2009 building logs

January 2010 Furniture, plumbing and wiring

More of the same for the next few months as I slowly fill the internal space with cupboards and other furniture to make the boat a home. This work is slow and there is not much to show for the hours of work. This is an exiting year. If it is not the year of the launch it is certainly the year before the launch. So being able to say that launch is this year or at worst next year is a relief. There is obviously a lot of work still to be done but I am closer to the end than the start now so it is encouraging. Hopefully toward the end of the year I will have the boat completely sealed (the sides and rear steps on) and I can pay a team to fair and paint it, which always makes the boat look ready to launch. Once the shiny stuff starts to go on you start marking the time to launch in days not months. One funny thing has happened with regard to launch, this time last year I was saying to my friends I would launch in 2 years, now a year on, despite hitting my yearly average hours I am telling my friends 18 months, so at this rate, next January I will be saying about a year to go!

Jan 2 Port Sump

First I need to apologize for my near month off updating the website. I have not been working on the boat as much as I could have but also and for the same reason as the less than adequate hours on the build, I have not updated the website because I got a lot of great books for Christmas and have not been able to put them down. In fact the first 3 days of the year were unseasonably cool and I blew them lying on the couch reading and watching the test match and then when I finally decided I had better extract the digit, it heated up to near 40 degrees for a week! Serves me right. And then once I got a little behind the amount needed to do to catch up just kept getting bigger and bigger which made it easier to keep putting it of. Until I just had to get it all done. So toady I spent an hour or 3 getting this page back up to date. Nine lives had its mast fitted in late December so she is pretty much finished on the outside, but she still has a lot of fit out to be done inside.

Anyway I have finished the port sump top with the same oversize lid I placed in the Starboard hull. This sump is much bigger than the starboard sump and I will also utilize it for the under waterline through hulls. should one of them leak, the best place for them to be is right next to a bilge pump that sends the water back overboard without it entering the dry areas of the hull. I only have one of through hull in the starboard hull, for the holding tank evacuations, and these are on the vanity unit in the ensuite which has a drain to the sump and out again, so if it leaks, it would still give me the opportunity to get the leakage out of the boat without it leaving a wet area. So in the port sump the big lid will be very handy for accessing all of the various bits not least being the sump pump which will be the most accessed for cleaning. In the starboard sump I made a piece of solid glass as an attachment point for the pump in the corner. I did not want to use the screws that are provided through the base of the pump for 2 reasons, first I dont want screw holes into the base as a potential leak point of moisture into the timber base and second if I ever change pumps for another brand of another shape (holes in different spots) I need to retap screws into bare timber (no back filled resin holes) which would almost certainly result in the base getting moisture in and rotting but also it would be very difficult to do in that very small space. My solution (which I did not photograph as I was making it) was to drill some holes in the vertical solid glass piece that was permanently and solidly attached hanging from the underside of the lid, through which I use cable ties to attach the sump pump. I have reusable cable ties and I am even able to undo and redo it all inside the sump through the opening. In the port hull I am doing the same only through one of the web ends I left in the sump and being deeper and larger I can reach this pump far easier. One of the things you must do when fitting all this stuff is see how hard it is to access through the various openings you have. If it is difficult on dry land it will be far worse on a pitching boat. Make it easy to maintain.

Jan 10 Starboard bedroom furniture glass in

With the port sump lid done I move back to the starboard hull to glue and glass the sump top in so that I could build the furniture above it and glass that all in. It was a fairly simple process as I had already done the mirror of this furniture in the port hull and was I did that work I made the mirror parts for the starboard hull so it was just a case of following the same process as I did in the port hull.

I still have some way to go to catch the starboard hull up to the port hull. In the port hull the room forward of the bedroom is a closet and the furniture is pretty much finished in there, save for fitting the drawers and doors and the wrap around hanging rail. In the starboard hull this room is the ensuite, I have done the under sole plumbing and the panels for the furniture including a curved front vanity, but I have yet to glass it all in because I still have some above sole plumbing to do including fitting the toilet behind the ensuite.

So I made a start on it. I have started by making a cardboard template of the bench top extension I intend to fit, as I did in the port hull but I may leave that until I have faired the inside of the ensuite and also because on Jo's suggestion I may have that shelf made from perspex rather than a solid top. But setting the shape is fun, even though I still have some work to do on it. I need it to accommodate the door opening  so it cant mirror exactly the vanity but the idea is to do that. I am conscious that I dont want to make a small room unnecessarily smaller but I think we can pull it off. Form and function.

Jan 17 Ensuite plumb in

In order to be ready to glass the vanity in I need the toilet and grey water waste pipes in and the stop valve thru hull fitted as they will be very difficult to fit once the vanity is in. I need to build the vanity around them already in. So first step was to fit through bulkhead pipes that the waste hoses will fit through. The reason for this is that the hose may at some point need to be replaced. A difficult job but not impossible if the hoses are not glued or glassed in. That was just a matter of glassing in some pvc pipe.

Once the top it on the access to the pipe work will be through a door on the vanity which will be tight but doable. The back of the toilet cubicle will also be removable in case I need to service the holding tanks so the hoses can be removed from either way and replaced if ever needed. It is unlikely and extremely difficult to do on the water but at least the boat wont need to be ripped apart to do it.

Next task is to fit the toilet, which is not just a case of mounting the porcelain but also the pumps and hoses. I have chosen the Lavac vacuum toilet for a number of reasons. First it uses less power and less water than a normal electric toilet. It uses a vacuum to evacuate the bowl and does not require a macerator. It is also comes with both a hand pump and electric pump, as other toilets do but in order to make this toilet work you are pumping to create a vacuum not to flush out the contents, and as such there are no moving parts. The flush of one of these toilets uses less than a liter of water, which is important to me because I will be using fresh water to flush instead of drawing salt water into the boat. Firstly bringing water into the boat introduces an element of risk of flooding the boat but also because whilst there is some debate about it, I believe that salt water toilets smell more than fresh water toilets, especially if not used for some time, and there is a very good chance that the ensuite might go weeks without being used if we dont have guests on board, if the main toilet is not occupied when nature calls and if the main toilet is working properly.

So setting out the toilet in the tight space I have presents its won problems in getting the plumbing working and moving in the right direction, for example, the electric pump must be closest to the toilet then the hand pump, they both have a direction of flow and both must be fitted above the top rim of the toilet bowl. I did not know this until after I bought the toilet so now I have to rethink my fittings. I had hoped they would just sit in the same space under the flat duflex top that covers the rest of the toilet workings. All boat toilets are quite low so they need to be mounted on a base, but you need to be able to get to both ends of bolts to tighten them. I built an elevated platform from ply that gives me access to the 4 bolts. This is glassed to the ply false floor fitted to the toilet when I built the cubicle over a year ago. Then the toilet can be easily bolted and unbolted for maintenance or repair. I also made a ply base for the pump, I may have to fit it to the hull side and I do not want to screw the pump down, I want to bolt it down and I dont want screws into the hull sides in case someone (including me) accidently puts a screw all the way through. By drilling the pump mount holes into a piece of ply, inserting 4 bolts, countersunk so that it can be glued and glassed to another larger piece of ply, then once set it can be glassed to the hull side with the bolts already in place ready for the pump to be bolted down.

I also took some time to start working on the rear bunk step. Because I raised the height of the bed base to widen it to a double (at the design height it is not a double) the climb into it is a bit steep so I have halved it with a step which will double as a padded seat and under the step is a storage space that can fit a duffle bag. I had originally intended just a plain square fronted step but I miscalculated the size of the panel required and it was a little too big, and when I tried to dry fit it I forced it and it curved beautifully into place and I really liked the shape so I went with it.

Jake and I also got a bit more done to his dingy. We taped the edges under the boat to strengthen it so that I was not relying on the glue to hold it together and I also fitted a stringer ready for the hull sides to go on. But Jake has gone home so until the next school holidays I am not sure I will do much more to it. It is Jakes boat and I think he should work on it through its various stages.

So over the next couple of weeks I hope to finish the ensuite plumbing and glassing in the vanity unit which will even the 2 hulls out again and hopefully make a start on vacuum bagging the panels I will need to make the rest of the furniture. Then in Feb hopefully I can make a start on the saloon furniture, as this will really change the look of the interior and give the inside of the boat a more finished look.

Jan 19 Ensuite toilet lid

I have had it confirmed by the supplier that the pumps dont have to be above the toilet rim as the manual suggests. This is only true to prevent siphon back but I have already made a siphon safe system via my pump up gravity out tank system. So with that resolved I can continue with my planned install.

The toilet base that I glassed in is set, so I cleaned it up (ground and sanded sharp edges) and positioned the toilet on the base in its correct position (centered left to right and the correct distance from the front edge and the lid hinges square to the centerline) and marked and drilled the 4 mounting holes. I bolted it down so that it could not move, pulled down my shorts (they are glue encrusted) and gave it a test sit on. Comfy! Funnily enough I have spent quite some time sitting on that imaginary toilet contemplating my next move when designing the ensuite furniture. Anyway, next step was to position the pumps (manual must be to the bulkhead as it is pumped through the bulkhead, and electric must be first in line) so as to be sure I could get them in and out without having to remove the toilet. It all fits and works out. I can move each or all of them independently of the others and can get to each without much trouble via the top. The pumps are also supposed to be no more than 45 degrees off vertical and this is also no problem.

I then made a cardboard template of the top with the toilet cut out of it. I will attempt to have a top that sits tightly against the ceramic bowl sides and will line that with a white rubber seal to close off the gap between the toilet and top edge and only some white capped screws to hold the lid down in the corners visible. That way the lid will conceal all of the workings of the toilet leaving just the lids. A nice clean white look hopefully and easy to keep clean.

Jan 27 Ensuite toilet plumbing

I had last weekend off, Jo and I went to Melbourne for a long weekend, we left on Thursday and got back Monday night so I did not get any work done on that weekend, and the Tuesday was Australia day, but again I did not get any work done that day because of a combination of the festivities on the waterfront and then being just too hot to work in the afternoon.

I did get a start on fitting the 2 pumps into the toilet cavity. The hand pump has a handle that must protrude into the ensuite (when the lever is fitted) so this pump has to be against the bulkhead, and the electric pump must be in front of it (first pump off the toilet, so it pushes waste through the hand pump on its way to the tank and the hand pump pulls waste through the electric pump if it is used) and both of these pumps must be vertical or at 45 degrees to vertical at the most. Its a tight fit in and around the toilet base but it all fits in. I needed to take a notch out of the toilet base so that the hose does not chafe on it as it goes from the electric pump to the hand pump, and it is a tight fit under the duflex lid getting the hose from the top of the electric pump to make the sharp turn down again without kinking but I think I have managed that ok. So once I had determined that everything fit ok, I glassed the electric pump mount to the hull side and cut my hole for the hand pump and drilled the holes for the mounting of this. With any through deck/hull/bulkhead installation on a balsa core panel (or any core for that matter) you need to de-core the surrounds and back fill with filler. The cut out for the pump handle was easy enough, I cut 2 holes with a hole saw and used a jigsaw to make the sides straight and ran the router around then used a chisel to remove the balsa. With the bolt holes, I only drilled the hole through the front glass, leaving the back glass intact, then fitted an allen key into the drill and used this as a blade to remove the core from the inside of the drill hole making it way oversize. I bent 3 allen keys doing this but eventually got it done. I back filled it all and waited until the next day for it all to set before I could re-drill my holes through the filler. Its a tedious process but it absolutely must be followed.

I also had a bit of a dilemma this past week with how to plumb water into this toilet. The Lavac is a vacuum toilet, it has a vacuum pump (either electric diaphragm or manual diaphragm pumps, in line and either can be used) with a lid that seals to the bowl to create the vacuum and the pump both evacuates the waste and pulls cleaning water (either fresh or salt depending on your set up) into the bowl. I have chosen to go for fresh water in the ensuite (I will likely have both fresh or salt on the main toilet with a Y valve). The problem I had was that this toilet had to pull the water into the bowl. There is no control other than the suction of the vacuum pump to control water into the bowl, so a hose to the main pressure water pipe (and  T join) that passes by the toilet on its way to the shower must be regulated in some way or it would empty my water tank.

The resolution of this issue had me change my mind about the best solution about 10 times in the space of a week and showed there are numerous ways to achieve the same outcome. The first method would be to run a separate water line back to the tank not via a pump so not under pressure and the suction of the toilets own pump would do the job. What stopped me on this idea, besides the fact that I had water flowing though a pipe just inches away but had to send another hose 5 meters to the tanks was that in order for the toilets vacuum to be broken and release the lid after a flush a vented loop is placed in the inlet water hose about a meter higher than the water line and as the pin hole vent in the loop lets air into the toilet it also allows the water in the hose past the loop to drain into the toilet leaving the water in the bowl ready for the next use. The height of the loop above the bowl will determine how much water is left in the bowl and the size of the pin hole in the loop also determines how much water is released into the bowl and the speed at which the vacuum releases but too big a hole and the vacuum is less effective in cleaning the bowl. The problem I face with sending a line back to the tank was that the height of the top of the water tank is higher than the highest point in the vented loop, so I would need to make one of the tanks a little smaller so that its top was below the height of the top of the vented loop. Otherwise, water would drain from the hole in the top of the loop until the height of the water in the tank and the top of the loop had equalized. Doable but I would rather not decrease the size of my water storage.

Next option was a device called a "demand valve". They are used in scuba gear and are known to be available for irrigation and farming. But I could not find one anywhere off the shelf for my application and would need to have one made at considerable cost. What a demand valve does is it is a one way valve with a spring against the ball that stops the flow. The spring tension is adjustable so you can set it to the pressure you require it to release at. So for example the pressure my water system is pumped at is about 35 pound per square inch (psi) and the vacuum pump on the toilet also pulls at 35 psi so that is a combined 70 psi, 35 pushing against the spring loaded ball 35 pulling. So you set the spring tension to say 50 psi which is enough to stop the water from pushing it open, but once you flush the toilet another 35 psi is added and the combined 70 psi is enough to open the valve and let water through until the vacuum stops and the pressure is reduced again to the 35 psi and closes the valve. Simple. Problem is I could not get one anywhere and I tried the leading valve specialists in Sydney. They are made for high pressure applications and are expensive and I could have one modified (replace the spring) for an additional fee but still relatively expensive. Also as the next option shows, I would have to reduce the flow past the demand valve which may mess with the pressure from the vacuum which in turn could stop the valve from opening. So strike idea 2.

Next idea was a solenoid valve. Simple, cheap, easy to locate should I ever need to replace it. A solenoid is an electrically operated switch that had the valve closed in its native (off) state and opens when power is passed through it. I simply attach its power through the switch that controls the vacuum pump so that whenever the vacuum is operating the valve is open and when the vacuum is off so is the water. Seems a no brainer really. But (there is always a but) the toilet vacuum will only draw a liter of water during its 30 second operation but my water pumps pump 12 liters per minute so if run for 30 seconds would pump 6 liters into the flush which is a bit waste of limited fresh water. I could stop down the water hose reducing the flow but I am not sure what effect this has on the pressure or speed of the water entering the bowl and if it would spray everywhere in there as a result instead of swirl around the bowl as designed so I scratched this idea even though it would probably be the simplest. I also dont know what effect this would have on the vented loop, would water squirt out of the vent under pressure, if so I would need a way to get it out of the boat (another vent hole in the side of the boat?). As mentioned I cannot remove the vent hole or otherwise the vacuum would not release the toilet lid. Too many what ifs in that option.

Finally I settled on making a cistern. With a horizontal float valve inside a small tank behind the toilet I would achieve all of my objectives. First I would have a fresh water source for the toilet, collected by the toilets vacuum thereby only using the water amount the maker intended but I would feed the cistern from my pressurized water hose system already on hand. As the toilet used water the float valve would refill the cistern and shut off when it was full. I also have an air break between the toilet bowl and the water system both in the vented loop and in the cistern itself to prevent the migration of bacteria from the toilet into the water (which I am not sure would adequately occur with either a demand valve or a solenoid. The cistern also provides an additional benefit, I have to make the tank big enough for a lever arm float valve (although I have since found compact float valves I am evaluating) and as a result this tank will hold about 15 liters, so the toilet will flush a number of times before the float valve kicks in again to refill the tank. It means that if a person uses the toilet at night it wont make as much noise as it wont need to activate the water pump each time.

Having settled on the cistern idea I set about making the 8th tank I have made for this boat! (3 water tanks, well actually 1 big tank separated into 3 smaller ones, but I have previously made 4 waste tanks, 2 black 2 grey). As I am now an experienced tank maker, it only took me an hour to make the ply (I am using 5mm ply for this small tank) sides and bottom, I have still to cut the top. I have dry mocked it together to see that it all fit. Next I will take it to the irrigation shop to insure the lever arm fits into the tank, before making the top and glassing it all inside and out.

I gave the toilet set up a thick coat of white epoxy to finish it off. I still have to glass the separating bulkhead in which I removed for ease of access and I also need to fit some 25mm ply to the hull sides at a base for the lid to sit and be fastened to. I forgot I had to fit these before applying the white epoxy so I will strip some back to glass this ply in and recoat it once done.

I also got a start on vacuum bagging my polycore panels. For those that dont know, I decided on polycore, a honeycomb panel with glass each side as my furniture material. Schionning recommend and sell ATL Featherlite which is also a honeycomb composite panel but is a paper core, and can be bought as ready made panels or a kit. But I can buy and glass polycore myself which for me has 3 benefits. First I figure poly to be a better core than paper should water ever get into the core. Now in all likelihood this should never happen, but being surrounded by water you just never know. Second I can glass polycore bent around curves rather than having to kerf solid panels which saves a lot of fairing work and cutting gluing and glassing of the kerfs. But perhaps the most telling of reasons for me is cost. I have figured out I can make my own panels for about half what they cost prefabricated and a third of the cost of buying the furniture kit. The cost of the pre cut kit was $15000 when I bought my boat kit, the cost of enough prefabricated panels to cut my own kit is about $10000 and the cost of the polycore panels without glass, resin, peel ply and the fiberglass cloth and consumables in the vacuum process about $5000. But it does cost time. Time I have, money I dont. So the decision was out of my hands really.

I had already hand laid up some panels without the vacuum process. What the vacuum process does is pull the glass to the core much tighter, it also reduces the amount of resin used (although not by much on the first panels it seems) and ensures a more consistent finish. In fact I am making some panels with a smooth gloss finish by allowing them to cure against the table rather than peel ply.

First we precut 2 layers of cloth, 1 for each side of the sheet, a layer of peel ply, a layer of porous material that feels like felt but is man made, this allows the vacuum to migrate evenly all over the panel, and a layer of non porous plastic film, this ensures the resin is kept mostly on the job, some use perforated film so resin can migrate but we dont need it to move so used non perforated film and finally the bag, which is basically a sheet of clear plastic that will be stuck using double sided tape to the table, which we also pre applied around the perimeter.

Once you have a table (I am using a friends but you can make a table with a sheet of melamine and a vacuum pump) you wax coat the surface and polish it as you would a car, this ensure the panel releases once cured. We (my friend Dean who owns the table is helping me, Dean painted Nine Lives and did a fantastic job, he will probably be painting my boat if I can afford him when the time comes) then applied a thin coat of resin to the table before laying a layer of glass over it. I am using 600gsm plain weave cloth, over it and wetting it out. We then folded this wet cloth and put it aside whilst wetting the other sheet of cloth. With it wet and smooth on the table we sat a sheet of polycore over it and wet out its scrim (thin layer of porous material that feels like fabric to which the glass adheres) we then turned it over and placed it carefully over the layer of wet glass on the table as this will now be its final curing position. We then wet the other side of the panel out and applied the pre wet glass we had put aside a few minutes earlier. You have to get this glass down smoothly with no bubbles or kinks as I did when wetting the sheets out without the vacuum a few weeks ago. We finished the panel off by applying the peel ply again just as I did previously and smoothed it down removing any bubbles. To this stage this method is no different to the method I had previously used.

Now the layer of non porous non perforated plastic is smoothed down over peel ply and then the  felt like material is laid over it and finally the clear plastic bagging material over it. Then you removed the protective layer from the double sided tape starting at the middle and moving toward the edges to minimize folds or bubbles in the plastic as it is glued with the double sided tape to the table. The plastic to table bond must be air tight for the vacuum to work. More double sided tape is applied around the hose fitting. Once it is all down, the pump is turned on and you look for leaks although listen for them is more accurate, and any that are found are repaired with more tape. Then you wait a day for the panel to cure naturally and deconstruct the layers. It is difficult to deconstruct without wrecking the plastic so you cannot re use it or the double sided tape but the porous sheet can be reused.