2008 building logs

March 2008 Rotten jobs month

There are a number of jobs that I have been putting off for some time because they are unpleasant, such as fairing the forebeam, gluing and glassing in the keelsons, coving and taping inside of bulkhead 0, sanding the bog on bridgedeck underside hull joins and glassing the insides of the fore hull strip planking. If I can complete all of these tasks I will also be ready to fit the forebeam into the boat.

March 1 Forebeam fairing

So with my decision to make March rotten jobs month, I started on the fairing of the forebeam. I had already applied bog in stripes. This is done to reduce the amount of bog you have to sand back off again to get a "fair" surface, the theory being that because you are only taking the tops off. The reality is that because there is less surface to remove it is much easier to sand "flat spots" so you really have to keep the board moving and apply the same pressure and the same number of passes to keep from getting them. Having said that I must confess that I cheated or should I say tried to cheat by using a power flat sander (Rupes) and this exacerbates the likelihood of flats. I kept it moving at all times in diagonals along the beam from both sides and I think I minimised the flats and only used the power sander to take the really high spots down and when I thought I was getting close fair I switched to the manual long board. It is important to realise that with either tool it is still essentially a flat board so is capable of flat spotting the job.

The sanding process really highlights just how not fair the surface was. I thought it was pretty fair already because with the resin from the glassing having a peel ply the surface was quite smooth and looked even and I thought really all I would need would be to fill the rough areas where the peel ply did not really take properly. But once you get the surface fair by sanding by rotating the long board along the length of the beam as you push across the width of the beam at about 45 degrees then the opposite way from the other side of the beam, you notice areas where the bog beads are completely gone with beads all around that area meaning this was a high spot, and areas of various depth bog bead, with the deeper areas being low spots. Assuming you have sanded the tops of the beads fair to each other then these highs and lows are taken out by the bog. (If the high is still higher than the surrounding bog then you may need to re do the beads).

Once you are satisfied the bog beads are fair you back fill the troughs with bog. My method (James taught me this one) was to get a piece of conduit and pull the bog from one side of the beam to the other along its length using the flexible conduit to meet the curve of the board and lay the bog just to the level of the bog bead tops. Its inevitable that you will put some bog on top of the beads which is ok because you still have to sand it again anyway. In fact after sanding the full surface back it is likely I will still need to screed a layer of bog on one more time this time to maintain the integrity of the shape. For this I will use a plastic batten that comes in the edges of chipboard flooring as the tongue of a tongue and groove system.

Once the forebeam top is faired I will turn it over and fair the underside, I wont be as critical of this side but will still want it to be fair as it is still visible to an extent. On the underside the curve is inside not outside like on top so I will have to use a flexible sanding board that meets the curve of the beam. Then once I have both sided fair I will have to ensure the leading and trailing edges are also fair, again by hand sanding by wrapping the sheet around the bend and finally once that is done I will highbuild it all over and sand it again!

It is also the start of a new season today so today I checked on the PureSeal sample again. It is now 15 months in the water and whilst it is now starting to show signs of wear and tear, which is a little concerning considering it is on a plate hanging on a rope under a pier so hardly being driven as it would on a mobile hull, nevertheless it is still working and the wear and tear is hairline scratches which don't appear to be altering the effectiveness. I did however (and this is more concerning) find the first shellfish attached to the plate, just one on each side and tiny so I would think that if left longer more would appear. Up until now the only growth has been algal but crustaceans are usually much harder to remove and are very sharp. In the past I could clean the panel back to original state with just the pad of my finger but I accidentally rubbed the back of my finger and cut myself so I was careful to remove the shell first before rubbing off the algae in the usual way.

The PureSeal is still working. Once I removed the tiny crustacean with my fingernail and cleaned the algae off with my finger pad in the usual way and it cleaned up to original clean so I am satisfied that it has passed to day. The next test is 18 months. I doubt any conventional antifoul would still be effective and a haul out would be needed to remove what was left of it and re apply a new one, so a multi thousand $ job. The question for me now is not whether this stuff is better than conventional anti foul which I am sure it will prove to be, every test it passes after the next is the bonus it will have over conventional antifoul, the question now is whether it is better (more effective, longer lasting) than the copper epoxy that I already have on the hull. My friend Warren has copper epoxy on this boat and it has been on for 6 years without re application. He has to dive under his boat and scrape and scrub his hulls and now has to do so every 2 weeks so that is nearing the end of its life, but I would say he has had a great run.

As an interesting aside to contrast the effectiveness of the treatment of the plate, for many months the rope also had no growth, making me question the effectiveness of the plate when an untreated rope also resisted growth, but now the rope is encrusted in sharp growth, so the effectiveness is coming into sharp contrast.

Today I hope to give the forebeam another sand, this will be a little harder as I have to remove the entire surface are of bog to get the panel fair again and hand sanding only from now on, then if needed I will give it a final screed coming with the batten to finish.

March 2 Forebeam re bog

Jo was at a loose end today so I convinced her to come and help me fair the forebeam. I am so glad she decided to help out because in the end I helped her bog the beam. I started out by hand sanding the beam with the long boards. The hand sanding is really much easier than it appears. It took about half an hour of hard hand sanding. Which revealed that there were now a lot of low spots on the beam. I could not sand any further because I was at the glass in places but still there were lows. We therefore did need another layer of bog using the yellow tongue batten as the screed tool and whilst it is me doing it in the photos I could not do it with quite the right pressure to evenly screed the bog and Jo nailed it first time so we both decided it would be better if she did that. I would then scrape the excess off the batten and reapply it in the lows that were immediately revealed by the screed and we went over it again until the entire beam had an even pull of bog on it.

The pictures above show the low spots left behind after I sanded and also the low spots after the screed. There is a definite trough from the back of the tramp conduit to the body of the beam that needs to be filled. We did this and it took a few runs with the batten before it disappeared. In the end we believe we have the beam very fair and that it will need a minimal sand to finish it to the highbuild stage on this side, with perhaps some bigger pinholes require spot touch ups with bog.

Jo and I then had some fun by mocking up with cardboard the positions where the kitchen will be and tracing out where the saloon lounge will be. I had always intended to mock up the furniture positions with cardboard as I don't have a kit (nor do I want one for again I have different ideas of how I want the layout to go) but the cardboard I had is old and curved so it was difficult to get it to stand where I wanted. I will have another try with better cardboard but it may be better to mock up using the 3mm mdf I currently have on the floors to catch bog spills. It will be easier to work with and will look more like the finished product and I will also be able to use the mdf parts as templates for the proper fit out.

Jo enjoyed helping today and I think she is getting ready to spend more time on the build especially as we get closer to internal fit out and definitely when it comes to fittings and finishes. I have some tough dirty jobs to do this month so I wont blame her if she puts off coming in until next month. Tomorrow I should have a quick job of sanding the beam again before turning it over to fair the underside.

March 3 Who ordered the black beam?

The forebeam top looked and felt fair but to be sure I gave the beam a coat of automotive black paint, James gave me some in an ice cream container and I rubbed it onto the beam with a rag. Then about 5 minutes later (it dries almost as soon as it hits the beam) I started sanding. I mentioned yesterday I didn't think it would take much sanding and I was both right and wrong. It didn't take long to sand nearly all of the paint off again meaning the beam was fair where the paint was gone leaving only the odd rut or low here and there with paint in it. The deeper the rut the blacker the paint that is left. Even though 60 minutes sanding is not a long time it sure felt like it. My shoulders are a bit sore (I remember this feeling from when I last had to fair) and I could not sand for more than a few minutes at a time without a few minutes rest. So the 60 minutes was closer to 30 minutes of actual sanding. So I think 30 minutes is not long at all.

A couple of tips when sanding long compound curves (or any surface for that matter) keep the long board parallel with the beam and push across at 45 degrees in one motion then another motion back moving slowly along the beam as you go, not sanding twice in the same plane to avoid digging holes with the sanding board. Then once you have reached the end of the beam go around the other side and in 45 degrees across the other way sand it again. Do not get tempted to sand around a high or low spot only, you are only making the problem worse, you have the fair the entire beam (or panel) relative the the rest of the beam (or panel) so trying to fix just this spot wont work.

Tomorrow I will back fill the last few spots with car bog, then turn the beam over and strip bog the other side in preparation for fairing the underside. A tougher job but not as critical as the top.

March 4 Forebeam underside bogged

I turned the forebeam over and laid bog strips on the beam underside today. I gave it a light sand to knock off some rough spots here and there and to flatten some of the bog that was on the underside but before that I filled the last of the high spots visible with the black paint. I then spread bog all over the beam underside then I pulled a notched trowel through the flat bog to leave the bog strips.

By spreading a layer of bog all over the beam then pulling the notched trowel back through you also fill any lows in the beam because the trowel acts as a fairing tool. It does this by hitting the highs either side of the low and then the notches of the trowel don't touch the bottom of the low leaving an undisturbed layer of bog. The bog beads are about 1 - 2 mm deep, the deeper ones 2mm the less deep about 1mm. You will sand some completely off and most down to less than a mm so the flat layer of bog backfilled will only be 1mm. It seems a lot of bog but ends up after sanding to be very little.

Once I had all of the bog on and strips pulled through it there was not much else I could do on it today. I only had did an hour of work but it was satisfying. I was almost going to give it a miss today but by going in and getting this one hours work done I have saved a day, because had I left this until tomorrow I would still have had to leave any further work until the next day as the bog set anyway. So sometimes an hour today is worth more than just the hour.

March 6 Forebeam underside bogged

And just as you save a day so you can lose one! I didn't get to do any work yesterday but it was better to have the beam bogged and ready to sand as if I had not I would be doing it today instead of sanding the beads and backfilling today.

I decided not to cheat on the underside as it is much easier to cut into the bead with a flat sander on a concave beam. In fact you cant really use a flat rigid sanding board, you need a flexible board. 3M make one but again it is easier and cheaper to make your own. Just screw or glue a handle or handles on a length of 6mm ply, it will bend to meet the shape of gentle bends.

So after about an hour of solid sanding (solid means 2 minutes on 2 minutes off on a warm day) I had the beads down to what I felt was fair. Until I decided to have a look using the conduit to look for highs or lows. I didn't find any highs but I found a couple of lows. One in fact surprised me for 2 reasons, first I could not see it and second that I created it by sanding too far. This is part of the reason that 2 different layers of bog will go on, to fair out better with each layer until eventually the surface is fair enough to paint with gloss and look great.

When I glassed the beam I had the glass layers overlap on the underside so that any unfairness would be on the least visible side. Now that the beam has had a layer of bog beads applied and then back sanded the overlap line comes into sharp focus. It will of course disappear again once the backfill goes on.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get some sanding done so that I can put the final bog layer on, just so I can sand that off again on Saturday. Its fun for all the family.

March 7 Forebeam underside backfill sanded and last bog applied

Sanding the underside bog backfill was again hard work for an hour or so, so again maybe 40 minutes of actual sanding. I recommend you keep a towel nearby as perspiration that runs into your eyes is irritating, and with hands (or gloves) covered in dust means you cant easily wipe your face.

Again I found a low in the flat created when I glued the conduits on but again I filled them with the next bog layer screeded with the yellow tongue batten. There was also a low in the front of the beam which the screed also filled. There were still lows after the initial fill but the screed shows where extra fill is needed and it is quite a simple matter to lay some extra bog and screed again. I also had the added complication of the anchor bridle eyes in the way for an uninterrupted screed.

It took a few more runs of the screed, probably because of the anchor eyes in the way but also because Jo did the screed pull on the other side. It took me about 3 hours to sand and re bog.

Tomorrow I will final sand and spot fill any remaining lows, using the black paint as the guide. Then I will clean up the area around the eyes and the front and rear edges to finish the beam off. Then if there is any time I will start on making some of the parts needed to make the daggers. This has been a productive first week, hopefully I can keep it up and get a lot done this month.

March 8 Forebeam finished

After checking back I found that I have spent about 100 hours making the forebeam, start to almost finished, with about a third of the hours on fairing. I say almost because although I have finished the beam, I will still have to trim the ends off, cut a slot in it at the ends to fit over bulkhead 1 and glue it in. I find this (100 hours) amazing for a number of reasons, first it didn't seem like 100 hours of work, spread out as it was over a year doing work here and there. So it is easy to see where the many thousands of hours go on the total build.

They say there is about 4000 hours in a normal 12 meter cat build (although they say that the really good boats take around 6000 hours) and almost half of that time is spent on fairing and finishing, all purely cosmetic. I am figuring on about 25% less hours for 2 reasons, first I don't have to make a lot of (very fiddley and time consuming) things the normal builder does for example seagull striker and composite chainplates and a bunch of other fittings that a normal rig needs. I know I will have some work to do in building the mast tubes and strengthening around the bulkhead they will be mounted to but I think it would be much less work than a normal rig requires. The other reason I feel I will save a heap of time is I intend to use a lot of internal (and some external) linings which means internal fairing will be very much minimised.

Today I started by giving the underside an initial sand, then I gave the underside the black paint treatment before sanding it again, revealing the low spots needing backfill. In all about another 80 minutes of actual sanding, over about 2 hours including sanding back the spot fills. You can see in the picture of the backfill below the different layers of bog revealed by the sanding and just how little bog stays on the job, each layer or area need to build to the correct fair level less than a millimetre deep.

The backfill I used is builders bog. It is available from Bunning's and costs about $50 for 4 litres. I about half a cup full on the beam so that much would last a long time. It is a 2 part filler so you mix it as you need, and mix very small amounts because it sets in minutes. After about 10 minutes you can sand it. Very handy stuff.

So once I had sanded back the spot fills on the underside I decided to fill the area under the anchor bridle eyes. I was originally going to leave the SS plate exposed as it would resist marking or damage from chafing better than paint but would be much harder to fair down to. I used the builders bog to fill over the plate after scoring it to ensure the bog could grip to it and once it had set (about 20 minutes because it is about 1mm deep) I sanded it fair.

I then rolled the beam over and back sanded the filling I did on top just before I rolled it to do the underside. I spot filled a few I had missed and sanded them also and finished by fairing the leading and trailing edges. The leading edge is very visible so I took extra care to do as good a job as I could. I had quite a sharp point from the top and bottom fair line and I took the sharp point off and rounded it as fairly along the line as I could.

I am very happy with the job I have done on the beam, confident that paint wont reveal a poor job. Ironically I did a better job on the underside than I did on the top given the underside wont be quite as visible.

Then for the rest of the day (about  1.5 hours) I pottered around preparing the duflex I will use in the forebeam and getting things ready. Getting things ready includes thinking about how I will do things, in what order, where etc. Planning and thought process is quite important. On many jobs I will have done them many times in my mind before actually attempting them. Of course best laid plans etc but it is fun and does help.

March 9 Lazy Sunday

After such a productive first week, I got very little done today. Jo had her oldest school friend and her partner visit. I did manage an hour or so either side of their visit. I started by tracing out a male plug (mold) from the 2 half female mdf molds that came in the kit. I mistakenly thought they were molds for the dagger cases so I had Schionning post me a full size paper plot sheet which they gladly did. When I realised I already had the plot in the 2 female mdf halves I traced onto mdf the male opposite and cut them out with a jigsaw. It took me 4 goes to get 2 good ones, they need to be as close to exact as can be.

The reason they give female half molds in the kit is most people plane and sand the dagger blank down to shape and use the female to run along the dagger to ensure they have the right shape and profile as they go not stopping sanding or planing until the female half matches exactly their now shaped blank. This is a difficult, laborious and time consuming method. I have seen pictures on a few websites of an alternate method with the use of a router and rails to adjust the router height to a male mold attached to the end of the blank. Marcus is another Schionning builder in WA who kindly sent me pictures of his set up of the same method and it strikes me as a lot easier way to make a dagger.

The usual method of making a dagger either from foam or solid cedar is to make strips of varying width the length of the board so that the minimum of shaping is needed and the minimum material wasted. Whilst I agree with this, it does mean a little more work than just making a thin strip of foam to pad out the blank in the middle sections where the foam is not quite thick enough, by about 10mm for about a 100mm wide strip either side of the spine.

The spine of the dagger has recently been revised from a solid western red cedar strip 120mm wide the length of the board to 3 13mm duflex sheets 120mm wide the length of the board laminated together. I cut the duflex parts for the spine and will laminate them tomorrow. Then once they are laminated each side of the spine then has 7 layers of 450g uni staggered the length of the board laminated to each side. The spine is then glued to the foam either side and once set the blank can be shaped.

March 10 Start on the daggers

Using a circular saw with a fence on it, I cut the strips of duflex to 120mm wide, and also strips of 9mm ply. The spine of the daggerboard was changed from a western red cedar block to 3 strips of 13mm duflex but on advise from one of the first builders to build to the new specifications (and with confirmation from Schionning's) the middle duflex was replaced by 9mm ply because the spine was working out to be too thick to fit inside the profile of the dagger, and the profile (shape) is critical to its hydrodynamic performance, as critical as the rudder shape.

So with the duflex and ply cut to length, I spread some used peel ply along the bench to absorb any glue spills and I spread a layer of sloppy glue along the bottom duflex and the ply and then once glued I stacked them and holding the planks flush with one hand I screwed them to each other through to the bench to set.

The daggerboard at the widest point is about 60mm, the foam sheets are 40mm. So to get to the width needed I can either glue thin (12mm) sheets of foam to either side of the foam sheet to pad it out to the correct width or another method, which is a little more time consuming but less foam consuming is to strip the foam to the width of the daggerboard at the varying points on its profile. So a 2400 mm long, 65mm wide strip (and 40mm deep, the sheet thickness)  at the widest point, then 60mm then 50mm and so on as the board tapers forward and back of the spine. You then glue them to each other along the edge you have stripped (i.e. 65mm, 50mm 35mm etc) the gradually narrower strip centred on the slightly wider strip below until you have a rough shape of the dagger made with these blocks ready to shape the hard edges out into a smooth shaped board. This results in less foam being used (or more accurately being turned into foam shavings by the router) and still ending up with a foam daggerboard. The trade off is it takes a little longer (maybe) and uses a little more glue. I figure, time I have and glue, although I am running out, is probably cheaper than the foam so I will use the most economical method.

Tomorrow I will have the foam stripped, I only cut one strip today to see how difficult it would be, it isn't difficult it is dead easy and then I will glue it back together in the profile I need to match the template, which will be used to make sure that the foam blank is bigger than the template all over so that i can shape it with a router, after I build some kind of rail system for it.

March 11 Foam stripped

It is amazing how long it takes to strip cut anything. It took me a while to cut the strips for planking and it took me 2 hours to cut the strips of foam for the daggerboards using a circular saw with a sliding fence. I set out the stacks as I cut them to ensure I was clearing the profile depth with each layer but minimise the waste of making them too wide. I figure 2 - 3 mm clearance each side is a good margin of safety. When I glue each strip to the wider layer below I have to ensure it is centred on the strip below, in fact it might be worthwhile marking a centre line on each strip also but the foam is also bowed and flexible so I have to maintain that centring along the length so that when I route out the shape I don't have any lows where the foam is lower than the router.

Now that I have all of the parts ready to make the dagger blanks (except the cedar blocks for the pulleys and the actual pulleys but they get inserted later after shaping and glassing) I will try to get the foam strips glued together over the next few days so that I can set up to shape the blanks on the weekend.

March 12 First foam strip glued to spine

Another day of busy work (well most of the day was wasted with a cancelled flight which meant an afternoon of work catch up) so I didn't get much time on the boat today. I was at the shed 2 hours but with phone calls etc I reckon only an hour was spent working on the boat. I decided that I would glue the foam to each side of the spine to ensure I got it correctly centred figuring it would be much easier to ensure with only 1 layer of foam to bend and manipulate into place (and to balance on the beam, the higher the stack the less likely to stay stable). To hold the foam centred under the spine (I used the weight of the spine as enough pressure to glue the spine to the foam) I pushed screws into the foam about 2mm to hold the spine centred on the foam with screws pushed in each side to stop it sliding one way or the other.

I also figured it would be easier to glue foam to foam so once the first layer is securely on, the rest of each sides layers would glue on easier. The 3 other layers forward of the spine will be glued on in on go (either after I glue them to each other or as I go on layer at a time) after I have glued the first layer behind the spine. The once the forward foam is all on, I will glue the rear foam on in 2 goes, once I have glued each of those stacks together.

Once the foam is glued on to the spine I will lay the uni in the trough created by the foam onto the duflex spine. The I will be ready to shape the beam, hopefully on the weekend.

March 13 More foam strip glued to spine

Another day of little time to work on the boat, I had a doctors appointment to get my scuba medical certification in the late afternoon so I got an hours work either side of it, meaning I could glue another set of foam either side of the spine each work set, gluing to the spine before and the next block on the forward side after the doctors.

I should get the rest of the forward blocks (2 layers) done tomorrow and perhaps start making a stack to go on the other side when the front set are cured. Then I should finish them up on Saturday and start on making the jig to shape them on Sunday.

March 15 First board glued

Yesterday I glued more blocks onto the daggers. There are 4 blocks forward of the spine and 8 blocks aft of it. The 4 blocks forward run the full length of the board but the shape after the spine has a triangle in the top right corner removed so the board is narrower fore to aft in a triangular shape to reduce weight and make the shape above the deck when raised smaller for better vision so rather than run the blocks all the way up on the back section and then cut them away and throw the foam away I opted to pre shape the dagger by staggering the blocks to match the shape to save on that foam.

I am also finding it easier to glue a few blocks to each other then glue that stack of set blocks to the beam so that I only have one glued join to worry about when working on the ever growing dagger, because as it gets taller it gets harder to work on so gluing and setting in place a number of wet glue blocks is getting more difficult.

So today I have glued all but one glue line on the last dagger together, so 1 dagger (pictured) has all of the foam glued in place and the other has just one more join to go. The reason the last block glue is not yet on, besides running out of time today, is that I have a slight bow in the middle of the second dagger so while the glue is pretty set it is still a little green so I thought I would lay the dagger on the flat bench high middle up and put a heavy weight on the middle overnight to see if it takes the bow out, then if it does (even a little) I can glue the last block on straight and hopefully avoid having to back fill with foam any trough left when I run the router over the block. If there is enough overhang of foam over where the shape guide sits on the block then the router will hit the board all over and correctly shape (and cut out the highs and lows of the bow) the board and no further foam will be needed. So the bow certainly isn't terminal and may not even signify more work is needed as the shaping may take care of it.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get the second dagger glued and the jig made or at least the detail of it worked out so that I can get to shaping the daggers soon.

March 16 Another lazy Sunday

Today I rewarded my work ethic of the last 2 weeks with a brief 3 hours work. I really enjoy watching Grand Prix racing and I usually stay up to watch them on TV, and in previous more prosperous years we even go down to Melbourne for Friday practice, I don't go on race day because you don't see enough of the race at the track, things happen at other parts of the circuit and you don't get to see them, but on TV you see it all. Anyway, I went in around 11.30am and was on my way home by 2.30pm.

What I did get done was to glue the last of the foam to the second beam. I still have a little bit of a bow in the second dagger but I noticed the board is still flexible so I will just have to wait until I shape it. I wont be able to push the bow down as it will just spring back after shaping and still be a problem, but I may just have enough spare on each side for it to be shaped out with the router.

Then I set about cutting the uni strips for the spine and the sides of the boards. The plans call for 7 layers of 450g uni each side of the 120mm spine. I have a roll of 100mm uni but it wont do, so I pulled the full width roll of uni out (1300mm) and I cut off 3700mm (length of dagger blanks) then stripped it down into 120mm lengths which I then rolled up. Once I had cut 14 strips I cut the lengths of glass for the outside of the dagger (2 layers with threads up the board, 1 layer with threads across the board) and I put the roll away.

I went home to watch the grand prix feeling pretty satisfied with myself, until writing this blog when I realised that the 14 lengths of uni I had cut were only enough for 1 dagger! I still have to strip another 14 for the other board. So I wish now I had worked for half an hour longer and got that done. Anyway, I am getting close to shaping and glassing the boards which is exciting.

March 21 Where did the week go

I did not get much done on Monday, I flew to Melbourne on Tuesday and had meetings all day Wednesday and it was very hot on Thursday so I did next to nothing all this week. Today was a public holiday (4 day Easter weekend) so I got to work most of the day. Having said that I didn't get much done on the daggers, so I did a little of this and a little of that and by the end of the day it still appeared that I didn't get much done!

I started by trimming the ends off the dagger blanks to check that I could shape the bow out of the one that has one, and I discovered another mistake. Fortunately it will also shape out. I have not kept the last few planks of foam centred on the blank, so the trailing edge does not fall at the centreline. This would have been a problem had I already cut my trailing edge slot and glued in the sail batten. James suggested I didn't last week in case the shaping did not centre and he was right. I will have a slightly harder job of sawing the slot (which I will probably now do with a hand saw) and gluing the fibreglass batten in after the dagger is shaped.

Then I cut the rest of the uni I need to finish a second dagger. I only cut enough for 1 board last Sunday. Each board needed 7 layers of uni on each side of the spine so 14 per board, then 2 layers of uni for each full side of the board with the threads running down the board, and 1 full layer each side with the threads across the board. In all it is about 20 meters of 1300mm uni.

I then set about decanting the resin from the drum. For those that don't remember, I had a bit of a disaster a few months ago. I changed hardener drums as I finished one, and a week or so later the tap started to drip leak down the hose onto the resin drum lid then once the lip had filled it started to drip INTO the resin drum. The rim around the top of the drum is slightly higher than the lip of the screw in plug so the hardener pooled in the rim then dripped into the liquid resin then hardening. It created a thick (at least 200mm crust on the top leaving good resin below it. I have been able to continue using the pump but I am now running out of hardener so I will need to buy more but I don't know exactly how much resin I have left so I need to decant the good stuff to find out. Besides I should also get it away from the hardened resin just in case there are still any hardener anywhere inside the drum, unlikely but you never know. This has been by far my most costly mistake as I lost about $1000 of resin and hardener. James and Adam helped me lift the half full resin drum onto an empty and we drilled a hole in the base of the top drum above the open plug hole on the bottom drum and let it run down into the empty. The resin is clear and clean but I am not sure how much good resin there is and how far down the hardened crust goes. I fear it is worse than I originally thought and I may also run out of resin and not just hardener. My plan if I am running out is to finish the shell with West and investigate cheaper epoxy (the epoxy the guys are using to build Nine Lives is a lot cheaper than West) and should be fine to fit out the furniture that is non structural.

I also sanded about a third (3 meters) of one side of the underwing hull to deck join (that was as much as I could stand). I have decided that these type of jobs can be done a little at a time so that they don't seem such hard work.

Then to round out the day I started to prepare the forward berth walls for the raising of the dashboard by 120mm. I have found the offcuts I need and will cut them to length tomorrow and glue them on. I should have cut them and glued them on today so they are set tomorrow and ready to glass but I ran out of time.

March 22 Dashboard height raised

Today I cut the offcuts needed to make the parts that will raise the height of the saloon back bulkhead and so raise the height of the dashboard by 120mm and in turn the headroom in the berths by the same 120mm. The outside of the boat is not affected by this change as this is all internal. But headroom is not the main motivation for doing so. There is one disadvantage and a number of advantages. The disadvantage is that the wrap around window is reduced by the 120mm so visibility and light is reduced by that amount but the reduction is at the bottom of the window so overall distance visibility will not be much affected as the vision at the bottom would be of the deck rather than into the distance.

The advantages are that the missing 120mm of window in the saloon will now wrap around the berths so each of the forward bunks will have much more light in them. Between the bunks there is a back wall for an athwartships berth (in one of the bunks this wall will be a side wall as the berth will be fore and aft) and at the front of this wall it slopes down from the ceiling (which is the dashboard underside) and along this angle is the underside of the deck. This angled section is only about 300mm with the dash at its normal height but by raising the dash by only 120mm because of the way angles work, it is now 700mm. At 300mm the space was barely big enough for a vent hatch, but at 700mm there is room for a full size hatch that I can climb in and out of the bunk from, so that if there is something that happens at night, for example I hear a noise or I am concerned about a wind change, and I want to quickly investigate I can stand up in bed, through the hatch and if it is a false alarm I can just get back to sleep without having had to get out of bed. The final 2 benefits are the extra headroom in the bunks, which whilst it doesn't seem like much, it all helps to reduce the feeling of claustrophobia and the reduction of the depth of the dashboard in the saloon, it is wasted space as you cant put anything on it as it blocks visibility and is very deep normally so that you cannot reach all the way back to keep it clean etc and this reduces the depth by about 350mm so that you can reach all the way to where it meets the window.

I cut 2 pieces of 16mm duflex to the length I needed and to shape with the angle needed for the walls, and I cut a number of offcuts of 25mm duflex pieces to make up the bulkhead parts I needed as I did not have a very long length of 25mm left to span the boat, about 5 meters long. It wont matter as it will be glassed both sides but is a little more work cutting a bunch of smaller pieces instead of one long one. Then once they were all the correct height (a fence on a circular saw ensures all the parts are the same height), I cut them to length and cut the angles in to suit the existing bulkhead. I then glued them in place using 2 pieces of pine with tape on to stop it sticking to clamp the join flat and square. On the side wall only a couple of clips were needed to keep the part in place while it sets ready for glassing tomorrow.

All of this took me all day to cut and glue in place, it is amazing where the hours go.

March 24 Dashboard dry fit

Another day where the hours just seemed to fly by with little or nothing done. I sanded the glue joins on the bedroom walls and the bulkhead both sides ready to glass the join. I don't think I will tape them separately, the plans call for the whole of bulkhead 5 to be glassed both sides, I think this is because it is the standard rig mast bulkhead so I may not have to glass this both sides after all but even if I don't, the join in the bulkhead is close enough to the corner that would need to be coved and glassed anyway that I can just use a wider tape and do it all in one go all around including the fore aft walls.

So after sanding (I also sanded another meter under the bridgedeck), I did the dry fit and a lot of planning. With the panels in place I could see just how much space, headroom, what would fit where etc. I will put one bunk fore/aft so it needs to be 1500mm from the side wall to the edge of the chamfer where the mattress side will be, the distance bulkhead to bulkhead is 2000mm so this covers a queen mattress. On the other side I also plan to have a queen size mattress on the port side (which we will make the master bunk even though usually the starboard bunk with the ensuite is the master) but it will run across the boat and hang out over the chamfer and the space below the mattress will be a draw for spare blankets, sheets etc and it will have the corners cut off (so we will need to get the mattress custom made) about 300mm off each corner, and the steps will go up each side about 600mm so the end of the mattress will feel a little like an island. Down each side of the mattress will be a 250mm wide and 300mm high boxed section which will have padded upholstery on them and cupboard space inside. The sides need to be a little higher than the mattress so the lids can easily be opened on the cupboards whilst in bed.

In between the bunks there is a cavity 600mm wide x the 2000mm between the bulkhead and now that I have raised the dash the height is 1100mm so there is enough room in there for 1320 litres (1000 litres = 1 cubic meter). I plan to have 3 tanks in this area, 2 300 litre fresh water tanks and a 300 litre black water holding tank. With the rest of the space I will use as the anchor chain locker. It would have been in the D shaped section but this space is deeper and further aft so the weight of the chain is better placed, and the hatch in front of the new anchor locker can house a spare anchor with chain attached as an emergency manual deployed anchor in case of a problem with the windlass or the urgent need of a second anchor, etc. This area will be open to the deck at the front so I can have filler ports for the water, breathers and also a vacuum out for black tank and whilst I doubt I will ever need to use it, it needs to be there to meet regulations. I can build inspection plates into the dash to get to any of the fittings.

So everything is working out how I want. Now that I have dry fit the panels I can glue and tape them in. The only decisions I have to make is how I want the tanks, i.e. will I make them myself or will I fit hard plastic tanks inside the cavity (my preferred option). You can see from the pics how little the visibility is affected, you just lose sight of the front of the tramps and D foredeck from a standing position (less so from standing on the helm seat and looking down through the door or window through the front window to the foredeck, so no long distance visibility loss, the roof line does not change so the top of the window is still in exactly the same place. From forward of the bulkhead inside the berths you can see how much more light will enter the bunks and how there is now space for the full size hatches. If I go ahead with my plan to put a false floor into the saloon once all of the furniture is in (kitchen, lounge and the other cupboards) then the higher dashboard will not be obvious because I will raise the floor 100mm anyway. It will add a little weight (about 2 sheets of 12mm ply and the webs for it) but also add stiffness to the floor, give me space to run plumbing or wiring. I will raise the height of the kickboards on all of this furniture by the same 100mm so the only place that the false floor will be noticeable is when you step up into the saloon from the cockpit, which is also a safety feature if the cockpit ever gets swamped with water it will be more difficult for it to enter the hulls. Of course you lose 100mm of headroom but the headroom is already 2.1 meters so I wont miss it. I will also slant the floor away to the steps into the hulls but this is a little difficult to explain so I will leave that until later. I cant wait to see the effect all of this has once the roof and cabin sides are on and the effect the wrap around window in the berths will have. I have never seen it on any of boat before so I am sure it will look unique.

I didn't work on the boat yesterday, deciding instead to go out for the day with Jo to Port Stephens. We caught the ferry from Nelson bay to Tea Garden and back. Just an excuse to be on the water. Every now and then it is better to step away, have a break and more importantly keep the relationship harmonious. Jo is very understanding of the time I put in and in return I don't hesitate to take a break whenever Jo asks, or better yet suggest activities to her that we can both enjoy. I try to use such breaks to be around the water and Jo always enjoys the places we go. It kind of shows us what our life will be like once we launch and move aboard. We are blessed with beautiful waterways. Nelson Bay is where a lot of dolphin and whale watching boats leave from, so the ferry promises that 90% of the time dolphins will be seen. It's the poor mans dolphin cruise. Anyway we did see a dolphin, but Jo still feels a bit ripped off as we only actually saw half a dolphin as it surfaced once and dove again. No head or tail just the dorsal! What we did see something I couldn't resist showing on my site. A few of the boats that go dolphin watching are cats. One is a 43 foot (either a Perry or a Lightwave, I am not sure) and takes about 30 passengers out. Well on this occasion all 30 decided to go out on the tramps and the bows. That's about 2 tonne on the front. Here is the result.

March 29 Uni wet into dagger spine

It takes quite a while to wet out 10 layers of glass into the dagger spines, I did one yesterday, it took me about 2 hours, and did another today for another 2 hours each for 2 more sides today. The 10 layers consist of 7 layers of uni and 3 layers of double bias. The method of wet out is to give a quick coat of resin on the duflex spine then lay a dry uni layer onto it then with a brush wet the tape out. Then once you have coated the entire tape lay the next dry tape onto it and then roll it down with a detail roller (the glassing tool that looks like a series of washers).

A few important tips here, first uni has much thicker strands than double bi glass so it takes a while for resin to soak into the full thickness, so rather than applying more resin wait a minute or so for the resin to soak in then apply resin where it is still dry (easy to spot as the glass stays white where dry), second wherever you get dags or loose threads along the edges cut them off, don't be tempted to try to wet them down thinking the more strand the better, they are way too much trouble and catch in the detail roller and will then lift the tape and leave air bubbles so its better to just cut them off and finally you have to try to keep the uni threads as straight as possible. It is not too difficult in the trough of the uni spine.

After the 7 layers of uni are down the last 3 double bias wet out much faster as they are thinner and don't need as much uni, I finish them off with a layer of peel ply. It keeps it all much tidier and also gives the glass stack a pre keyed finish as I will need to fill the trough to the level of the profile.

While the dagger was setting today I set about making the jig I will need to router the blanks to the profile shape. I searched all week for steel or aluminium c section but couldn't find what I needed at a reasonable price considering that once I make the daggers I have no other use for it, so in the end I decided that I would just make the rails out of mdf. So I got a 16mm sheet of mdf and ripped it into 120mm strips. I will then make 2 L shaped 4 meter lengths as the rails and attach them to the bench. The idea of the mdf is that the edge of each strip will keep the other strip straight and the form of the L section keeps it rigid, then I can run a sliding cross rail along it. I will use a string line to ensure that the rails are attached to the bench straight.

With any luck I may get the jig made tomorrow and have the first dagger side shaped if not tomorrow then during the week.

March 30 Blanks ready for shaping

Jo came in to help for a while today and we got the last of the spines glassed in the dagger blanks and I also made the rails and router jig for shaping the blanks.

Every now and then Jo comes in to help with whatever I am doing on the boat so today she wet our the uni stack in the spine of one of the daggers. Both blanks now have the uni stacks on both sides of them so they can now be shaped as soon as I set up the jig I made today, on the bench. I still have to glue the cedar blocks into the blank where the raising and lowering sheaves will be (2 in each blank) but I can do them before or after I shape them. It is probably easier to glue them in before I shape so I will probably do that tomorrow before I set up the jig.

The jig is made of 16mm mdf. Others who have used this shaping method usually use metal (either steel or aluminium) but I didn't have access to metal, at least not cheaply, so I have decided that I should be able to make a reasonable jig from mdf by making up a box section, actually a C section rail, each side making sure that the rail is fairly rigid, but because of the length it is still a little flexible. This wont be a problem because I can screw the whole thing to the bench and using a stringline I can ensure each rail is straight, level and parallel to the other rail (the first of course wont matter but the second will need to be exactly parallel to the first). Then once they are both attached to the bench and secured I can place the dagger blank inside and secure that to the bench also so that it cannot move. It does not need to be level but I do have to ensure it has no twist so in other words flat on the bench (and that the bench is flat). Then once the blank is secure inside the jig I can set the depth on the router and be confident that it will run true to the blank and I can route the profile shape.

I have made the 2 halves of the cross rail that will slide along the long rails and house the router. It is 2 halves so that the router can be slid along it so that it can shape the width of the board (the plunge router set to the correct depth to the profile of the dagger higher or lower either side of the spine, you get the idea). I will screw them to each other with blocks that will also act as stoppers that will keep the cross rails from moving forwards or backwards so that their only movement is sideways along the rails.

I have also been decanting the resin from the bad drum and I had thought the worst thinking I had pretty much lost the rest of the drum. It had been slowly dripping out of a 3mm hole. I needed some resin today to finish the daggers so I moved the drum on top to drip into a plastic ice-cream container and the drum below is a third full, so about 60 litres and it is still filling the ice-cream container slowly so I could get another few litres out of the bad drum. I still have to buy more hardener but I may just have enough resin to finish. Still a terrible waste but not as bad as I had thought it would turn out.