass the soles in. I had previously put some pipe work in for waste water. Because the mast base is structural, I don't think it is a good idea to have a 300mm round inspection hole in the glass pad that is the masts base. So I have lead all of the waste water piping back to behind the mast base glass so that a large inspection plate (under which will be a sump with an auto float switching pump) wont effect it and placed a sump there. From the sump I have also run a pipe back forward again through which the grey water will be pump to a holding tank behind the toilet cubicle and then it can either go overboard at the waterline via a gravity fed through hull or be held until I can.

In the ensuite there will be a shower and a basin that will both need to be plumbed out through the sole so there is going to need to be two 40mm holes, one a pipe to connect the basin waste inside a vanity cabinet, the other a drain in the floor for the shower, which go through the mast base glass but they are small enough to not be too much of a problem and the vanity cupboard will add some strength back. (The toilet plumbing is confined to the section in front of the bulkhead that forms the front edge of the mast base so nothing for the toilet under there, but if I had not moved it to the other side of that bulkhead there may have been, further complicating an already difficult job.) This plumbing is what makes this section more difficult to do.

In order to run the waste from both sink and shower out I needed a T join so that 2 go in and 1 comes out and in order to attach a shower drain through the floor after the floor is glued and glassed down I felt that the top of that T join ought to be threaded so I could screw the shower drain into it. Easy enough you would think. Bunning's don't have such fittings though, and whilst I did not try a specialist plumbing shop, I should have because the next option I tried decided as they always do, that if I am going to have the luxury of a boat I am going to have to pay primo prices for it. I have complained on this blog before about the prices of some lines at Australia's 2 main chandlery chains, Bias and Whitworths, and boat plumbing is just another area they make top dollar. I guess I should not complain, it was because of the price of boating stuff that I decided to import hatches and am looking at other things I can import for boaters, but really, $50 for 3 small pieces of plastic and a meter of rubber hose? Come on guys, get real. Check out what I got for fifty bucks.

In retrospect I should have used pvc pipe corners, it would have been much much cheaper, but I thought I would have to connect the plumbing to the floor before I glued the floor down so I thought it would need to be flexible in order to allow that to happen. But after I purchased these parts and started to install them I realised that with careful measuring and placement I could plumb hard pvc through holes in the sole before it was glued in so the sole just slipped over the fittings. Anyway I used the flex toilet hose, the expensive part of the purchase I guess, at $25 a meter. It is designed for toilet waste and contains the odours.

Then as I was attaching the T join in place I decided it would be easier to screw into it if it could not move too much. And I also realised that there would be a chance that the shower drain could leak via its sides and if it did it would slowly fill the under sole area. So just in case I this does happen I have built a mini sump under the drain so that it is a much much smaller area that fills with water and cannot become a problem.

I also had another potential problem turn into a potential benefit. There is very little space under the ensuite sole. It is only 150mm deep, and with the T join under there with the shower drain screwed into it, I could not centre the drain hole in the centre of the ensuite floor as I needed more depth which I could only get by moving it aft, it is about a third of the way into the ensuite, not a big issue, but in order to run a pipe far enough aft to behind the mast base glass and for it to not be against the hull floor and still have a fall at the sump end (this enables there to be a margin of fill space for the float pump to operate in, then the pipe out at the ensuite end needs to be elevated a little so that the pipe has fall along its length and does not come out too low at the other end. This means that the rubber hose that connects the T join to the pipe runs slightly uphill and that the bottom of the  shower drain is 80mm lower than the start of the pipe to the sump. What this will do is create the equivalent to an S bend under the shower. Water will pool there and stop any odour from the sump coming back up through the shower drain.

However, when underway the exaggerated motion up and down at the bows in sloppy seas may cause some of this water to splash back up into the shower, again no big issue, water in a shower base, but if I want to avoid that, I have used a drain hole that can take a plug.

Once my under sole glassing is set I can finish the through sole fitting, which will require the holes to be cut and decoring and back filling to protect the balsa core from any water ingress before it can be glued down. Then once down I will have to glass around the holes.

I got 70 hours work done this month, not even close to my goal of 90 hours a month. I really have to get closer to the target if I am ever going to finish this boat on time! It is now 4 years since the kit was first delivered (in August 2005). We did not start building the strongback until late September and did the first actual boat work in October so I am approaching 4 years on the build. At various times I have felt behind schedule, then optimistic that I was perhaps ahead of schedule. I am in a pessimistic mood again regarding build time and feel I am going to run over time budget by a year (we had originally planned on 5 years). I just cannot see the boat finished this time next year, and more likely late in 2011, unless I hire some help next year to knock some time off the build. The time quoted by Schionning to build one of these is 4000 hours. At the rate I work, I average 675 hours a year, which means exactly 6 years yields 4050 hours.

I am not upset by this realisation, it could change again as I go by getting a good run at it for a while, it hasn't happened so far but it could. Perhaps my work workload will come down and I will be able to spend more weekday hours on it. I am still enjoying building and the financial meltdown lost me about 25% of my superannuation's value (I now have less money in it than there was when I started building 4 years ago!) so it is more than probable that I would not be able to stop working for a few more years anyway. Jo and I still plan to semi retire to the boat and hopefully run our business's from onboard, utilising a third party delivery logistics provider. Either that or one of Jo's sons might want to take over and pay us a pension and keep the rest or we sell the business's down the track, but that is way in the future. Right now I have more sole work to do.