2006 building logs

Sept 2006 Planking the Starboard hull

I have now started the planking of the Starboard hull having stood the bulkheads in August. I anticipate that I should have the hull glassed and bogged by the end of the month so next month means back to the sanding! I can't wait. I can't believe I am nearly up to sanding again having only just finished the sanding of the port hull!. It is also a year since I started counting the build time although we didn't actually start building anything until late September 2005 when I started to cut the timber to build the strongback (which I did in early October) and the building of actual boat parts started in Late October 2005.

1st Sept 2006 A week off?

How can I describe how much fun it is to be at the snow with a bung knee. Whilst everyone else went off each day in glorious sun drenched warmth getting tans whilst boarding or skiing in t-shirts, I on the other hand stayed indoors, working mostly and reading Pamela Stevenson's book about sailing the south Pacific. Funnily enough it was one of my most productive weeks for the business and I got a lot of work done. Not what I had planned when we booked the trip but what can you do? And how can I complain, I have the adventure of a lifetime to go back to.

So hopefully tomorrow I am back at the boat and will get some work done over the weekend. I have an appointment on Monday morning to see about this knee.

2nd Sept 2006 Back into it

I got back to working on the boat today. I filled the joins between the deck panels between bulkhead 0 and 1 so that I can cove and tape the inside of the joins tomorrow before adding the next pair of panels. These 2 panels, once added will make the space at the bow too narrow to reach into to do this tape later. I have to figure out a way to tape the port hull now that it is turned over and it is a very narrow space and a long way down. I also plan to fill the next panel joins and taping inside before attaching the final panels. It seems easier to do it this way and I wish I had done it this way on the Port hull.

I used the same method as last time to apply the filler/glue. First I masked the inside of the join so that the filler would not be able to drip out. I then made up the mixture of resin/hardener and 411 microspheres and scooped it into a zip lock bag and then sealed it before cutting one of the corners off making a piping bag. I then slightly over filled each join. Last time I way over filled each join and smeared it all over the place only to have to sand it all off again. This time I just beaded the fill a bit higher so that I could still sand it down to a sharp line flush with each panel face angle before rounding it off again.

I have also glassed the inside of the next panel on the outboard side of the hull ready to attach tomorrow after I tape the bow panel joins.

I also decided that I would check on the Pure Seal test panel today. It was a beautiful warm sunny day more like summer than spring and 26 degrees, so winter is definitely over. I started the test just into winter (by 2 weeks) and decided I will test the panel at the start of each new season. Click here to see what the panel looked like at the start of the test.

Pure seals promise is that nothing will get a grip on its surface and therefore is a good long term, low maintenance antifoul. I have had the sample plate hanging under our pier for 3 months. You can see in the first picture that it appears that some growth has occurred. At first I was disappointed. But there is no repellent or poison in the substance so there is nothing to ward growth off, what they claim is that nothing will stick to it. And sure enough, the growth there is has the most tenuous of holds. With just a light rub with just my finger up and down the plate no more that 4 or 5 times the algae and other growth simply wipes away. This panel has had no motion except that caused by the tidal flow. I am not sure if the movement of a hull through water at speed would be enough to remove this growth but even if it didn't, I don't think I would be too concerned with having to take a dive and giving the boat a light rub every 3 months and never having to slip the boat and removing foul in the usual way.

To me that would be low maintenance however it may not even be necessary on a 3 month basis. I only removed the growth from half of one side in order to see the effect of 6 months growth and 9 months on the other side and then 12 months. If the surface remains this slippery after 12 months and the growth just rubs off in the same way I will be pretty much convinced. The only test then would be to see if the stuff stays on and remains as effective over say 3 or 4 years. It will be that long until launch so I have the time to wait and see. But so far I am very impressed.

5th Sept 2006 Another panel attached

After a slow start to the week, (I didn't get anything done on Sunday due to feeling a little ill, I have a cold and yesterday I spent the morning at the orthopedic surgeon being assessed for arthroscopy on my knee) today I got the next panel attached to the hull and the outboard panel glassed ready to go on tomorrow as well as coving and glassing the inside of keel at the bow between bulkhead 0 and 1. The result of the assessment with the surgeon is that I will have the operation next Tuesday so I don't think I will get much done next week as I recover. I may not get much done this weekend either as I have to help Jo to renovate a shop she is opening soon. So I will try to get as much done before the weekend, then I think it will be the following weekend before I can get more done.

The small bow section is a tight area with the chines all within inches of each other so in order to be sure the glass was well bedded I filled the whole area with filler then attached the wet glass onto the wet filler and pressed it all down into the corners. First the glass was cut to shape and fitted dry to be sure it was the correct shape. Because the bulkhead tape should be one full piece I will still need to apply that once the hull is finished but at least I have got the difficult keel section done and I will cove the joins as I go so will only have to attach the wet tape to finish that section.

Next I attached the panel to the outboard side of the hull. This is a really simple task with the ratchet straps. As with the other panels you place the panel next to the hull (on the drums in this case) in a position where the straps will reach, and then just ratchet it up into place. When it is tight up against the panel above it is a simple matter to screw it down. Then you release half the panels from the centre back (or forward it doesn't matter) and glue them all before re screwing them down and repeating the process at the bow.

Then once I had that done I glassed the next panel ready to attach tomorrow. As I have been doing on this hull I have been removing the peel ply and re using sections on the glassing.

7th Sept 2006 Another panel attached 2 to go

The panels are going on quite easily so far. I shouldn't tempt fate with such fighting words though. The next panel should also be easy enough, the outboard large panel but then I have the dreaded chamfer panel. Actually I am fairly confident this time as it really wasn't that difficult to fit first time but it is still a tricky job.

I plan to fit the next 2 panels next week as I have a busy weekend away from the boat. If I can have these last 2 panels fitted next week I will be on track to have the hull glassed and bogged this month.

Oh and the reason I should not tempt fate with what I write here, is that just 5 days ago after 2 glorious 28 degree days I declared Winter was over, since then the temperature has plummeted to 12 degrees each day, it has barely stopped raining and the wind hasn't dropped below 40 kts!

15th Sept 2006 Back to work

Last Tuesday I had my arthroscopy operation on my left knee. It was completely painless and over in less than a day. I went in at 9.30am and was home in bed by 3.30pm. I was fairly tired and slept the rest of the day but the next day I was up and about and by Wednesday afternoon I was back at work. My knee is still a little sore but even now a lot better than it was and I expect the remaining pain will soon ease. I was also doing a little on the boat by Wednesday. I managed to glass the 2 remaining panels, both big panels, the chamfer panel on Wednesday and the outboard panel on Thursday and today (Friday) I managed to fit and glue the outboard panel. Over the weekend I will fit the chamfer.

I have a follow up with the surgeon on Monday morning. I am hoping that by the middle of next week the swelling will have gone down and the remaining soreness and tightness in the joint will have subsided and it will be back to normal. An arthroscopy operation is performed through 2 tubes into which one side is inserted a video camera and the other side the tools needed to do the cutting, stitching, etc and the surgeon watches a video screen to know what to do. The pictures on the right were taken with the arthroscope. Fairly gross! Now there are some photos I never expected would have been on the site!

I had to glass the 2 panels on the same side of the hull due to them both being against the wall on the outboard side of the hull and there being a lack of space on the other side of the hull due to the port hull being there. Once the hull panels are all on, all the work on the inboard side is done on scaffold boards on top of the bridgedeck returns so the lack of space on that side wont be an issue. The chamfer panel will need to be moved to the other side of the hull by walking it outside then back in on the other side of the hull.

So I glassed the chamfer first, then layed the outboard panel on top of it the next day and glassed that. It was then a simple task to lean the outboard panel on one edge on the 44 gallon drums and lean it against the hull and attach 2 ratchet straps and lift it the short distance into place. It took about an hour or so each to glass the panels and about an hour and a half to fit the outboard panel. As with all the others I screwed it down, unscrewed the rear half to apply the glue, re screwed it down then repeated on the forward half.

For the keen observers you will note that the chamfer panel has to be turned around when I move it to the other side of the hull, the bow is at the stern and visa versa. You can see on the panel a line I have marked from the stencil offcut from the port hull that needed to be removed to make the panel fit. I will cut that out before I fit it as it should be identical to the port hull. The offcut will then be glued to the top of the panel where the strip planking starts. I wont do that though until I start the strip planking.

I should be able to attach the chamfer over the weekend, it is a bit more complicated than the other panels because of the strain the various twists put the panel under but I should be able to get it done this weekend. Then I have to glue/fill all of the panel joins.

16th Sept 2006 All the panels attached

I had a great day today working on the boat. The fun I have building is hard to put into words. I could work much faster at times but why rush when I get so much enjoyment from it. I worked all day, well 10am to 6pm, and managed to fillet and glass the bow section before attaching and gluing the chamfer panel.

This panel took by far the longest but I was surprised I could finish it in a day. The rest of the panels took around an hour, the chamfer took me about 6 hours.

I had thought that I would attach the rear half of the panel and glue it down and let it set overnight before attempting the bow, which has all of the stress and twist in it. But after screwing down the rear section I continued on and started with all of the clamping, ratcheting and generally cajoling the panel into place. Some of the bulkheads needed to have a notch taken out of them (and out of the panel where it meets an mdf temp bulkhead) as the panel meets the bulkhead at the top and is up tight against the panel above but is a touch too wide and meets the bridgedeck return so the 3 or 4mm notch allows it to meet the bulkhead perfectly.

One other difference with the chamfer is that on all the other panels you ratchet the panel up into place, but with the bow section of the chamfer it actually sits up over the panel above and needs to be pulled down into place.

Once I had the chamfer in place I set about unscrewing the rear section, gluing it and re screwing it down. I initially decided I would leave the panel in place overnight then unscrew and glue it tomorrow as the panel retains some memory of the shape and re attaches more easily after being in place overnight. But I had time so I decided to continue on and get the whole panel glued today. It took a while and a number of clamps and ratchet straps but I managed to get the panel glued and screwed back down by the end of the day.

Is it just me or do all builders of this kind of hull stand back in amazement at the shape of the hull that emerges when the chamfer is attached? It is amazing the twists and curves that a large, fairly rigid panel is able to achieve and on both hulls I couldn't help wasting 15 minutes just admiring the beauty of the hull lines created by the chamfer. It is truly brilliant and a credit to both the designers and the materials makers that this curved shape is possible from essentially a flat panel.

So tomorrow I have earned a sleep in, then I will start on the tabbing to lift or pull the panels into line with each other before I start on the filling/gluing of the panels to each other.

17th Sept 2006 Tabbing started

After a good day yesterday I took it fairly easy today. After a sleep in watching TV I helped Jo set up her new shop and got the the warehouse at about 3.00pm and left at about 5.30pm but only spent 2 hours on the boat.

I spent about half an hour inspecting the hull and poking around. It also gave me a chance to recall the minor problems that needed fixing in the port hull that also have to be done on the starboard hull. For those that have recently started reading the site, these minor problems are because ours is one of the first kits cut of this boat so there were a few minor gremlins in the cad cut. Here and there a panel is the wrong size or shape needing repair. Easy stuff really, and of no consequence to the structure as all will be under layers of glass, remember under the waterline the Duflex is really just a core for the glass that I am going to apply.

I have started to tab the hull panels. This pulls (or pushes) them up or down so that they are flush with each other. In some places the low panel needs to be pulled up in some the high panels need to be pushed down so that each panel stays fair along its length. This reduces the amount of bog needed to get the hull fair. The pictures below illustrate how uneven the panels can be before tabbing and how effective the tabs are in leveling it all out.

So once I have finished tabbing I will then fill the overly large gaps with Duflex, then get on and fill the panel joins using the piping bag method. I hope to have the tabs done by mid week and the Duflex filling done by the weekend so that I can have all of the filler into the joins over the next weekend. I am on schedule to have the hull glassed and bogged this month.

18th Sept 2006 Tabbing continues

Not much done today but I did manage to finish about 3/4 of the remaining tabs on the outboard side of the hull. I only have a few along the keel to do (which I couldn't reach from the scaffold and I am still a little bit wonky on my knee to be perched up a ladder), about half an hour or so should see it done. I also took some time today to mark the first Duflex piece I need to fill bulkhead 3. I have also measured for the gap in the keel but have yet to mark out an offcut for making the fill piece.

The method I use to make these plugs is to measure out the length of the gap at small intervals, say 50mm over the 1 meter gap. Then you measure the size of the gap at each interval and transfer those measurements to your offcut, then join the dots to create the shape of the plug and cut it out. The pic below left is the panel marked at 50mm intervals then the middle pic is the plug with the gap width at each interval marked and the dots joined. Whilst this method is easier when one face is level or straight (and you choose an offcut with a straight edge) it still works with any shape.

This method is also used for the longer piece needed to fill the keel gap, except I use larger intervals, say 50cm over the 6.5 meter length of the gap. With the keel filler I cut the plug in a v shape so that it is more like a wedge (the right width on the front face but narrower on rear face, to do this I angle the jigsaw blade) and easier to get a tighter fit.

Another small tip, to help identify the remarkably similar looking filler and glue powders easily I have written the words "fill" on one bag and "glue" on the other because I can never remember which of 411 or 403 is the glue and which is the filling powder and I got sick of running up the stairs to check my website on which is which!

I think I may start on the filling tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday.

20th Sept 2006 Half filled hull

I got about 2 hours in yesterday and about 3 hours today and have managed to get about half the hull panels filled. I am able to do them much faster and much neater than I did on the first hull. I think I will have the whole hull filled by the weekend and will start working on sanding the joins smooth and round in preparation for glassing.

I have also filled the gap at bulkhead 3. With the plug cut, it was just a touch too tight so I trimmed it with the rasp and it went into place easily, so I just covered both edges with glue and put it in place and cleaned up the excess glue into neat coves. I was just a little short with the plug so I filled the bottom 10cm with filler. In all I reckon this took me about 40 minutes to fix. And as far as structure, it will make no difference as this is just a core repair and the whole join will be covered with glass on both sides.

I still have the join in the keel to fill and I will attempt that next week once my knee is a little stronger as I will have to spend a lot of time on the top rung of the ladder. I am planning on the weekend after next to glass and bog the hull, Saturday to glass, Sunday to bog.

24th Sept 2006 Hull completely filled

It is starting to get hot again, today it was 33 Celsius which is about 9 above average for this time of year. I guess we should get used to it with global warming accelerating. Nevertheless I managed to get all of the filling on hull finished this weekend, including plugging the gap in the keel.

I filled all of the joins between the panels including the chamfer which is also a cove to reduce the angle of the turn with filler (411). I used piping bags to fill the joins but just used the rounded scraper straight from the ice-cream container for the chamfer cove. The rounded cove creates a better seat for the glass so that it bonds completely with no air bubbles or gaps that the more acute angle can cause. It also creates a much nicer look to the turn of the hull.

Overall the filling was a lot faster this time around for 2 reasons, firstly I way overfilled last time but probably the reason it all went in faster was that I was able to make much larger batches of filler due to the temperature being a little cooler than last time. The heat was causing the batches to cure faster than I could fill the joins last time but this time I was able to completely fill the lunch bags (piping bags). The chamfer took a little longer than I remember but I tried to do a better job than last time. The better job you do now the less sanding you have to do to get it right later. I have probably overfilled a little at the bow where the chamfer turn flattens out, but this needs to be sanded flat and feathered out and also needs to correctly follow the shape of the hull so too much fill here will probably help in getting the angles right.

Once I had all of the hull filled including behind the holding tabs once I removed them, I started on the plug to fill the keel join. This was a simple task, and as last time, I measured the length of the gap (6.3 meters) then at 500mm intervals I measured the width of the gap and wrote them down. I then found an offcut long enough and marked the measurements out on the offcut and joined the dot creating the line I needed to cut to. I then cut it out using my battery circular saw, although you can just as easily use a jigsaw. Once it was cut I tried to dry fit it. It was too wide in just one place, so I marked that so that I could trim it with the rasp (or a plane). It then fit very well, so I mixed some glue (403) and glued it in. I needed to tab it in order to get the piece to bend to the shape of the keel. Once it is set I will remove the tabs and fill the holes and any gaps in the glue with filler and I am ready to start sanding the filler smooth and round ready to glass the hull.

I am still on schedule to glass and bog next weekend as long as I can get the chine turns sanded during the week.

27th Sept 2006 Sanding the chine turns

I have sanded the filled chine turns on about half the hull. I have done most of the inboard side and the bow section of the outboard side, but haven't done the keel, so about half the hull.

The keel filled beautifully with the Duflex plug (see the pic on the right below). I still have some gaps in the glue here and there to fill along with the screw holes from the tabs that kept it in place, but the sanding of the chine turns also reveals low spots and air bubbles that also need filling so I will do a final fill after the sanding is done, then a final sand.

It is a stark reminder of just how horrible sanding is, especially the white fill compound because the dust is white and is really fine like talcum powder, it goes up into the air and lands on just about everything even though I am using the dust extractor. At least with the bog dust it is the same color as any other dust, with this stuff there is no doubt where is came from and exactly who is responsible. I think the fill compound must also be lighter than bog because there is so little of it to sand, just the joins but the dust does go everywhere whereas the bog completely covers the hull but seems to just fall directly below the sanded area of goes up the dust extractor.

I should be able to sand the other half of the hull tomorrow. It doesn't really take that long to sand. I did half the hull in 3 hours today and an hour yesterday, but getting the motivation to do 8 solid hours of sanding is tough. I could work into the night if I really wanted to but who wants to sand for that long!

I am still hoping to convince family members to pitch in and help me glass the hull over this coming long weekend.

28th Sept 2006 Sanding the chines almost done

I have almost completed the chine sanding. I still have about a meter on both sides of the hull at the stern to do and about 3 meters of the keel at the bow, and I also have to fill some holes here and there, mostly on the keel, and then sand them. I figure maybe half an hour to fill everything and about another hours sanding to go which I will get done tomorrow.

I also plan a clean up tomorrow, including a hull wash down to remove the dust and will also vacuum the floor. Then on Saturday I plan to prepare for glassing on Sunday. The preparation will include cutting all the glass to size and rolling them up ready for attaching in order, and also having the array of ice cream containers ready for pre mixing the 4:1 ADR resin for the glass wet out. Resin (x4) in one container, hardener (x1) in another container repeated about 10 of each, then as we need them during the wet out, the hardener gets poured into the resin container and mixed ensuring the correct ratios. This ensures we don't have to measure under time pressure which can lead to mistakes.

We should get the glassing done on Sunday and the bogging on Monday. Then guess what I will be doing next month.

Time Spent: 52.00 Hours

Total build time so far: 597.00 Hours   Total Elapsed Time: 12 Months 4 weeks

October 2006 logs