2008 building logs

November 2008 Still on Cabin roof

The roof is starting to take shape and should be fully shaped by the end of the first week of November. Then by mid month it should be glassed on the outside. By the end of the month it should be glassed on the inside and ready to go onto the boat. In the month I should also have time to make a roof lining for the saloon using the inside of roof as a mold. Before the roof goes onto the boat I will also need to fair the topside to save having to do it on the boat later. This will keep me quite busy. Then next month should be very exciting. The roof will go on.

1st November 2008 Port side of roof stripped

Things take a lot longer on the build than they do in my head beforehand. Today it took me all day to strip plank the curve on the port side and I am yet to start on the starboard side. I really thought I would be able to get the whole roof done today. I guess it is taking me a lot longer than it should because of 2 things. First I am working under the bridgedeck which is definitely slowing me down. Heat is a factor but today was not so hot so I cant blame that. What is slowing me down on this is my lack of material. I am having to carefully select pieces of duracore or duflex strips so as to minimise the offcuts that wont be able to be used. I am still gluing smaller pieces together as I struggle to make what I have stretch to finish the roof. I am confident I will have enough to finish but only just and with an absolute minimum of waste. If I had an oversupply and full length strips then the roof would already be finished.

Strip planking thin strips results in a much fairer curve with no hard points. It also curves in a slightly different curve to kerfed panels so there are places along the length that don't exactly meet with the wider kerfed panel alongside. That said, the thinner strips result in more hard points fore and aft along the edge where each panel meets the next one, they are more subtle but it is impossible for them not to be there. Some scientist argue that there is no such thing as a curve and that any curve is a series of infinite flat lines joining to form the curve. Anyway besides being more work, a fully stripped roof would also be heavier and use a lot more glue. The middle of the roof is really only curving fore and aft because along the middle of the top the side to side curve is so slight as to be an almost flat roof, so strip planking it would be overkill. With the difference in the curves making the edges meet is more work but not impossible so along most of the first curve I have made the edges meet, except for 1 point where I have a lip I will need to sand smooth before glassing.

Once I had the first strip down the rest met along the edge very nicely and the curve down to the edge progressed nicely. I might be a bit of a nut for this kind of stuff but I cant help but sit and admire things like nicely curving planks and then once all the planks were down, the curve the roof takes. There are many parts of the build that have had me sitting and staring at some part or another. Anyway, once I had the planks all down I decided on the method I used on the hull deck turn panels, that is to squeeze glue into gaps I left in the planking without removing them and buttering each plank. This is a little easier because once the planks are fair to each other then you don't have to worry about getting them fair again with the time pressure of glue going off.

After I had all of the planks glued, with a little extra layer of glue to act as a smoothing agent to smooth out any places where the planks did not meet at exactly the same height I started planking the other side. I got a few planks on but will need to finish it tomorrow as I had to glue more planks together to be long enough to run full length. In some places the planks don't run the full length of the roof. Past the saloon the roof is cut in by about 300mm (a full plank width) to enable standing at the helm and seeing over the roof and the other side is cut to match. I have also left a void 500mm wide (due to a lack of planks) along the side of the roof that will be over the cockpit. There will be a corresponding space on the other side also. This I will fill with Nidacore. It is a polypropylene honeycomb core material. Some boat builders are building hulls out of this material so I don't doubt its integrity as a core or its suitability for the job. I just don't like deviating from the original design or materials. I am using it for the furniture on my boat but because of a lack of duflex and duracore and money to buy more I am using a little over the cockpit. It is a non structural part of the roof and along the curved edge of the cockpit roof so I don't have any concern about using it there. Being over the curved edge it wont get walked on and being over the cockpit it is not part of the actual design of the boat. Cockpit roofs are an owner option and come in as many designs as there are owners. Some boats opt not to have them and have aftermarket stainless steel and canvas roofs or none at all. In all I will have just over a square meter of the material left in the roof core once the overhang that I am building into the roof length and width is trimmed off again. (The entire roof is about 22 square meters so less than 5% and on the edge of the cockpit roof sides). The cockpit roof will be finished with a double thickness, another layer of nidacore glassed both sides and glued on and then a pvc tube sliced open and glassed around the edge so it should be very stiff.

So hopefully tomorrow I will have a fully formed roof to show. For now I have half a roof so show.

2nd November 2008 Starboard side of roof stripped

I now have a full roof, well minus the 2 voids that will be filled by the nidacore over the cockpit sides which will be fitted just before I glass the roof. These cores have a scrim (a sheet of porous material welded to the core for the glass to adhere to) that must be wet out and glassed to while wet and cant be glued in place and sanded (you cant sand the scrim off) like the duflex or duracore.

I had the usual Sunday early start so I could spend the afternoon with Jo. Unfortunately I didn't get as much done in the morning as I wanted so I took Jo to Ikea (her choice for the afternoon) and then went back to finish what I wanted to get done today. I strip planked the starboard side in the morning and glued them in the late afternoon. I started the day sanding the port side down ready for glassing. It is a bit bumpier than I would have liked but smooth enough for glass to adhere well to. The bumps will be taken out by bog once the glass is on. I also had a few areas I had to sand down highs that meant going through the hoop pine veneer on the duracore. Not ideal as the glass does not adhere as well to the balsa as it would the pine veneer. The key will be to wet these balsa show throughs out with resin before I start glassing, maybe the day before and a light sand so as not to go through back to the balsa but to key the resin.

In the afternoon I simply spread the glue into the planking joins and filled the screw holes from the other side. Once this sets tomorrow (glue sets hard enough to sand overnight in Summer) I will remove the screws from all but the edges and sand the glue down again to a smooth finish and then back fill the screw holes. Once these set the next day (Tuesday) I can final sand the roof, clean the dust off (I blow it off with a blower) and measure out the glass ready to wet out, which I am hoping to do on Tuesday, a public holiday here for the Melbourne cup, well I should say a public holiday in Melbourne where the company I work for is based so the likelihood of work arising Tuesday is minimal, hence a public holiday for me too. I am still trying to decide what will be easier or better, glassing the boat fore and aft or across the roof, the glass must overlap by 100mm but it makes no difference which way the glass runs. I am also trying to devise a way to get bog onto the green glass without getting on the roof. I cant reach the middle from the sides, so this will take some doing. I am thinking a spreader on a stick at this stage.

Working under the bridgedeck takes it out of you, or I should say makes for aching muscles and back. My calves in particular are quite sore after the weekend. But I am stoked to have the full roof planked. I now have all the parts of my boat made. I just have to fabricate the steps and raised duckboard for the complete shell. The nose cones still need to be made too but I wont do these until nearly the very end. But the major parts are all made or provided (cabin side wrap arounds) and the complete boat shape is not far away.

4th November 2008 Roof glassed.

Yesterday I sanded down the starboard side glued strip planks smooth ready for glassing. I had a similar bump where the hard turn problem  with the wider planks meets the thin strip planks, as I had on the port side. I attempted to smooth the bump out by adding glue as a filler to gently slope down to the lower plank height but when set and while sanding it down I realised that if it is simply too high and I have to grind it down later I will have to go through the glass whereas if I do as I did on the port side and grind it down now even though it means sanding through the pine veneer to the balsa then it is a safer bet. If it is not then I can bog it back out later but if it is too high, grinding the glass away is not a good option as it would, I imagine weaken the roof and require glass patching. I prefer the piece of mind of knowing the roof glass is not compromised. So I sanded it down to a smooth turn and cleaned the roof off by blowing the dust off and using a damp towel I gave the roof a wipe down and let it dry overnight ready for glassing today.

I effectively had a day off for the Melbourne Cup. So as planned I spent the day glassing the roof. I started the day about 9am by cutting the nidacore to size and fitting it to the roof. I cut the nidacore strip about 5mm wider than it needed to be and bent it into the space and relied on its being slightly oversize to bulge out to the curved shape I needed. It worked a treat. The tightness held it in place and the bulge was almost exactly the curve of the roof. I used some rivets to ensure it did not bulge up too far. I used rivets because they are easy to remove rather than screws which are easy to glass over and become difficult to remove.

I then cut 3 strips of glass the length of the roof. I have decided to glass the roof front to back rather than across the roof. I thought about wether there would be more need for across the boat strength in the roof or fore and aft strength needed and as it is not uni glass I figured in the end that one way is as good as the other and with fore aft strips there would be slightly less joins to fair out later. It also worked out that 3 full widths of glass at 1300mm each and with 100mm overlaps 3 widths of glass worked perfectly. So with everything done it was time to start wetting out the glass. I decided it would be easier to wet the middle strip first then one side then the other would overlap it each side. I rolled out the middle length of glass and mixed up the first batch of ADR (Kinetix) resin, 4:1 by weight. I have a small kitchen scales and measured out 1kg of resin to 250g of hardener into an icecream container and started mixing.

I then simply poured it onto the glass and spread it around with a squeegee. I was going to use a roller but in the end the squeegee works better because as well as spreading the resin it also smoothes down the wet glass to the core, taking out air bubbles and ensuring that the correct amount of resin stays on the glass and excess is squeezed out to another still dry section of glass. I worked out that the roof is 18 square meters and the glass is 657g per square meter so I have 11.8kgs of glass and I used 13kgs of resin, so pretty much exact. The extra kg of resin went to pre soaking the scrim of the nidacore which is necessary for this material or else it sucks the resin down from the wet glass and you get dry glass that is under soaked in resin. So even though I did not do the math until I had finished, it worked out perfectly reassuring me that the glass has the correct resin to glass ratio.

I had to get on the roof to wet the middle strip of glass out starting at the back, standing on the ground and leaning in as far as I could reach, then climbed onto the roof and worked back to the front. Once the first strip was wet out I pre-soaked one sides (port) nidacore with resin and stopped for lunch to let the resin tack off just a little. Half an hour later I rolled the next layer of glass out on the port side, cutting small holes for the rivets and then started wetting it out being very careful over the nidacore not to press too hard and push the core out of its curve as there was nothing underneath to stop me if I pressed to hard but at the same time ensuring the glass was correctly wet out and not too soaked with resin. It all went fine and I had no air bubbles or pools of resin.

I then rolled out the next layer of glass on the port side. The wet nidacore that had tacked off a little held it in place at that point so I smoothed it out over its entire length and repeated the wet out process but this time was able to wet it out from along side the roof and leaning in. So with the second glass strip wet out and the roof 2/3 wet out I simply carried on and finished by wetting out the starboard side layer of glass. The resin on the nidacore was a bit more tacky by this stage so I had to be a little more careful placing the glass as I thought it may stick too much if I needed to lift is and reposition it, fortunately I got it right and could continue on a wet it out.

 

In all it took me 8 hours today to wet the roof out including a half hour lunch break. I also spent an hour cutting and fitting the nidacore and an hour sanding and cleaning the roof down yesterday. I am sore and tired from working all day crouched under the bridgedeck but extremely pleased. I had the perfect day for wetting out, cool and not humid, the resin did not go off fast which has 2 benefits, firstly the open time was very workable and second no bubbles as it set. I tossed up whether I should bog the glass tomorrow. It will still be green so I could do it but I have decided I will wait to bog it until after I have turned it and glassed the inside. It will be heavy enough to turn over as it is and the roof may flex a little until the frames are back in it upside down to reshape it to the correct shape again but that flexing may crack the bog so better to wait. Once the inside is glassed and set the roof can no longer flex. What I might do tomorrow, while the resin is still green is to add a strip of glass just behind the hard turn in the middle of the roof at the front. It will need to be bogged out so I figure another layer of glass just there will take the place of bog and be stronger. One way or another some height will need to be added just behind so better it has structural strength, for the weight rather than not. Bog does not have any structural strength.

Generally I have given myself a rule on my blog, no religion, no politics. We all may have different opinions  on them (and I certainly do) this blog is not the place and I don't like to offend those with different opinions to me, but I just cant resist today. On the eve of the US Presidential election I really do hope that Barack Obama wins tomorrow. I think the world could do with some hope of change, he has offered an inspirational message, it would also invigorate the idea of racial equality and whilst we don't get a say, not being American, US foreign policy and the US economy does effect the rest of the world so that's my 2 cents worth.

After I glass that small strip on in the morning and make sure the rest of the glass is setting properly I will have a couple of days off while I wait for the resin to cure. There are a bunch of other things I could be doing but I think I have earned a short break. I will of course be back on the build on the weekend, preparing to remove the roof from under the bridgedeck to turn it over and glass the inside.

5th November 2008 Next on the roof is to turn it over.

I called into the shed this morning for an hour to add that section of glass I mentioned yesterday. The idea to add it only occurred to me last night when looking at the photos. I realised I would have a hollow about 500mm wide to fill across the top front of the roof and thought it would be better to add some glass than bog. I have no idea which would be heavier but I know which would be stronger. I will still need bog of course but much less of it now than before. It is amazing how much difference this one layer of glass makes but I guess a wet out layer of glass is between 1mm and 2mm deep, and placed where I put it, the hard edge does not look anywhere near as high a ridge as it did in yesterdays photos.

The resin from yesterday was still tacky to touch, which is not surprising. The night was not warm and the resin is designed to go off slower, which I believe is one of the main reasons Schionning provide it in their kits, most of the taping and other resin work is West but major glass wet outs are ADR. They both come from the same supplier, ATL. This was good for me today as I wanted to glass to yesterdays glassing, so with it tacky it means it is still open. What that means is that I will still get a molecular bonding, a chemical bond, and I don't have to sand the glass to get a mechanical bond. If I needed a mechanical bond I would need to wait for the resin to harden. I did grind a little today because I was glassing over the edge of 2 glass strips and I needed them smoothed down to avoid air bubbles and I was able to grind that small amount of resin but it did clog my sanding disk. I also put down some old peel ply to kneel on because of the tackiness of the resin.

The wet out was quick, it only took me half an hour but surprisingly I put down a 2.2meter long by 600mm wide strip of 457g (per square meter) glass meaning about 600 grams of cloth but I used 800 grams of resin. Yesterday I used almost exactly 1:1 resin to cloth by weight but for some reason today, using exactly the same method I used a little more resin. I am not going to lose any sleep over 200g of resin but it is puzzling.

I finished by removing the rivets that were holding the edges of the nidacore to shape and while the resin is still soft enough to change shape, it wont move too far now, I just needed to be sure that the shape and height of the 2 edges (duracore to nidacore) were at exactly the same height. All is setting well.

Now I just have to wait a couple of days before I can attempt to move or do any further work on the roof. I was tempted to spread some bog on it today but decided to stick to the plan and do that once the inside is glassed and the shape is set hard.

8th November 2008 Making water tanks.

The roof has been released from the mold but I am yet to turn it over. It took me over an hour to release the roof. Many of the screws just refused to come out, a combination of resin in the heads (or under glass) or trying to reuse screws with damaged heads meant that I just completely stripped the head so I had to dig them out and remove them like a nail using pliers or hammer. To make life a little easier I removed the mdf shaping forms I had placed around the front curves of the roof so that I could get a lever under the roof to lift it. I had only left screws around the edges or so I thought. Once I had removed these screws around the edges I expected to be able to lift the roof off the mold, I had put clear packing tape on each frame so that glue would not stick to it.

So I was at a loss as to why I could not lift the roof off the frame. In the end it took brute force to just lift it off, it was being held down by a couple of screws I had missed, one on each side about the middle of the roof. As I pulled the roof before it let go, it would creak and groan and I was scared to pull it up hard because I was scared it would break. I even climbed in under it to see if I could see where it was binding but I couldn't get enough purchase to move the roof to get a better idea of where the screws were from under there so I just gave it a few pulls and off it came. I pulled the screws out of the mold rather than through the roof, so when I turn the roof over I will have to pull them through the roof before glassing the inside.

With the roof free I just have to lift it off and out from under the boat. I am waiting to see if the guys will be moving 9 Lives over soon so I have more space between our boats but if not soon then I will just have to work with the space there is. Just to get an idea of what shape the roof will take when cut down to size once on the boat. I have drawn a rough line where the rear of the roof will curve to match the cockpit seat shape (it must be trimmed to the seat shape so that you can step into the boat all around without hitting your head on the roof edge) and where the sunroofs will be placed, one above the helm and the other at the same distance in and back as the helm roof. I will need to build a box for the sunroof to compensate for the curve in the roof. I will also build a box for solar panels between the sunroofs.

Once I had released the roof I got started on making water tanks. My tanks are in the space between the 2 forward bedrooms. The plans make provision for 2 200 litre water tanks and 2 100 litre fuel tanks but as I will not be having fuel tanks (I will have outboards with 24 litre portable tanks rather than a fixed tank) so I will have space for 2 300 litre tanks. But these must be fitted before the cabin wrap around goes on and the dashboard is glued down.

I am still not entirely convinced that making my own tanks will work as I am not sure if I can make them without an taste to the water, I am still working on what to line the tank with to be sure it is taste free and well sealed. I will make a tank up and test it and if it works well then I will make another. I started today by cutting tank sides out of nidacore, cutting glass for each side, peel ply for each side and glassing the sheets both sides. 2 of 600mm x 1000mm sides and 2 of 500mm x 1000mm sides (300 litres).

Once these were glassed both sides with peel ply on I left them to set on the flat bench and got on and did some more taping inside the boat. There are still a number of areas inside the foredecks that are still to be taped so I do them whenever I have some free time.

9th November 2008 Re thinking the water tanks.

I started early as I usually do on Sundays so I could knock off early. Some kind of water-ski races are being held in Gosford this weekend (national titles?) and Jo wants to watch them a while. And after about an hour of trimming the water tank sides to size I made a silly mistake ruining 2 of the sides. Instead of trimming a few mm off one side to square up the panels I set the saw guide in the wrong place and trimmed 100mm off and before I knew it I had cut them and immediately noticed they looked a little small!!! I was extremely annoyed with myself. I don't want smaller tanks so it meant I would have to go and make new ones. I decided to take a break for a while and I went shopping for some tank parts. I went to my local national boat part chain (I wont mention them by name because I am about to say something not flattering about them). I don't usually shop at them because I know they inflate the pricing but I have a gift voucher and I figured that potable water tank parts are fairly specialized. Anyway long story short, I bought drinking water hose, various through tank fittings and one of them is an inline tap to cut the water off if needed (working on things down the line). It was $6.90. Not expensive you would think. I then went to Bunning's for some other items and saw exactly the same item in the garden department (EXACTLY) for $3.90. Same brand, same packaging, item number, everything the same) This bring 2 problems to mind. First am I getting potable water quality. Probably. But the same item near double the price because it is sold in a boating outlet. It is plain wrong and annoys the hell out of me. $3 is not the point it is the % increase, if we are paying double on something simple then we are likely paying double for everything. So my day wasn't getting any better.

I went to visit my cat owning friend Warren for some advice on how to build the tanks and he gave me an idea that made the mistake I made earlier fortuitous. I was going to make separate tanks, separate that is to the structure of the boat then fix them in. He asked why I was doing that. I didn't really have a reason. I thought it may be a good idea to have a layer of air around the tank so if it sweats (condensation on the outside of the tank) it could evaporate off and not sweat on the living space side of any wall. He suggested this would be unlikely through 2 layers of glass and 20mm of balsa and that building the tank out of expensive core material when I already had tank sides built into the boat was a bit of a waste. I thought about it a bit more and agreed. So my day was not turning out to bad after all.

So now the other side of the bedroom walls are now tank sides. All I have to do is fit the other 2 tank sides and lids, coat them with about 6 coats of epoxy then however many coats of tank lining paint (still working on that one and will report once I get the information I need) and build lids. I still have not decided where I will exit the tanks with skin fittings through the tank walls, probably through the side wall into the bedroom (under the bed slats). The lids will have filler spouts and breathers. The tanks will be 100mm short of the top of the space under the dashboard and I will have a hatch in the top of the dashboard to enable me to get to the tanks if need be. This will be hinged and be able to open inside the saloon. At the front end of this tank space is my main anchor well, (the usual anchor well on the foredeck space will be my emergency anchor well) and by leaving this small area open inside the anchor well I will be creating a rainy day aircon vent. How it will work is if it is raining I can open the anchor well lid a little, it wont matter if rain gets in, it is a wet area anyway. Fresh air will enter the well and run along the space along the top of the tanks and out the lid through the dashboard open in the saloon. At anchor the boat will always be pointing into the wind so air will rush through this space. I may also run similar vents into the bedrooms to keep airflow in the rain when the normal hatches will be shut.

I have used duflex to make the front tank wall/rear of anchor well as it will have anchor chain bashing against it so figured I would need a little more robustness, I am sure that the nidacore is probably strong enough also but just to be sure I used duflex. I will use the 600mm nidacore sides (one of them anyway) to split the tank area into the 2 tanks. I will use the now 400mm nidacore panels to make baffles for the tank to minimise free surface area, even though this should not be a problem with this shape deep but not wide or long tank but just to be sure I will baffle it). The exercise in making the panels was not wasted as I will use them but more importantly I will make furniture out of the material soon, some of which will be pre glassed flat like these panels, other areas will be formed on the boat (curved panels) so practice making the flat panel is good. They ended up having 800 grams of resin for each 450g of glass each side, so 1 meter square panel would end up weighing about 3kgs. I figure on about 20 panels each being 2 square meters so that would be about 120kgs give or take.

So whilst I got another 16 hours (9 yesterday, 7 today) done I don't have as much to show for it as I would like. I am hoping that by next weekend I will be working on the inside of the roof. I want the roof done soon so that I can get it on the boat as soon as possible.

I crossed another milestone this weekend. I passed 2000 hours on the build. I thought I would have the shell finished by 2000 hours. I think that will be more like 2200. Most people tell me I have at least 1000 hours of internal work and another 1000 hours of fairing. It is looking increasingly likely that I will need some help (professional hired help) to get the boat finished in the next 18 months. I will work the next year on the inside and see how I am going. If I am still a long way off finished in a year I will start to investigate help. Too far off to worry about that now.

10th November 2008 Roof out from under the boat.

The boys moved 9 Lives today. They hired 4 piano trolleys, jacked the boat up and placed the 4 trolleys in place and pushed the boat over. Easy. When the time comes (soon) to move the boat out they will employ the same method. Just move the boat a little further over, turn the trolleys around (they only work 1 way) and push the boat out of the shed onto the hardstand outside in readiness for the truck to take it to the water.

The benefit for me right now is the extra space behind my boat to finish the roof in the clear without being hunched over under the bridgedeck. I had already released it so we all got on a corner lifted it off the frames and carried it out into the clear, turned it around so that we could stand it up and turn it over. The roof is still very flexible and cracks and groans if you attempt to walk on it anywhere other than directly down the middle.

So with the roof out in the open I removed one of the frames in order to hold the roof in shape. I unscrewed it from the strongback sides and laid it out on the now upside down roof and imagine my horror when I saw how out of shape the roof was. Until I realised that gravity was now very much working against me and with just a few props under the roof here and there and suddenly most of the problem is removed again. So tomorrow I will get it completely right so as to be ready to glass the inside. Once glassed on the inside the roof will hold its shape. The critical area is where I have this first frame re set as this is where the roof attaches to BH6 the saloon door bulkhead. It wont attach to any other bulkhead, everywhere else it attaches to the wrap around so each will have a little give in it to meet each other, but the bulkhead wont give, the roof must match it.

I will attach a few other frames as you do want the roof in shape to save too much stress later when trying to get the wrap around to fit and of course the better the shape the less fairing will be needed. Once I have a few frames in i will glass between them and then once set, the frames can come out and the rest of the roof glassed.
 

11th November 2008 Roof inside sanded.

Now that the roof is out and turned over I need to glass the inside. Before that is done the roof is still flexible so it needs the glass to fix its shape and stiffen it. I carefully sanded the glue that had squeezed out through the joins and also tried to level the planks as best I could. I will need to backfill the gaps between the planks and I will use the glue to level between planks of uneven height in areas I have not ground down to smooth.

When I made the strip planked side decks I employed 2 methods of back gluing. One method is to do it then let it set then sand it smooth again before glassing. The other method was to glue and then glass wet on wet. I did not like this method as much because at the time I could not get the entire length backfilled then glassed wet on wet fast enough without it all going off and whilst I got it done it was touch and go at times. I felt I got a better job by letting the glue go off and sanding again.

I will glue and glass wet on wet when I do glass the roof provided I get a cool enough day to do it. I will run the glass strips across the width of the roof and it is really only the curved sections either side that need glue so I feel I will be able to get the glass wet out on wet glue without too much trouble, provided as I say that I get a cool day.

15th November 2008 Roof inside glassed.

Today was open day at the shed, I had in total 8 visitors at various times during the day. I met a prospective Schionning builder and his wife and father, as well as Jo's mum and friends as well as a couple of my other building friends so I reckon I stopped to chat for at least an hour today. Unfortunately I missed finishing all I needed to buy about half an hour. I just have a small section at the very back of the roof, about a meter by 2 meters to do. I also have a small strip either side of the 2 frames I attached to keep the roof in shape while the glass sets.

I also have a number of blocks under the roof keeping it pressed up against the frame. I cant screw through the roof to keep the roof against the frame for 2 reasons, first I would need to get under the roof to screw through it into the frame which is hard enough but not impossible, but more importantly I don't want to puncture the now sealed glass on the outside of the roof (underside of the upside down roof) with a screw through it. I can patch a hole if I needed to but I prefer not to puncture it. I have used gravity and blocks strategically placed to keep the roof in shape.

I started the day by filling the gaps and joins in the planks and some of the kerfs that I did not get glue into when I planked. I let it tack off a little then glassed a strip of glass (1300mm wide) over the wet glue. I made a small mistake. I had some glue left over and rather than waste it I filled some more gaps in the next section I was to glass but by the time I got to glassing it the glue was rubbery and as a result I got a few air bubble in the roof. Fortunately for me, these are over the cockpit not the saloon. I will probably grind them down and patch them. I will have to wait for the glass to set to see how big they will be. I intend to glue another layer of nidacore to the underside of the cockpit roof overhang to stiffen it up so that I can walk out onto the roof if I need to so in the end these bubbles will be sandwiched between another core with 2 layers of glass (one each side) over it, so it may not be necessary to patch them.

Tomorrow I will finish glassing the small areas I need to finish glassing the inside of the roof, I will move the frames slightly so I can get to the strips under them that are not glassed and the patch at the back I did not do. Then I will leave the roof to fully set for a few days before I can move it. I will still have a few jobs I will want to do on it before I put it on the boat, including adding the extra layer over the cockpit, making the saloon roof lining using the roof as the mold, and shaping the roof to size (although I may still do this after it is fitted to the boat) and I may also cut the holes for the sunroofs and fit them.

16th November 2008 Roof glassing done.

The usual early start today, I got in and finished the roof inside glassing. I moved the frames to reveal the unglassed sections below them. I also found quite a large (about 200mm round) patch of glass that had not stuck to the roof below, it had lifted. I would have to grind this out and patch it. I decided to kill 3 birds with one tape. The plans say to put an extra layer of glass in areas where the turns are tighter, I had a number of bubbles in the glass that extremely fortuitously ran in a fairly straight line in line with the patch that did not adhere properly and the patch itself could all be covered in one tape across the roof and I also corrected some laziness from yesterday.

I had not bothered (thinking I wouldn't need to) to bring another frame for the front turn of the roof out from under the boat and into the upturned roof. I decided to do that today because my conscience got the better of me over night and a good thing too. When I placed the frame in the roof I could not get it in because the roof was setting small. My panic was quickly replaced with relief when I realised that even with glass on both sides (even though the inside is not yet fully set) the roof is still quite flexible. I am sure that it will stiffen as the glass sets but it will still have some give in it in order to make it meet the wrap around sides. Once I had placed some blocks under the front of the roof the gap between the frame and the inside of the roof was reduced to less than 10mm and can be reduced further by pushing or lifting the roof in strategic ways so I am not concerned that the roof is setting wrongly. But just to be absolutely sure I wedged it in place and the extra tape to patch the bubbles etc will set and help to retain it in the shape where it meets the frame.

I ground out the patch of lifted glass and the bubbles and keyed the glass either side of the unglassed strips and blew the dust off and cleaned the top out. I back filled the holes and used the glue to fill the gap to smooth out the glass edges either side. I let this tack off a moment while I cut the glass for the rest of the job, 2 tapes 1 x 300mm, 1 x 400mm and a large piece at the back of the roof that I had not done yesterday. I lay the glass in place and wet it out using the same method of using a squeegee to spread the resin around and to ensure that I did not over saturate the cloth and to remove the air bubbles. I rechecked the props that were holding the roof in shape against the frames and left the roof to set for a couple of days until the resin fully cures.

I spent an hour and will spend a few more tomorrow or Tuesday making white melamine chipboard panels for a hatch display. There will be a small boat show at Darling Harbor (Sydney) next weekend and I am showing my hatches for the first time. Jo has made me a fantastic flyer to hand out to anyone interested with a pricelist. Which also means that I wont get any more work done on the roof for a while (at the show all next weekend and in Melbourne Wednesday and Thursday). I still have to glass another layer of core into the cockpit overhang, fit the sunroofs, make the saloon roof liner, then turn it over and give the roof a rough fair. I wont fully fair because the roof can still flex and wont be fully set in shape until it is attached to the boat and the wrap arounds attached. There is no point fairing something that can change shape as it is more than likely the work will be for naught and you will have to do it again.

24th November 2008 No work on boat.

I did not do any work on the boat this weekend due to the mini boat show at Darling Harbor over the weekend and my small participation. I was invited by Dave at Drive Marine to share some of his stand for the show to display the hatches I import for the first time. So I created some display stands out of melamine lined chipboard to simulate the white of a boat deck to display a cross section of the sizes and types of hatches and deck hatches I have. Jo created me a brochure to hand out. I did not sell any hatches at the show but gave out a lot of brochures so hopefully some of these will turn into orders.

I did get one exciting (and in retrospect funny!) lead. Two old guys came to the stand and had a look at the D shape hatch and one asked me if I though it could be used as an escape hatch in a deck. I told them that none of us three (me and the 2 old guys) could fit through it so no. They left and I didn't give them another thought. Then the next day (Monday) the guy rings me and says he wants to come out and have another look, he will probably still want to buy "some". I then asked how many he needed as I only had 5 in stock, he said 10,000 and that he would come out on Wednesday, then changed his mind, he might not be able to wait until Wednesday, he may come Tuesday. Well, we all like to think big, but 10,000 hatches at $300 each or even $250 for such a large order, well you do the math. I told Jo that we could hire a team to finish the boat and get ready to retire to the boat! Needless to say, the guy did not turn up Tuesday to Wednesday and we wont be retiring soon. All a bit of a leg pull I think. But you never know, do you? If he ever does come and does buy hatches I will be sure to let you all know.

Hopefully next weekend I will get the roof linings made and maybe finish the roof off ready for attaching to the boat in December.

30th November 2008 Roof linings made.

I did not get much work done on the boat during the week (nor did I last weekend or the days during the week before so it has been 2 weeks with not much done). I did manage to sand the inside of the roof to smooth off any sharp edges of glass. I will make a roof liner over the saloon and then coat the inside of the roof with the white epoxy. It will be more a sealer coat as it will be under the roof liner and not visible but I would like to give it one more coat of resin and then paint so this will be a good way to do both in one coat.

To make the roof liner I investigated a number of options including using nidacore, chop strand with polyester resin. I also thought about whether I should make it in one piece or not. I decided in the end to make the liner in 3 parts, the centre part out of nidacore the 2 outside parts out of filler core, light (200g) cloth each side and polyester resin. The reason for making it in 3 parts was that it would be much easier to upholster and also so that the liner could be taken out of the saloon if needed, a one piece could not be moved but a 3 part is no problem. The reason for using polyester resin is cost. It is about 1/5 the price of epoxy and there is not reason for the roof liner to be made from the superior epoxy. It will have no load on it, it just needs to be stiff, light and hold its shape. The filler core is to thicken out the liner and to separate the 2 layers of glass. I will make the 2 side parts out of glass and filler core but the middle part will be nidacore. This section is just a slightly curving section and not a compound (curving both fore and aft and side to side) curve like the sides. As can be seen from the first pic below, gravity alone is enough to get the nidacore to curve to shape. I have marked off one full sheet width for the nidacore and will make the side parts to fill the rest.

I started by cutting the various parts to shape and size, 2 layers of surfboard cloth for each side of the liners and the filler core. Filler core is a mat like material with holes in it to aid in wet out, it has no structural strength even when resin infused, it is only ever used to pad out glassing to make it thicker. It is easy to cut and wets out to a flexible filler so that it will form compound curves without bulging like a more rigid core like nidacore will. I then taped the roof with clear packing tape to provide a non stick surface for the wet out. Polyester will not stick to epoxy but can be mechanically bonded so you must line the roof with plastic and sticky tape is the best way to get the tape firmly to the surface shape of the female roof mold. In retrospect brown packing tape would have been easier to apply as the clear is sometimes difficult to see that you are overlapping the tape each strip but so long as you don't miss any area it will be ok.

Taping these areas took nearly 2 hours! I cant believe where the time goes. Jo went to lunch with her mum and rang (yesterday) to say she was on her way back to pick me up and I said I needed more time, she reminded me of the time. It was already 5pm and I had been working all day and not noticed it fly by. So I had everything ready for glassing but not enough time left in the day to do the wet out. It would have to wait for Sunday.

So today I did my usual early start, it helps with such work as wet outs because the shed has not had the days heat on it to warm it to the sauna it is past about noon each day. I had never worked with polyester before although the guys built campervan ends with it before moving out. I cant smell epoxy but I sure can smell polyester and I don't like it. It is a deep blue color before being catalysed and you only use 15ml of catalyst per litre of resin.  Once the catalyst is mixed in the resin turns green (at least I think it is green, I am color blind) so you know when it is mixed. It is runnier (thinner) than epoxy which in this case is a good thing. i am only wetting very light cloth. I started by wetting out a layer of cloth on the sticky tape lined roof, then I laid the filler core over the wet glass and wet that out, finishing the sandwich with another layer of surfboard cloth and wetting that out, before running the detail (consolidating) roller over it to get wrinkles and bubbles out.

Because I want to be sure the edge of the liner is stiff so that the joins are nice and clean I and because the nidacore layer will be thicker than the sides I decided to run an extra layer of filler up the edge. I will trim that to a nice straight line once it is set. I was surprised at how thirsty the filler core is. It really used a lot more poly resin than I thought it would. Fortunately I bought 20 litres ($125). I used about 2 thirds of it so about 14 litres over the 2 ends parts leaving enough to do the centre wet out. I used a brush to wet out around the edges so as not to have too many spills over the edges then I poured resin on and used a squeegee to spread the resin out. This has 3 advantages, it is much faster, it ensures that the resin is spread evenly and does not pool or too much resin and it also squeezes or pushes kinks and bubbles out of the wet out to the edges to ensure no bubbles. I then finish the job with the detail roller and every five or ten minutes I go over it again as bubbles still rise as it heats to set.

By the time I got to the end of the second side the resin was going off much faster as the midday heat in the shed was causing the resin to go off faster. I barely had time to detail roller the second side and it had already gelled off and the few remaining bubbles would not stick down. No matter, this will be upholstered so these tiny lumps should not be visible and structure is not a problem.

Tomorrow when the side parts are set I will remove them from the roof and make the centre part, then once that is made and set I will trim the sides to size and a nice straight edge ready for upholstering. I will them put them aside for a while until I am ready to internal trim. I will most likely use a professional trimmer to upholster the various trims I will make over the next year or so. Some parts will be trimmed directly onto the boat (bulkheads - walls) but all upside down (roof) sections will have panels made, especially the curved sections in the hull to deck turn and the roof sections I have just made.

Hopefully I will get the rest of the roof finished next weekend including shaping the cockpit overhang. I will also add another layer of roof to the cockpit to stiffen it and to add some thickness to make fitting the sliding sunroofs easier, I may also fit them and the ag pipe edge which will also add stiffness to the cockpit overhang. I have decided against any bog work on the floor off the boat because the roof is still so flexible so there really is not much point fairing an unstable shape until it is glued to the boat and stable.

Next month should be quite exciting. The roof should go on.