Thursday, May 28, 2015

The hull has been aligned and offsets along center line checked with laser baseline from transom to stem.  The station beam widths were checked and adjusted with ropes to match the loft table.  Frames can now be fitted to this 'expected' shape and the jig for frames is ready.
 

 

Building a jig for frame laminates at mid section.  I had not planned to use marine ply for the frames but I acquired 4mm and 12mm for internal construction and I still have several 3mm sheets available.










A saw blade cleaned up the interior surface staple damage followed with orbital sanding all over.  A first coat of slightly thickened epoxy has been added followed by a very thick milled glass fiber epoxy to fillet between hull skin and keelson. 

                                                          Inspector

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Moving the hull back onto a set of supports cut from the molds.  The height is reasonable to work with but I might chop the legs 6"  in the future.  Upcoming steps:
-Resolve nasty internal surface damage.  Coat inside with epoxy. 
-Setup baseline alignment to confirm hull is in proper shape.  
-Install sheer beams and temporary beams to hold shell at loft positions.
-Fiberglass the shell to keelson.  
-Build transverse frames in station 3-6 region.
-Stiffen front sections 1-3 with ribbing.
-Bulkheads, bouyancy cavities, beams






The hull shell has been removed from the mold.  Spring back along the sheer is minimal in my opinion and partly due to splaying out from gravity.  41 days to finish hull....maybe not.  Lets see how this goes.





Thursday, May 14, 2015




It takes some finesse to fare the hull with thickened epoxy.  If the spreader rides up on the fluid as you spread it then you are above the substrate but if there is vibration then you are scraping down into the substrate.  I still had 30-50% fabric roughness over the hull after two applications.  This is the third faring sequence but at least now the carbon fiber is level with the rest of the surface.  

It was planned to start painting but decided to go with flipping the hull over and get started on the interior.  The paint scheme is to skip primer and use LIC 40 Valspar 2 part linear polyurethane according to Gougeon brothers.  Maybe Saturday.    Some balance time put on the tiller and rudder stock clamp.  
  1. Align and pre-drill rudder stock port.
  2. Apply epoxy primer coating. 
  3. Cut brad nail attachment of hull to mold.  
  4. Lift hull and flip over.  Remove mold assembly and install upright supports.  Install hull on base and supports.  Following these steps the external surface will be left unpainted and the hull flipped over to begin internal structure work.  






Sunday, May 3, 2015

More hull washing, sanding and carbon fiber fabric fit.  These went on very easily squeezing out as much epoxy as possible.   Started some tiller work and found a place to put all those strands of CF lying around.



CF fiber strands are laid along the plank that will be inside the tiller... just because.

After washing with water and rag 3 times over the entire hull surface I sanded down the glass layer so that hills were 50% their height.  Tools are 40 grit Alambert sheet with 6" orbital.  Work was quick and easy.   A small spot on the forward edge of the bow hit wood so I added another layer of 2oz glass.  The whole surface is now coated with epozy and filler (Q cell).  I pressed too hard as I smoothed the epoxy and the burlap finish is still present in some areas.  Another layer will take that away.   Once this cures there will be more washing, sanding and installation of the carbon fiber patches...so far 3.5 gallons of resin have been used on this project.  That is not counting the quart of resin I bought for the rudder so about 4 gallons at this point. 
ready for faring layer


beforeafter


 carbon fiber sheet