A Note on Costs

For this blog I am trying to document everything, good and bad about my experience in building my duo 660. This should include the experience of paying for things.  I'm planning another post on sources, for now this is just how much I've spent on boat stuff.  I've tried to be comprehensive but I'm sure of missed some little stuff. The other thing to keep in mind is this is only my experience where I already had a lot of tools and using the build approach that I've documented here. So with the caveats out of the way here it is:

I broke it up into recurring materials and non-recurring tools and equipment. This is an early look yet, when I start to plank the first ama I will be looking at some more serious plywood and epoxy costs.

Finding Interesting Ways to Screw Things Up

I knew something was up when I let go of the clamps and the rudder still creaked.  The symptom of the problem was that no matter how hard I cranked down on the wedges I couldn't close the rudder at the spar. It was closing at the trailing edge before it was touching at the spar.  So I took this picture, took a break and thought about my options.

I was thinking looking at this that I poured the leading edge epoxy goop to high, and thus too wide. Being ever the optimist I thought that maybe it would just be a different shape than the other rudder and gave a couple moments thought to the sailing implications of having two rudders of differing sections. Thankfully I didn't spent too long on that, and decided to pull it off the jig before investing carbon fiber into it. The creaking sound I heard was the sound 4mm Okume marine plywood makes when it cracks. 

Doing a post-mortem on this, the proximate cause is obvious (too much epoxy goop bead), but the real culprit is overconfidence and haste. When I poured the bead in the rudder I only had a bit of time and did things quickly since I figured I had this down. 

So after two rudder attempts I'm 1 for 2. Here are the two things I will do differently and why:

1. Mark epoxy goop fill line on rudders with red marker or something significantly more visible than a pencil line. Its too easy to lose sight of the pencil line and start guessing at where it was.

2. Change order of operations: epoxy rudder faces with goop in jig first, then epoxy spar onto one side.  With the spar pre-installed it is just in the way just enough to be a pain when putting the goop (contributes to losing sight of the fill line). 

We have company in from out of town for Halloween, did I mention this holiday is a big deal, so now it really will be a week until I'm back at work on my boat.

Halloween Week is a Bad Week for Boat Building

In our house Halloween is a big, no huge, deal. I got some more heavy duty clamps and am ready to close the second rudder. If I can get that done this week I will consider that a rousing success.  Getting completely swamped  with the holiday is what I actually expect.

Latest Thinking on Rigs

Circular thinking is nothing new when it comes to considering how to rig this boat. Here is the thing, I have been looking for a solution that meets my many criteria, is cool, and won't break the bank. What I came up with is carbon masts with a sail track and wishbone booms, or carbon masts with a cantilevered arched composite boom. Either one of which might include a rotating mast.  Neither one of these exactly screams affordability.

Have you ever found yourself watching a game or a race or some event in which you are not really interested, but you are watching anyway, And as you watch you find yourself for some unknown reason favoring one team?

It's time to admit that I really want to use CF mast with sail track and wishbone booms.  While I'm confessing I should further admit that I think wishbone booms are cool. With that said, I'm not sure its worth the weight to have rotating masts (even though they are also cool) since the wishbone limits its usefulness to aerodynamics only.  This may be a place where its warranted to bother Bernd. But I'm not going to show up empty handed, I'll have a bearing concept in hand with some weight estimates.

Before I consider this a finalized  decision I'm going to try to hitch a ride on a nonsuch or other wishbone rigged sailboat. So I can experience how it is to sail in real-life, before committing to it for my own boat.

Rudder taken off Jig

The good news is I didn't glue the rudder to the jig. The bad news is that I have small gap between the AYC spar and the inside rudder face at one end.

A few thoughts on this; the first is @#!%$!, the next is that I'm not sure how deep this goes.  I built the rudders a couple of inches too long, in case something weird happened at the ends, so I will cut the extra off this end. Then if there is still some gap I will fill with putty. Not a satisfying answer I know, but the rudder is hell for strong, and the rudder housings are built to fit, so I think this will be serviceable in the end. Maybe I shouldn't have removed the wedges when I did. But then I would have glued the rudder to the wedges.  So for rudder #2, I'm planning to cover the rudder side of the wedges with plastic tape.  This may impact the friction lock feature that was so helpful last time but I can work with that by being careful in stepping around the jig with the clamps.

Moving on to rudder #2, I had a much easier time putting the tape on by setting them up like this.

I gave up on making the tape one long piece over the entire length, but that doesn't seem to matter. And doing it this way was really easy, controlled and lacked any stress.

This rudder is set up in the jig now with the bead of epoxy and filler goop applied and curing. So much easier the 2nd time.

Rudder Closed!

I knew this was going to be hard. But it was much harder than I anticipated. The thing is that you are forcing the plywood to do something that it really does not like. The first clue came when I had to chase my tail a little just to get the rudder and the wedges in the jig all at the same time.

At this point it soon became clear that the clamps, which I thought would be optional, were very much required.  The only way to compress the rudder down was to crank down on the clamps.  It was taking quite a bit of force and I soon found that the hand-squeeze type clamps could not compress the rudder.  Luckily I had been discussing this project with local legend Bob Burt. He recommended that I get some heavier duty clamps.  Double lucky that I actually took his advise and bought 2 lever action type clamps.  With the big boy clamps I could keep compressing the rudder.

I got into a rhythm of compressing each corner up to and then through level.  In another lucky break the wedge is at a low enough angle and the friction is such that once the wedge is advanced it stays put due to friction.  I probably could have dealt with this if it hadn't worked out that way but having things stay in place was a help. The picture below is before I applied epoxy. I left one clamp on the wedge just in case the friction-lock was marginal.

So after I applied epoxy to the above joint I started with the carbon fiber. With the wedges holding the rudder in a compressed position it was not too hard to layer in epoxy and three layers of uni-directional carbon fiber.

Here is a picture showing the wedges holding the rudder compressed and three plys of CF installed. It was a good thing I took this picture since it got me thinking...more on that in a moment.

With the CF installed I just applied epoxy to the edge and clamped the trailing edge of the rudder closed. Its hard to tell here but I covered the bearing surface of some scrap lumber with plastic tape. To keep from gluing the rudder to the scrap lumber used as a bearing block. 

I used every clamp I own to try to get some uniformity in the closure.  At this point I figured I was done and was getting ready to go find some lunch, but thought I would look at some of the pictures. 

That's when I saw the picture from above that got me thinking. Thinking that maybe I just glued my rudder to the wedges at the ends. So I undid a couple of clamps and pulled the wedges out.  Everything seems to stay in place. The result is below. If all turns out as hoped tomorrow. I will be repeating all these steps for the other rudder.

I was thinking of writing a lessons learned paragraph but nothing that earth-shattering comes to mind. Its harder to cut carbon fiber than I thought, and of course the heavier action clamps were a must. I think more than explicit lessons learned this is more about experience gained. Bernd says this all the time, that much of boat building is getting in there and learning how the materials behave. As usual Bernd is the man. 

Finally Building a Rudder

Once again I'm learning about all the interesting ways not to do things.  I taped the leading edges of the rudder faces together, but I tried to do edge down. That was a mistake. This would have been fine if I had 6 hands. You are trying to hold; two rudder faces (with no good place to hold on to), hold the tape in position, get all tape even and pressed onto rudder faces. That's all.  Anyway next time I will set up the rudder faces (somehow) so I can just worry about tape.  Eventually I got the tape on and made little tape dams at the ends to hold the epoxy mix from spilling out.

My next fiasco was the mixing of the glue. I spent a lot of time carefully mixing the glue-filler (measured weight of epoxy, calculated needed weights of fillers, measured fillers).

It didn't take long to realize I made the mix to the wrong proportions.  I ended up with the fill putty used for fairing, waaaay to thick. So I diluted this with extra epoxy until I got it to where it seemed like it was behaving the way the pictures in Bernd's instructions look. I settled on a consistency that is thicker than ketchup but thinner than mayonnaise. For lack of a better way to describe it.  The last bit of mess was that it took more epoxy than I thought so I had to re-create my epoxy goop three times. But by the end I was getting pretty comfortable with how the fillers behave.  With all that said I think the results look good. Although to proof will be seen tomorrow.

Wedges Built, Just Waiting for Supplies

I got the wedges built. I just about killed my poor little table saw. I was kind of hoping that it would finally die, but no, it's still going.  The geometry is a bit different than I envisioned because of the distance from the jig to the rudder in its final position. Nothing a 1x2 couldn't fix.  Here is an edge view.

I received the carbon fiber to reinforce the AYC spar yesterday and should get the microballoons and silica tomorrow. Most likely will come late in the day so I won't be working on rudders until Thursday (have to get it done early because the Seahawks play Thursday night, Go Hawks).  It's my fault that I'm waiting, I let other things get in the way when I knew I should have already ordered the needed materials.

Still Thinking About Rigs

Still pondering. Here are my latest, perhaps not best thoughts.

My first thought is to recall that I am building a light weight small catamaran.  And it should have a lightweight easily handled rig to go with it.  Call that the requirement the boat has for the rig.

So with light weight and ease of handling as my primary concerns I can evaluate rig option based on these criteria. Right? For the following I figured any boom meant moderate weight.

Here is a go:

Soft-wing sail: Heavy, Easy to handle.
     Lots of hardware aloft.

Junk-rig: Moderate weight, Easy to handle
     Many battens and associated tackle adds to weight.

Luff Pocket Boomless: Light, Easy to handle
     Serious concerns about downwind work.

Luff Pocket with Boom: Moderate weight, Easy to handle
     See example below.

Sail track with Wishbone: Moderate:weight, Easy to handle
     This is the default, performance wise should be nothing to complain about.($$$$)

Poking around the internet I found this rig combination from Schionning Designs of Australia. I'm showing this one first because you can really see the shape of the boom.

In this picture you can see a luff pocket version carrying a reef on both sides.

In other pictures its pretty obvious that the main is carried loose footed. It also looks like the mast is fixed and the boom is on a gooseneck.  I'm going to do some more research to see if I can figure out if that is true. If my boom can go high enough not to hit me in the head then this may be a possibility. You get the aero efficiency of a luff pocketed sail, downwind you have a boom to work with, and you avoid sail-tracks. Note the absence of a vang. I wonder if the boom is rigidly attached (vertically)? 

Alaskan Yellow Cedar Spars glued to Rudder Faces

I have daylight in my favor so I glued my AYC to two of the rudder faces. Once this cures, (and my ordered materials arrive) I'll be ready to start assembling the rudder on the jig.  Probably can't tell here but I wrapped the end clamps in cellophane to make sure I don't glue the rudder to the clamps.

I have tried, by hand, to bend the plywood along the short side as is required when forming the rudder. It is no easy task. So I have an idea to help clamp these closed on the jig in a "halfway" position to make it easier to install the carbon fiber. I'm go to do a little trig and figure out how wide to make some sticks that will work with the jig.  Picture roughly a 2x4 with one edge cut off at a 33 degree angle. This can then be slid between the angled jig faces and the rudder faces. Here is a little sketch to help.

The red arrows show where a down force could be applied using clamps.  The hope is that with the clamps holding the rudder in a compressed position I will be able to concentrate on getting the carbon fiber installed and wetted out.  I will need to get another pair of the longer reach clamps to do this, and will need some more clamps for closing the rudder as well. Composite brads are of no use here.

Notes on AYC

Since this project is going to take me forever to complete, I have to focus on the little things I'm learning along the way. I milled my Alaskan Yellow Cedar today into 20mm spars for the inside of the rudders.
I knew that AYC has a reputation for being toxic when cut. So I used gloves and my respirator while I had sawdust flying around. I did some more research and it looks like it is an irritant that affects some more than others. I used my gear and vacuumed up the dust and haven't felt any ill effects.  This wood is very soft, it cuts easy and sands down very well. I would say it is about like working with poplar.  I ran out of light early so next trip to the hardware store will see me buying some stand lights. I didn't epoxy the spars to one face of the rudder because I didn't want to do it in the dark and in a rush. Besides I'm still waiting for my micro balloons and carbon fiber to arrive.
 

Getting dark early in Seattle.

Taper Cut On Rudder Faces

I took plenty of pictures to support a detailed post. The faces of the rudders are made of 4mm Okume. Where the faces close at the trailing edge, a tapered cut has to be made so there can be some contact surface between the faces for a solidly glued joint.  I have a hand planer. In order to get an angled cut from the planer, I build a jig. The first thing was to make small 8 degree wedges, I did this on the miter saw. I clamped on a stop for the stock to insure that all the wedges came out at the same thickness.

Next I brad nailed the wedges to a piece of 1x2 strip. I used the polymer brads so I could go through these later with screws and not worry about getting tangled up in metal brads.

Next I screwed this strip with the wedges into the side of a 2x4. Basically giving my planer guide something to slide against that is set up at the right angle.

Here is a profile view. Some the wedges protruded a a bit so I sanded that off.

I set up the rudder face blank as shown. Couple of notes, I cut the blanks extra wide that way if anything untoward happened I could have another try. Also learned that everything needs to be thoroughly clamped in place. I tried to get away with omitting some clamps and things started moving.

Here is the profile view

I took three passes at 1/32 depth setting to get it right. Technically it should have taken 4 passes not sure why but three seemed to do the trick.

Here is the profile

I set these up on edge just to show how they came together.

This was my first time using a power planer and I could really tell the difference in the quality of my cuts as I got used to (and learned to trust) the tool.  It's a fun tool to use, its powerful but not hard to control. The hardest part was keeping the power cord from hanging up on stuff. I gave up on connecting the vacuum hose since it got in the way too much. I still need to cut these down to proper width and mill my piece of alaskan yellow cedar into spars for the spine of the rudders. Then it will be time to start putting things together on the jig.

Spending Sleep Time Thinking About Rig Options.......again

I figured that since I spend a considerable portion of my life thinking about this it warranted its own post.

Here is the problem. The Duo 660 is set up for unstayed, rotating, carbon masts. But I want to be able to throw out the sail for downwind sailing, so I need a boom.
    Puget sound wind is often out of the North. Puget sound is mostly a North-South body of water, so
    usually you are beating to the wind or on a run.

The conventional answer is to use wishbone booms.
     Then I lose most of the benefit of rotating masts (can't be used to furl or reef).
     Also need to install sail track: risky or expensive on carbon masts
     This is my fall back position if nothing better comes along

Freedom yachts used rigs that used sails that wrap around the masts (read no sail tracks) but still had wishbone booms. I think they must have used topping lifts but cant quite figure out how they rigged the snotter, or why the wishbone wouldn't just bang into the mast. Not to mention reefing.

I hate (I should stay dislike) the Bermuda rig. The presence of the boom vang and topping lifts give away the issue here. I suppose its feature is that you have controls (of various levels of effectiveness) to influence all areas of sail shape. The bug is that you have to use all those controls. Besides I don't think it a good option for an unstayed masts.

I thought about trying to design a 3-D wishbone that could freely rotate about the base of the mast but curve up and around the sail to engage the sail clew like a conventional wishbone. But this entails some complex and likely heavy bearing hardware. And I'm not sure I could ever trim this right in a breeze since the downforce on the leech would likely be limited to the weight of the boom (which I would be trying to keep light). A regular wishbone accomplishes this by pushing off the mast.

My latest thought is to use softwing sails, perhaps junk rigged?.  This is sexy, but not sure if it would be too heavy. And I still lose the rotating masts, but wouldn't have to deal with sail tracks. Of course there is expense to consider as well. The idea would be that no boom would be required because of the battens. But then how to reef?

You can see why this leads to sleeplessness.

Rudder Jig

This is was my last opportunity to work on the boat until next week and things went as well as could have been expected.  I was worried that I was going to chase my tail trying to get the rudder jig base level in both directions. Fortunately I got there using just one shim.

Cutting all the Jig frames did get tedious but I have to put in a shout out to Makita for their track saw. I used melamine covered particle board for the frames and the edges I cut looked better than the ones that came with the material.

Kind of fits into a larger theme that I learn and re-learn, Using the right tool makes a huge difference, both to the outcome achieved and the amount of frustration felt on the way.  Below is the picture of the finished jig.

It will be a few days before I can get back out to the shop. I am planning on doing some detailed posts on the planning and execution of the "feathering" cut that is needed at the close of the rudder faces (still mulling over how to do this).

Rudder Set Up, A Dry Run For The AMA

I've been out of it for awhile, my wife was sick and then the entire family (including me!) got sick. Which also means my sons birthday party got postponed, which means I'm kicked out of my boat shed for another week.

With that off my chest, I did weasel in a way for me to keep working on my boat. My boat shed is 8 X 24 ft (I love it when I can talk imperial units). My son's party can get by fine with 16 of those feet. So I started setting up rudder construction in the back of the shed.

Here is the rub. My shed is set up in our driveway, our gravel, on an incline, driveway. So my plan for the amas was to pour small concrete footers that I could make level and then set up level lumber "rails" as a base on which to set up the ama build. Since I can't build the rudders in the garage (see previous post) I will set up the rudder jig the way I was thinking of setting up the ama. A little practice won't hurt.

I used 4" PVC pipe fittings for forms, and set them up level as shown.

Then I poured in the concrete and set in joist hangers to hold the 2x4s I plan to used a base to work from.

The two in the foreground will need to go away when its time for the ama. But this way I  can try out my plan before its time to do footers for the ama, and I get to keep working while waiting for my son's birthday party. I just poured the concrete today, I need to give it a day or so to cure.....