2008 building logs

May 2008 Still working on the daggers and cases.

A friend of mine told me it took him 3 months to make his daggers and cases, I started on 9 March so if I can finish them in the next 2 weeks I will have cut a third from the time it took him. The reason I mention this is I consider that I am a slow builder, but it just goes to show that some people find some tasks easier than others or some methods or material are easier than others. In the end things take as long as they take and boats get launched when their owners are ready. This month I hope to get the daggers and cases finished, and the keelsons glued into the bows, and the inside of the inside bow planked panels glassed on the inside all in readiness to glue the lids on next month.

May 1 All of the uni on second dagger.

I gave the dagger a quick sand on both sides as I was not sure (although I think it was) if the resin was still green, I am positive yesterdays glassing was but not sure about the resin from the day before. So to be absolutely safe and to clean up the leading edge that will be glassed around on this layer anyway, the sanding ensured perhaps a mechanical and chemical bond. Once the surface was sanded, to check this just ensure there are no shiny areas left meaning you have completely scuffed the surface, give it a wipe off with a cloth damp with acetone (or water if you have time for it to dry off), the acetone evaporates off instantly so you can work on. I then laid out the uni on the board and cut it to shape and started to wet it out.

I draped the glass over the leading edge, clipped to the trailing edge so it would not slide off and started by wetting out the board under the glass and then laid over the dry cloth and started on wetting out the glass itself. After wetting out one side I decided that it would be wise to take advantage of the wet glass and use another layer of glass (the cross dagger uni layer) to soak up any excess resin. Fortunately I had these cut to size before I started also so I laid them out over the wet glass (I still had not wet out the other side so this glass was still draped over the dagger) and I wet the second (actually 3rd but second in this lay up) layer of glass, this took significantly less resin and time because it was already soaking up resin from below and was about 30% wet before I touched it with the brush from above.

Once both layers of glass were wet I turned the dagger over on the axle and started to wet out the first layer of glass that had been draped over the leading edge. Again the method was to wet the dagger edges first and then to lay out the dry glass over the wetted dagger, this has the dual action of holding the glass in place and wetting the glass from below. Then I wet out the rest of this glass and did the same thing as the other side, I laid out the dry pieces of cross dagger uni and rolled them down into the wet glass below. After a few minutes the resin starts to creep through from below and you have that much less work to do and resin to use to wet it out. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on which way you look at it, I just squeezed out enough hardener to finish wetting out the last of the uni before I ran out. I have plenty of resin but no hardener left. I now have to get more before I can do any more construction, although there is still plenty of sanding to do so work can continue if I don't get the resin soon.

Because I had loose edges of the cross uni glass hanging over the leading edge and I wanted these to sit down as much as I could get them to I decided to try peel ply over the leading edge. I still have to grind off any dags and sand the dagger to glass the final layer but this may clean up the leading edge and lessen the work left.

Work on Nine Lives is continuing, mostly fairing and also some internal work including cutting out the windows, and the start of the internal furniture.

I wont be able to sand the dagger until Saturday or Sunday as I have to let this glass harden properly, even if I get hardener tomorrow I need the uni hard in order to properly sand or grind it back. I may need to spend the time I get tomorrow going to get hardener.

May 3 Completely out of hardener

I used the last of the hardener for bog for the foredeck strip panel. Odd choice I know but I have more hardener arriving Tuesday and it seemed as good a job as any to get onto. Actually I doubted I would have enough hardener to wet out the last layer of glass on the second dagger, I wasn't even sure although it turned out I would have had, enough to glass the inside of the next dagger case in the jig. The problem with running out of resin or in this case hardener, but same result, during a glass wet out is that you ruin the glass if you cant finish the wet out, it must be removed and thrown out, you cant finish where you run out and wet the rest out later. But with bog, if you run out half way you can bog the rest later.

So the first task for the day was to sand the second dagger to key the surface, remove unevenness and splinters overhanging the edges (uni does not go around corners) and generally clean the board up ready for the final layer of double bias and surfboard cloth layers over the edges around corners etc and seal the board. It is now ready to glass as soon as I have the hardener. I will also have the sheaves this coming week so I will cut the slots for them and fit them.

With that done, a friend Sam arrived to help out a bit. Sam and his brother will start on a Spirited 380 later this year, Amnon has been offering to help for months and I kept declining as I felt guilty having him sanding or some other bum job on the build, but they keep insisting so who am I to argue! So with no resin to glass anything we had no choice but to sand something. There are 2 constants in boat building, glassing and sanding! We stood the dagger up against the boat to free up the drums and removed the panel Sam and I glassed last weekend, the foredeck turn. I had previously glassed the outside and Sam and I glassed the inside and put it back on the boat to set. With it set we removed it and sanded the thin wipe of bog down, I figure that you have to sand a glass lay up once it sets before you can bog it in order for the bog to stick (unless you peel-ply it but peel ply is difficult to apply over large curved surfaces) so if you have to sand anyway you may as well give it a bog wipe wet on wet as you may have enough bog on to get the surface fair and if not you are no worse off, and bog is easier to sand than resin on glass and gives you a clearer indication you are near to sanding through glass (once the bog is gone you know you are near to the glass).

Once the bog was sanded down in a fair sort of way but still not actually fair, so in other words we used long boards and hand sanded it so it would at least be getting fair, we then applied some fresh bog and pulled the notched scraper through to leave bog strips. Tomorrow we can fair that ready to back fill once fair. I am not sure if we should sand off the boat though. If you fair it off the boat, even though the panel is rigid having been glassed both sides, it may still pull down out of fair when glued down onto the boat so better to glue it on the boat first then fair it, although I cant imagine it would move far and if it did move a little it would just need a little more fairing...so I am undecided.

We removed the inside bow panels ready to glass them inside (again once I have hardener) and with them off, the section are open beckoning me to fit the keelsons and finish the coving and taping inside the forward collision cell. These are jobs I have thought about a lot, and put off as long as I can, I have pestered James with questions about alternative methods to no avail, he said to me today that if I spent half the time working on them as I did coming up with ideas on how I can avoid doing them, the job would have been done months ago!

Sam worked for 3 hours today, I did 6 and 2 yesterday so I am happy with the hours getting put in. I also note that 2 guys get more done in the same hours than 1 guy doing double. On your own whatever you are doing, glassing, bogging etc stops while you mix more up etc, but with 2 one keeps going while the other mixes etc. I am going to use help when I do the keelsons, that way I can get inside the hull and instead of having to climb in and out to get materials I can have them passed to me, this saves considerable time and also energy climbing in and out.

I am not sure yet what I am doing tomorrow. I usually have a plan or an idea of what I am going to do, but with no hardener the jobs are narrowed down to sanding. There are hours and hours of sanding jobs to do so I wont have any trouble filling a day, its getting the motivation that may prove difficult.

May 4 Keelsons started

After a while you run out of excuses why a relatively simple job can be put off yet again. I had built up in my mind the difficulty of getting into the very tight spaces between bulkheads 1 and 2 and between 2 and 3 in order to glue in the keelsons and tape them. Today I ran out of reasons not to and decided the time had come to get this one ticked off the list.

I started by trimming the length of duflex offcuts that I had glued together months ago for this purpose. I had glued 3 long lengths of offcut duflex to each other, today I cut them roughly to length and width (the height is set by the 3 pieces of 16mm duflex). I rounded the corners with a router and gave it a quick sand to smooth it up. I also cut 2 25mm x 2400mm strips of ply about 70mm wide for the dagger cases while I was working with the saw.

Now there was nothing else for it, I had to get inside the narrow hulls and clean up. There was months of dust in there. Fortunately for me, Sam turned up again today for a couple of hours, this meant I did not have to get in and out, in and out. We got the vacuum cleaner and a hammer and chisel and I got inside the first section and vacuumed, I then used the hammer and chisel to remove glue drips. I had forgotten to remove the peel-ply from one section and fortunately for me it came off completely and easily.

 

As I finished cleaning each hull sections I dry fitted the keelsons, trimming them to size and rounding the underside where the coves on the bulkheads stopped the keelsons from bedding down properly. Once they were dry fitted we used the very last drops of hardener to make up enough glue to get 2 of them (the port hull) glued in. I did not have enough glue to do the starboard hull, this will have to wait for next week. Sam mixed glue and passed it to me inside the hull. I buttered up each piece and bedded them in place and stood on them to push them down and using my finger I coved the glue along the sides and squeezed glue into the front and rear joins against the bulkheads.

Once the keelsons are set in place I can cove and glass them in. Glassing will get tricky as I can stand on them to cove but with wet glass on I will need to use my feet against the hull sides and working fast with pre wet tape I will push it down into place and smooth out any air bubbles. I had a pretend run to see if I thought I could do it with dry glass and it seemed to work out ok. Lets see how it goes with wet glass. It does not need to look neat and tidy but will need to be strongly in place.

The keen eyed among you will notice I have missed 2 tapes in each section in the port hull, but I will do them when I tape the keelsons in, probably in one large piece of glass over the entire hull floor. I have not missed any in the starboard hull. Then I will need to cove and glass the joins inside the very first section between bulkhead 0 and 1 but I now think this will not be as difficult as I had thought.

May 5 Sheave boxes

I have hardener on order and I was expecting it to arrive today but it did not turn up so now it seems that Wednesday will be more likely. Not to worry, I have plenty to do and not much time to do it (with work) so I don't think this will be much of an inconvenience. What did arrive today was a gift from Marcus in W.A. He has already built his daggers and I have been using his method to shape and construct them. But for the most part I am ahead of him in the build so he reads this site and gets insights as to how to do various things on the build, which after all is the intention of the site. So as a thank you he has sent me over some sheaves that I was having trouble locating over here. It is ironic though that he would send me parts for the daggerboard as a thank you for me doing this site when I used his method to make the daggers and his guidance, advise and photos in emails helped me very much. So thank you Marcus.

Armed with the sheaves I am again following Marcus' lead and making sheave boxes to fit into the daggers rather than follow the plans and just cut slots in the boards to fit the sheaves. The major advantage of doing this is the seal I will get in the slots by gluing in these boxes and the bond I will get by screwing as well as gluing the half sheave into the box rather than just gluing it into the slot. They are super simple to make, I just cut a 20mm piece of ply to the correct width and rounded the corners, I am making 2 size boxes one for a full sheave on an axle and a half sheave to be glued in.

Once I had cut and rounded the mold I cut a slot down the middle, the purpose of the slot is to allow the mold to compress when I try to remove the glass boxes from the mold when it is set. I then covered the mold in clear plastic sticky tape to stop the glass from sticking to the mold. It was then a simple task to wet out some glass tape and wrap it around the mold. I put some peel ply around them more to keep the glass tight on the mold than any other reason although it will make gluing them into the daggers easier. Once they set hard I will pull them off the molds (which may include a hammer!) and cut them to size, I have made 2 of each size, the smaller is in one 200mm tape piece and will be cut in half to make the 2, the larger is 2 separate 100mm tapes around the mold.

I then gave the bogged foredeck a light sand. You really cant fair the panel off the boat because when you glue the panel onto the boat it may push up or pull down and in small ways and be pulled out of fair. So I have really just taken the highs off, there is still enough bog to get it fully fair on the job. I used the rupes to get it started then I used the long board.

May 9 Sheave boxes finished

The 20 litres of hardener arrived on Wednesday but I have been too busy until today to do anything with it. I now have enough resin again to finish the shell and probably most of the internal fit out, provided of course I can resist spilling any more of it!

I spent a couple of hours today preparing the various jobs I have for the weekend, a lot of glassing to do so with some prep work (glass cut to size ready for each job) I should get a fair bit done this weekend.

I also removed the ply molds from the sheave boxes I glassed the other day. It took me almost an hour to remove them. Even though I had cut a slot in them so that they would compress a little to remove them and even though the molds were covered in clear plastic sticky tape so the glass would not stick to them, they were stuck fast. I think that as the resin heats and sets it must shrink just enough to bind and also as careful as I was to get a nice clean layer of sticky tape on without any wrinkles there were still some here and there and they might bind just a little.

Anyway I bashed the ply out from inside each box with a mallet and a bolt. I cut them to size so that the glass box did not have much ply to move over. The last one took the longest, it did not have a slot cut in it and it was jammed pretty tight. I managed to get them all out and next task is to cut the slots in the dagger and glue them in, but before I glue the half boxes (bottom up haul sheave) in I have to screw and glue the half sheaves into the box, then glue that into the dagger. The top (down haul) sheave has a stainless steel axle and that is drilled in from the side of the dagger once I have glued the box in place. I made the boxes wide enough to accommodate a s/s washer each side to limit the friction of the sheave rubbing against the box side.

Hopefully I will have a very productive weekend and get a lot of work done as in 2 weeks I will lose a weekend as I go to the Sanctuary Cove boat show.

May 10 A lot of glassing

The benefit of being organised is one job after another can be lined up ready to go. I got 4 different pieces of glass on today, the inside of the second dagger case half, the second daggerboard, and both of the inside bow panels. I also bogged the dagger and I had to cove the case and fill the inside of the bow panels so a busy day but I got lots done.

I started with the dagger case, coved the slot and wet the glass pieces (3 strips). Then I started on the dagger. I overlapped the double bias over all of the edges except the trailing edge and have sealed the dagger with it, but I still have to run a little patch where the screws are on the ends just to finish.

I had lunch, then got started on the inside of the bow turn panels. I started by scraping thick glue into all of the gaps. Just as I started on these, Sam turned up, so he scraped whilst I mixed. Then once the gaps were all filled and the sharp edges smoothed by glue acting like bog (you still have to use glue as a filler rather than bog because bog is not strong enough for under glass) I laid the glass over the wet glue and started wetting the glass out.

Once I had one glassed we put it aside and started on the second, just the movement down to the ground was enough movement (remember until the second glass is set the panel is still flexible) to create a few bubbles so I pressed them back down with the detail roller and got back onto the other panel. We decided not to put the wet glassed panels straight back onto the boat (which is why we lifted the first one down to the floor) but to let them set a while first, so once the second panel was glue filled and glass wetted out, we left them to set and went back to the dagger to bog it.

The glass was wet on the dagger just before lunch about 3 hours ago and I left it to set so that when I bogged it I didn't pull (or push) the glass out of place or create bubbles. With the glass pretty set but the resin still tacky I was able to slap the bog on fairly fast. I ran some bog around all of the edges (except the trailing edge) and left it upright on the axles to dry.

Once we had finished bogging the dagger (Sam mixed I scraped it on) we went back to the bow panels and lifted them onto the boat to set on the bulkheads. After being off the boat the panels had pulled out of shape a little and needed to be screwed down to the bulkheads to resume the correct shape, once the inside glass sets it will then hold this shape permanently.

All in all a good days work, 10 hours (me 7, Sam 3) with a number of tasks completed and some of the tasks much more difficult without help, such as lifting those panels onto the boat on your own, whilst it can be done it is not easy and you really don't want the wet glass scraped as you lift it into position which is near impossible on your own. So again whilst I enjoy working on the boat alone, sometimes help is priceless, Thanks again Sam.

May 11 Another odd jobs day

I had a number of small jobs completed today. I glassed the outside of the second dagger case half and another coat of resin on the inside of the case. I also glued in the keelsons in the starboard hull (which meant I had to remove the deck panel but it is sufficiently set to retain its shape now) and I started to glue in the sheave blocks in the first daggerboard.

First up I took the second dagger off the axles and sat it on the drums (and removed them) and started to sand the bog. Whilst is was hard enough to sand, it clogged the paper fast meaning it needed another day to be set enough to properly sand, and I don't need much of an excuse to not sand! So using the dagger as a table I removed the dagger case from the jig and sat it over the dagger to glass the outside. I sanded it to clean off excess glue that had squeezed out of the joins and coved the sheave panel.

Once I had that done I cut the glass to shape (I had a piece about 300mm short so I used it and another piece overlapping, which will end up at the top of the case) ready to wet out. I folded back the cloth from the forward half of the case and brushed the case with resin, the hoop pine will absorb a bit of it, then I placed the glass back over the wet case and brushed resin on the glass which was absorbing resin from below. Once it was wet I detail rollered it into the cove then folded the other dry glass at the back half to the front and repeated the process. Once the entire glass was wet and the glass pushed into the coves with the detail roller I left it to set.

Sam had arrived so we removed the starboard inside bow panel and set about gluing in the keelsons, which starts with the vacuum cleaner and a rag to clean out all of the dust from months of sitting open. I also need a hammer and chisel to remove glue dobs here and there. The we cut the keelson parts to size and Sam mixed up a batch of glue and I glued the first one in, making a glue cove with my finger. Then once I was satisfied it was well glued to the keel I climbed out (all the time thinking these jobs would be much easier done when just the 2 keel panels were on the upturned hull) and did the next one. A bit easier to do the second as the space was a bit wider but funnily enough harder to climb out of. I always seem to exaggerate the difficulty of a task until it is done at which time I realise what a moaner I can be!

Sam had to go, so I had him help me get the dagger case back onto the jig so that I would not scrape the wet glass against it and then to help me stand the second dagger up and lay the first dagger on the drums so I could get started on the sheave box fitting. I resin coated the inside of the case so that when it comes off the jig it is at the same stage as the first half and all I need to do to them before closing them is to copper epoxy the bottom half and paint the top half of each before closing them up.

I have the cedar block positions marked on the daggers as you cannot see them anymore since bogging. I measured the sheave case to the middle of the cedar block and marked out the outside dimensions. The I drilled a hole through the dagger inside this space. This is psychologically counter intuitive. I imagine I will have similar doubts although magnified when I have to cut the dagger case holes in the hulls. Once you have a hole drilled in the dagger large enough to get a jigsaw blade through you can cut the rest of the sheave box hole out.

Cut the slot a little oversize as you will back fill the gaps with glue anyway, but if like me you cut it undersize you will just have to enlarge the hole with a file until you have it big enough to get the case in so you are only creating more work for yourself. And note that the combination of all that glass and cedar makes it heavy going for the jigsaw and I had a bit of smoke coming off the job! Also be sure you get the slot parallel to the leading edge and not the trailing edge, it sounds obvious enough. I don't have the stainless screws (I will get some tomorrow) to glue and screw the half sheaves into the cases and I will need them in before I can make the slot the correct shape, I will need a rat tail file to cut a groove in the slot side to accommodate the screw heads before gluing them in.

So with a few more of my not all that keen on doing jobs being crossed off my list I decided on a light day and took off at 3pm with 6 hours enough for today.

May 12 An hour is better than nothing

I could only throw an hour at it today. I managed to get the first sheave box glued into the first dagger and to sand and grind the rough dags off the second dagger where the tapes ended around the axle screws and glassed patches over the areas so now when it is set I can finish fairing this second dagger. I also hit the trailing edge with a grinder to clean it up and square it off.

As with a lot of things on a cat there are 2 , and as with most things I have made pairs of I have done a better job on the second and so it is with the daggers. That is not to say I am unhappy with the first, I can just see already how much better the second one is. I believe (famous last words) that as a result the fairing should be faster and easier.

 

The first dagger has the top sheave box glued in, after trimming it to size, that is about 3mm overhanging either side. This will be trimmed back to flush once the glue sets with a sanding grinder. I made a cove of glue with my finger against the box side to be sure of a nice glue seal all around on both sides. When sanded flush it should be a very neat finish.

I also checked on the starboard keelsons, again second time around much better job, these are ready to cove and glass anytime I am ready, the other side will need a little cleaning up, just sand paper in my hand just to take some glue dags off before also coving and glassing. I hope to get both sides done this coming weekend so the bows are ready for the forebeam and to be closed in. Of course I still have to trim the beam to size and cut the bulkhead slots before I can fit it.

May 18 A lot done this weekend.

Although there is little to show (unfortunately even less to show on this site because I did not take any photos) I got a lot done this weekend. I finally ticked off some of the really awful jobs. The bow sections in both hulls are now coved and glassed so both keelsons are done. I also glassed the panel joins that had not been done when the hulls were upside down and also coved and glassed the 0 bulkhead internal joins. So the bow sections are ready for the forebeam to be fitted before the strip planked panels (both the full length hull to deck turn and inside bow turns) can then be glued down. I cant tell you how happy I am to get them ticked off the list. I was dreading doing them so to have them done is quite a relief.

Sam came in today with his sons and they all helped me, with the boys mixing coving filler or wetting tapes and passing them to me so I didn't have to keep getting in and out of the hulls, which is just as well because it took every once of strength I had getting in and out of the 4 compartments. It is really difficult to climb up out of these areas without stepping on the base and pushing with your legs. I could not put my feet down because I did not want to disturb the freshly laid wet glass. So again thank you Sam, Max and David.

They were quite difficult to do because of the confined space but ironically I found it easier to to the more narrow forward compartments than the ones behind them because I was able to wedge myself in with my feet on the sides so as to get the coves in and the tapes on (wet on wet) without touching them with my feet or standing on them. I then kind of stood up to reach the bulkheads either side to lift myself out, again without standing up. I used the detail roller to ensure it was all bedded down properly.

I also coved the bulkhead to hull panel joins in the most forward compartments. These were a lot easier than I thought they would be. We attached the detail roller onto a long handle and I was able to reach in with a very wet cove mix and get the cove into the join, they did not look great but the tape got a good surface to attach and they will never ever be seen once the lids get glued on, so I am not in the least concerned. To get the tapes into the cove I used a pvc pipe and then the detail roller on the stick finished the taping off.

Yesterday I got the second dagger almost fair, I have sanded on side and added a second bog screed and sanded again so I just have some minor spot filling to do, on the other side I have sanded the first bog layer and will need another bog screed and then the backfill to get this second dagger fair. I have also faired the top sheave box on both daggers but still have to cut in and glue the bottom sheave boxes in.

I have the 3rd dagger case out of the mold as on Friday I managed to glass the outside of the case and get it back in the mold to set and also gave the inside its second thick coat of resin and today I removed the 3rd case half from the mold and I have glued the last case half in the mold. Once set tomorrow I will remove all but about 6 screws, give the glue a sand off if it is set (unlikely so this may have to wait until Tuesday) and glass the inside, then the outside. I am hoping that I may be able to get this last case finished before I go to the Sanctuary Cove boat show. I also want the second dagger faired before I go too but this is unlikely, I will apply the next bog screed tomorrow but it wont be set hard enough to sand until Wednesday but I leave Wednesday so it will have to wait until the week after.

Next month will be quite exciting as I think I will get the dagger cases glued into the boat as well as the forebeam, and will be ready to start closing the shell up.

I am sore, I got glue all over my arms and in my hair and have a lot of little scratches on my arms from using them to wedge myself into the hull compartments, so I am feeling it a bit, but I am extremely satisfied today.

May 31 Another good month.

Whilst I have not updated this site for a while (nearly 2 weeks) and I did not work on the boat last weekend because I was at the boat show (for nearly a week away) I have managed another good month putting in 71 hours for the month. Given that I missed about 20 hours of work time at the show (and whilst researching at the boat show is important to any build I am not counting those hours) I am very satisfied with the result.

I don't have a show report as such, I saw a lot of great ideas and got prices and made comparisons on a lot of things I would like to fit. I have decided on toilets and tanks, and a number of other items, I am pretty sure I will go with hydraulic steering but not sure yet what brand (probably Hydrive), I will also probably go with Raymarine electronics (E80) which also means I will probably also use Raymarine for the autopilot, and finally we are convinced that lining the entire internal of the boat is the way to go for a professional looking finish. I got back on Tuesday and during the week I managed to finish fairing one side of the second board, and to glass the inside of the last dagger case half.

Today I glassed the outside of the last dagger case half and to coat the inside with another layer of resin and to bog the last side of the second dagger to shape so just a final fair (which includes back filling holes) on that side and some touching up of hole back filling done on the other side.

Then I cut the hole for the bottom half sheave in the first dagger and glued the half sheaves into their boxes, and glued the box into the first dagger. The second dagger will be done tomorrow. I glued the half sheave into its box and also screwed it to the box with 3 hefty stainless self tapping screws. That sheave half will never move. Then I glued that box (after dry fitting it) into the hole I had cut. Again I made the box about 3mm or 4mm oversize each side so that I can grind it back down to flush when it is set and made a glue cove with my finger to ensure the box is completely sealed in.

I then started on false floor bases for the 4 forward spaces that I glued the keelsons in. My thinking is that I am splitting the size of these spaces, creating a floor to stand on when fitting the forebeam and to lie on when coving and glassing the inside joins of the decks and then I can utilise the space with a door from inside the boat or a hatch lid from outside if I want some extra storage space for sails, fenders and other light weight stuff. I have glued duflex strips to the hull sides and bulkheads, level all around. Tomorrow I will cove and glass these on and cut a ply floor (I may use duflex) and glue and glass this in.

So looking back on the month I managed to finish a lot of smaller jobs that I had put off for quite a while and am getting closer to some major milestones as a result, the fitting of the forebeam and the closing up of the bows.