The Dentists Strike, And Trying to Fly Without Epoxy

In a stunning turn of coincidence we had no fewer than 5 dentist appointments and 2 orthodontist appointments this week. The way my usual schedule works, if I have to do one extra thing, then I'm reduced to 30 minutes of boat time. Anything more and I can forget about the boat for the day.  Today I actually did get out to the boat shed for a while. I've got a lot of random stuff to cover so this post is going to be a bit scattered.

Disaster struck when I broke one of my epoxy pumps.  A new one is on order but I'm without epoxy until it arrives.  I ordered from RAKA (my epoxy supplier). I am very happy with RAKA except since they are in Florida it takes awhile for their shipments to reach me.  I had thought to myself that this was a single point failure point in my process, and told myself I would order a backup pump at my next order. I just didn't follow through on my good intentions (as usual).

Update on straightness, per plan on previous post I laid out the as built centerline and am pleased to report that my hull is almost straight.  Over it's entire length it is less than 0.375" (9.5 mm for metric speakers) out of straight. This is much better than I thought. Here is a picture of that measurement (notice the bulkhead cutout?).

Also a picture of my high-tech transit I used to fixture the laser. If I were a professional boatbuilder I would have a real transit.

I'm happy this is not worse, however issues are plentiful. I spent some time with the drawings and found that the entire clearance for the beam in its recess is 5mm (each). This is scary, I did the trig and this works out to an angular tolerance of nothing degrees (actually 0.78).  So this really means that I have to build at least part of the cabin in the presence of both amas. That way I can build the cabin to the as-built beams. I think my jig idea for the amas will still work, so I can build the amas separately. Also I will have to be careful to account for fiberglass thickness in the beam recess. I may open the beam recess a little, or alot.  

I fit the deck stringers today as well. I did not scarf them into a single stringer since they are interrupted quite a bit by hatches, beams and mast. I'm really not sure if this is a mistake or not. Except for the aft section the stringers follow the shear lines very well.  For the aft section I may grow the stringer with some 4mm plywood and then fair it into line with the shear.  I say I don't know if this is a mistake because even if I made this one piece and then cut it, it would still relieve its bend where cut. The fool proof way, I suppose, would be to build the entire deck first and then start cutting holes. But that cuts down my access too much. I'm too big to be able fit inside and do work from inside the ama. So I have to make sure I don't need to engage in that sort of thing.  Here is how I left the stringers.

The only other item for the day was that I started building the tapered standoff for the forward nav light.  The stand off is needed so that the light will point straight forward even though it is mounted near the bow where the curve of the hull would make it point across to the other side of the boat.  I'll do what I can with this but will need epoxy to continue.

Since I'm without epoxy, I am trying to focus on the wood cutting jobs. Tomorrow I will start in on making the trampoline rails.  Also I really am at the point where I need to make an electrical schematic.

How To Keep Things Straight When Nothing Is Straight

I've been worrying about this for awhile, but now I really have to do something about it. Since I don't have the room to build the entire boat at once. I'm building one ama at a time and then the cabin, all separately.  The risk is that if things are not built straight (enough) then perhaps the beams on the cabin will not fit in the beam reliefs in both amas. So keep that in mind and consider the following.

The hull is fairly straight, while not actually straight, if you know what I mean. So now I have an un-straight hull against which to cut straight beam reliefs, and it better be right.

When confronted with sort of thing I usually look for a technological solutions. So I bought a laser right angle projector. The laser angle will be helpful but is only part of the solution.  Here is my plan.

1.  Use the laser to mark out the as-built center line (red marker) where the centerline intersects
     the bulkheads.

2. Cut/build beam reliefs using as built centerline as reference (use laser angle here)

3. Make jig to fit tightly (simultaneously) in both beam reliefs.  The second ama will be built to
    match this jig.

4. Use jig as an inspection aid when building cabin.

I think this should cover my alignment worries. Although you can never really think about alignment too much.

It is doubtful I will get into the boat shed tomorrow. I am helping to chaperone my son's class field trip.  The likelihood of me volunteering for this sort of thing is positively correlated to ease with which I can imagine something going very wrong. So I'm along for the ride as my son's first grade class explores Pike's Market.

Let The Shear Fairing Begin

Now that the hull is right side up I can get back to work. I trimmed and sanded the planks at the shear and filled gaps with thickened epoxy.  A good days work even though I got a late start because I was cleaning up after the hull-turning party. I can tell I'm getting better with the Fein tool.  I'm cutting the plank closer with the Fein which leaves much less belt sander time.  Here is pic (taken before I filled the gaps).

I need to put in some planning time tonight because I'm not entirely sure what to do next.  The basic choices are doublers where needed, wiring, anti-vortex panel work or cockpit rails. Also need to scarf and install the deck stringer.  Never a shortage of work.

It Took A Village

The hull has been turned! Everything went even more smoothly than I had hoped. Below is the video.

As you can see we had plenty of help and it turned out to be really easy to maneuver the hull with so many helpers. My wife decided hull turners should have appropriate headwear, so she brought the captain's hat and the Viking helmets. Below is a picture of the hull in its new orientation.

In addition to the hull turning going well the party was also a success. There was plenty of food and drink and a good time was had by all. Last pic of the hull-turning crew.

Getting Ready To Turn The Hull, And A Lesson Learned

Today I followed Bryan's Gougeon Brothers inspired advise and put one more layer of epoxy on the bottom of the hull. The rest of the hull will also get this treatment. But I am saving that for after I've got the entire thing glassed. Have to do the bottom now to avoid trying to do it upside down. Also made the bottom part of the cradles for the hull turning.

Now for the lesson learned.  When building up the hull I put small cleats and some triangles made from 1x2 on the rails to position the bulkheads.  I left those there until now, and that was a mistake. The problem is that these little pieces are taller than the base of the cradles, so they will be in the way when we turn the hull. The other problem is that they are now quite effectively hidden by the hull itself.  I managed with help to lift and block the hull enough to remove all that stuff.  Next time all those little positioning pieces will get removed prior to planking.

Tomorrow is the big day. I will be sure get video. So I can share what will (hopefully) be about 30 seconds of work.

Waiting For My Hull Turning Party

I did not get out to the boat shed yesterday, today I put did the second iteration of putting the edges back on the chines. Wasn't much work.  Last night I remembered that I need to make a comprehensive list of everything I want to put in the hull before I get the the deck installed.  Mostly I'm thinking of wiring but also any through hull anchoring that needs to be installed with backing plates (rudder gudgeons, cleats, forward trampoline eyes, mainsheet/halyard cleats, more?).  Anyway I will write a dedicated post about all that when I have my thoughts more organized.  For now here is a picture showing the bad side of the bow. The lighter area forward is where the fiberglass is thicker where I lapped-closed the end.

I may sand this a little eventually but don't really plan on doing much to "fix" this.

Building Back The Chine Edges

This kind of boat will sail better to windward if it has sharp corners at the chines. Here is the backstory. A boat can only sail into the wind if it can resist being pushed sideways. There are a few way sailboats do this; fin keels, centerboards or daggerboards. All are some version of a paddle being stuck down into the water vertically. The Duo-660 is different, as far as I can tell Bernd is the only one using this design approach (Mathew Leyden has a similar philosophy but uses a different design).  Bernd uses the hull themselves, and adds anti-vortex panels.  The idea is to keep the high pressure side of the hull at high pressure and the low side at low pressure as much as possible. This will allow the boat to resist sideways motion while saving weight and complexity. So back to the sharp chines, water will have a harder time getting around a sharp corner then around a nicely rounded one. And we need the water to have as much resistance as possible to flowing under the boat so we can keep the relative pressures where they need to be.  Bernd has a paper written on this at his website here: AntiVortex
The reason why these have to be put back after fiberglass is that fiberglass fabric does not like to follow sharp edges. So the the approach is to round the edges for fiberglass installation, and then afterward to put them back with epoxy putty. here is my first iteration.

I say iteration since I think this will take a few applications before its right. Which is fine with me since we are having the hull-turning party on Sunday.  All I have to do before then is build back these edges and make a couple of cradles for holding the boat right side up and prepare all the regular party stuff (drinks, food, clean up back yard).

Filled Epoxy Top-Coat Done

Doing the top coat was not nearly so difficult as the initial wet out. It was still a bit epoxy intense. A little more thirsty than putting a first coat of epoxy on plywood.  The main thing is that you can squeegee in an any direction you like, which is a feature I now appreciate.

This was actually done yesterday. I got ambushed by the kids in the afternoon and did not get back to write this post. Today I will start putting the edge back on the chines with epoxy putty and fairing some problem areas at the bow and transom (basically where there are seams in the fiberglass).

Glass!

Let me start by saying, this was an s**tload of work.  I didn't time myself but I think I mixed the first batch of epoxy just before 11 AM and finished around 6. Working non-stop.  To make matters worse, the battery in my phone died leaving me without music for the last hour.  I have few things to say about all this but will start with a before picture.

Fiberglass cloth is an amazing material. When I first laid it over the hull I thought I would have to cut triangular shaped cut-outs on the hull wall to get the cloth to sit correctly. I knew you could smooth it out, but I was amazed at the extent to which the cloth conformed to the hull.  I started with painters tape around the hull placed below where I will need to attach the trampoline rail.   I got the widest fiberglass I could find and thought it would reach the tape all around (or be real close).  Turns out I only needed the tape near the ends.

Doing the wet-out was WAY harder than I had imagined. The process appears simple but there is actually quite a bit going on at once. Firstly, the cloth moves in its weave, which is how it can conform to shapes.  So when using a squeegee to move epoxy around you have to be careful about the direction you are pulling. You always have to be pulling away from an area that is already anchored, either an edge or even better an area that is already wet-out. Simultaneously you have to completely wet out the cloth, but the cloth can hold quite a bit of epoxy, so you are going back for more very often.  I generally did well not snagging the cloth on my squeegee but was helped in this by the squeegee itself. I bought a very soft rubber squeegee.  I was further surprised by how difficult just wetting out the cloth could be. Going in, I thought there would be some capillary action and the glass would basically wet itself out. I have no idea why I thought this. The last thing the glass does is wet-itself out. You almost need to manually saturate an area to get it completely wet out, then squeegee out the excess is very particular direction and try to aim the excess (remember you can't pull any direction you like) for an area that needs more glue.  And you have to watch out for runs below the glass unless you like sanding. And not to paint this as too rosy you have to keep an eye on your past progress so you can pop any bubbles that arise. So with that rant out of the way, here is the after picture.

I am generally happy with the outcome, I have some weirdnesses going on at the the transom-hull wall edges and to a lesser extent at the bow. Nothing that can't be fixed with sandpaper, epoxy putty and liberal doses of curse words. Next step is a top coat of lightly filled epoxy, I'm sincerely hoping that is not as difficult as this was. Then I will spend a couple of days doing touch-ups and re-building sharp chine edges out of epoxy putty, that should be interesting.  Also I need to start signing up some friends for a hull-turning party this weekend.

2nd Coat Of Epoxy

Managed to get the second coat of epoxy on today. No picture because it looks exactly the same. Turns out the kids don't get back until late evening tomorrow, so I will study up tonight and try to get it glassed tomorrow!

If that works, it will be time to start planning the hull-turning party.

Redeeming My Original Sin

Long day in the boat shed. Mostly because of the hours spent sanding. I'm done with that, although I'm a bit worried that I have not rounded the edges enough for the fiberglass to adhere properly. Perhaps a "see how the fiberglass lays on the boat" test is in order.  I trimmed the last plank and sanded everything including the BH3 filler. Here is a picture of that.

I may have gotten a bit carried away with the belt sander but overall I'm happy with the outcome. I was getting frustrated with taking poor pictures of the hull so I tried to take a video of me walking the length of the hull.

Finally I had to make up for my "original sin" of not double epoxy coating all the sheets of plywood on both sides before doing anything else (as the instructions instruct).  I'm halfway to redemption in that I got the first coat of epoxy on today. I was a little worried that I would have a hard time with it since the hull walls are basically vertical. Turned out that was no big deal. I used brushes to thickly dab on epoxy in an area and then used a squeegee to distribute evenly. The side benefit to this is it makes the hull look really good. I feel better about this entire project now that it looks better. I know that is silly, but it is also true.

Tomorrow is the last day before I have to be a parent again. I will lay some fiberglass over an edge of the boat to see if it bends to the radius, then if that works it will be time to complete my redemption and apply the second coat of epoxy.  Since I should have some time left, I will start making anti-vortex panels as well.

  

Working In The Twilight Zone

I spent most of the day in the boat shed, but it felt odd today. We had kind of a rolling cloud cover so it would go from cloudy to sunny and back fairly frequently. It makes it weird in the boat shed since it felt like night at some points (relying on my shop light) and then like a summer day at other times.  In any case I got quite a bit done. 

As promised in earlier posts I took pictures of the filler piece that I installed where the keel dives below planking at BH3. Here is the before picture:

And then the after:

I cleaned up where this piece sits with the dremel and then carved a bit on the filler piece to get a good fit. Besides the filler piece I got yesterday's planks trimmed, filled gaps with epoxy, made progress in shaping the bow timber, and then installed the last plank. I left the belt sander and drill on top to help hold it down, On its own it was taking a bend that was opposite to what I needed (of course). 

I'll wrap up with as much of a hull picture as I can get. 

The sad news is that I likely won't get this glassed before the kids return on Sunday.  There are just too many "let the epoxy cure" steps between now and getting the glass on.  Also I'm thinking I may wait on the paint until I have the hull turned. Here is why.  I cannot put on the Anti-votex panel on now because I need to get to the inside of the hull to install a backing plate.  And I don't want to paint (primer, paint, bottom paint) because then I would have to scrape/sand all that off to install the AV panel.  Painting with the hull right side up will be more of a hassle, but less bad than removing expensive paint and hoping to avoid damaging the underlying fiberglass in the process. Now the plan is to push both the AV panel and trampoline holder installations until after the hull is right side up.

Back In Action

We are back from Vancouver. Canada is a strange place, it's basically like being in the US but there are little differences that get your attention (more smoking, leather jackets, British word spellings, and colorful money). In any case we had fun, and a much needed respite.

We arrived home yesterday at 3:00 and by 3:03 I was in the boat shed.  I trimmed the three butt straps from last week and got the next two wall planks on.  Today I trimmed those down and installed the bottom plank.  There are a couple of interesting things going on with this plank. The first is that it needs to be relieved in order to bend as needed. The second is that the leading edge is not perpendicular to the boat center line. First a picture showing the bend needed.

In order to let the plywood bend, I put a short and relatively narrow cut out from the middle of the leading edge. The picture below shows the cut in the plank and the slight angle at the trailing edge of the garboard. It takes this angle because of the way the plywood is twisted onto the frame. I knew this was there but figured that trimming the bottom plank edges to match would be easier than trying to figure out the exact right angle at which to pre-cut the garboard edge.

There was not much material to remove to put this angle on the plank, so I formed it up using the palm sander.  Below is a picture taken after it was installed. I used 4 screws along the leading edge of the plank. It took a little pressure to get the plank properly bent, but nothing excessive. For the rest of the plank the polymer brad nailer did the job admirably.

I also managed to cut and install that last two wall planks (baby planks by comparison).

Tomorrow I will trim the bottom plank and the last wall planks and set about installing the last bottom plank. Then I will see how much filling and sanding I can get done in one day. I will eventually get stuck waiting for glue to dry, of course.  On a final note the fiberglass for the hull arrived today, and the next shipment of epoxy will be here tomorrow.

Kids Are Outta Here But No Boat Shed For Me

I got the kids shipped off yesterday, but I won't see the the inside of the boat shed until Tuesday the soonest. I have to take an extended weekend with my wife to Vancouver BC. She can take me away from my boat, but I will still be thinking about her.

3 Butt Straps In 1 Day

I may have gotten carried away talking about paint, that said I'm still going to try to push as hard as I can to make the kid-free days productive. Today I cut reliefs and installed the last 3 butt straps. Nothing eventful to report.

Also I started carving on the bow timber to give it some shape. I hate taking tools out and putting them away, so I will do this on a one tool per day basis. Today was the Fein Tools' turn.

Tomorrow will be the belt sander, and then I hope to wrap it up with the palm sander. Its warm today but the nights are still on the cool side. So I left the heater on in the boat shed, so hopefully everything is cured tomorrow and I will be able to get a couple of planks installed.

Preparing For Days Without Kids

Not that I'm very excited to be without my kids, it's just that I am.  At minimum, I would like to be done glassing the hull by the time they get back.  Today I got the final coats of epoxy on two more sheets of plywood.  I may stop there. I know this is not showing that I've learned any lessons, but now I've got a timetable at work and it's a tight window.  In addition to glassing I would like to get some paint on, but the truth is I don't really know how to paint a boat.  I think it's primer everything then bottom paint the bottom and regular paint the sides? Point being that I don't think regular paint goes under the bottom paint.  I'll ask some questions on the K-designs website, the users there are helpful and knowledgeable. For the most part their knowledge is from their own experience, the best kind.  In addition to the epoxy coating I rough cut and installed the bow timber.

It was not as hard as I had imagined, but fairing this down to something pretty may be where the real work lies.

Child Labor Edition

Most of this work was done on Friday which was the last time I got out to the boat shed. This weekend was just very busy with kid school functions and family time (more on that later). I put my 7 year old son, Pablo to work removing screws from the garboard, he was almost a help.  He still lacks muscle and he is short, but his technique is improving.

Below is a picture of how far I took the garboard trimming using the Fein.

And then of course the post belt sander finished picture.

The reason I had to finish trimming the garboard instead of staying focused on my epoxy coating task is that I am using the hull basically like a work bench.  And I could not prop up a sheet of plywood on the irregular edge of a partially completed garboard installation.  So with the second garboard installed on Friday. I got out for a few minutes tonight (Sunday) to get 2! sheets coated in epoxy. The forward end of the hull gets too narrow to support a sheet of plywood with any stability, so I made this to help hold the plywood stable for the epoxy.  

So far so good, but here is where things will get more interesting. The kids have their spring break coming up. We are going to ship them (all 3) to New Mexico to visit my parents. My wife and I will take a few days mini-vacation in Vancouver, Canada (we have never been) and I will get a few days (DAYS!) to work on the boat relatively unmolested.  The focus now is on getting the plywood coated and collecting supplies, so I will not waste any kid-free time.