Falling Off The Wagon

This week I was keeping up mild pressure on the boat, but completely fell off the blog-wagon.  So this post will make up for some lost time.

Finally finished the decking.

And trimming the deck hatch opening.

I made the standoff for the bow light and the stern light. The one for the bow light is a wedge so the light can be mounted at the bow but still point forward. This was a PITA.

Also on the inside a made a cavity to hold the wires. This way I can maintain access to the electrical connection.

After some final sanding and glue application I laid on the topside fiberglass.

I'm a little apprehensive about this step. The last fiberglass application was no easy feat and the bottom did not have all of these features to work around.  The beam reliefs are particularly concerning.  I won't be able to actually do the fiberglassing until this weekend so I have some time to mull my options.  To the extent I get boat time this week it will be cleaning the garage (again) to make room for a return to rudder work.

Beach Cat Sailing

We had a great day on Lake Washington with friends. Charlie brought his waterproof camera so we actually got some photographic evidence.  Nice steady winds all afternoon. Even got the bigger kids to do some of the sailing.

It is this sort of thing that inspires me to carry on with my project. Beach cats are fun but there are some specific things I want to do that are difficult on a beach cat (read sailing while comfortably seated with a cooler of frosty beverages).

Getting Close

Quite a bit done today. Trimming on 2 large and 3 small decking pieces done, stern beam T-nuts installed, round of epoxy coating completed, and the last piece of decking was installed. Here are a couple of pics of the nearly completed decking job.

                                  

At my last attempt at T-nuts I had a problem of exactly lining up the center of the epoxy filled hole with the center of the hole made to accommodate the T-nut. This time I used a nail as a center punch to keep the drill bit form walking. Very happy with results.

Not sure I will get out to boat shed tomorrow. If I do I will trim, and coat remaining parts of decking, build hatch riser pieces, and make some navigation light standoffs. Then it will be time to start considering topside fiberglass.

Centering Myself

The good news is that my decking task seems to be accelerating.  The bad news is that all that new decking covered my centerline marks. I re-shot the centerline so I could insure that the bolt hole locations for the stern aluminum beam were drilled orthogonal to the centerline.

I am still slow at this but improving, now it only takes me and hour instead of a day.  All the decking panels are on now except for the very aft one. which I can't put on until I have the stern beam T-nuts installed (need the access).

Build note. Bernd's plans call for placing the inboard stern beam bolt aggressively near the shear. With me insisting on using T-nuts I had to move one of the dimensions outboard just a bit. So I don't forget what I did I'm recording it here.

This all happened yesterday, and I hope to spent a good bit of time in the boat shed today. I need to start trimming the hatch opening and making appendage pieces for lights and the AV Panel.

I didn't write this up last night because I was busy watching the Seahawks lose.  It's only preseason but its nice to have football back.  

Doh!

I started out just getting in some epoxy coating this morning and thought that would be the days progress. That was until we got home from a very fun afternoon sailing beach catamarans with friends on Lake Washington.  With the fire burning bright I went out to glue on a panel that now had the requisite 2 coats of epoxy. First a shot of how I left it.

Note that all the large decking pieces are installed, small pieces, trimming, coating left to go. And now a picture of the crime scene.

I used two clamps and 4 screws to hold this piece of decking in place. The tip of the driver bit, my favorite bit, broke in the screw head. I left it in place for now and will fool with drilling this out and removing the screw tomorrow.

A Good Day In The Boat Shed

I continued progress on the electrical panel. It is missing one more ground wire (from the battery). Then it will be done. I also cut some stainless standoffs and a plexiglass window as a cover. But I am waiting until I'm done making dust in the vicinity before I install it.

Also got the third and last big piece of decking installed aft of the second beam holder.

A couple of journal notes:
For the aft side of the aft beam holder the beam holder bracket bolts need to be installed at 1-3/4"

For the forward side of the aft beam holder the beam holder bracket bolts need to be installed at 2-1/2"

Looking ahead, there is lots of epoxy/carpentry to be done. Several small decking pieces, the aforementioned beam bracket bolt T-nuts (stern beam too), and the hatch opening trim and cover. The hatch work is going to be a lot of steps to finish.  If have any discipline at all I will start making nav. light trim pieces at the same time.

Lastly, I noticed I never put up a pic of how the second pieces of decking looks now that it is fully trimmed and coated.

Progress Not Entirely Stopped

I haven't been posting this week because although I was making progress, it was in baby steps, and not very interesting. Posts would have been something like, "went to fishery supply store today", or "bought some stainless fasteners".  So if my blog has been boring this week, so has my project. Today things improved tremendously. I installed the electrical panel this afternoon.

The panel was a kind of keystone, now that it is in, I can do a lot more things. Since all the wires are in I can now install the next two pieces of decking.  Then work on the aft beam mounting holes and trimming out the hatch opening and cover. After that it will be buttoning up topside details and glassing the deck.  The next phase will be dealing with hull appendages, antivortex panel, rudder, and nav lights.  Then, dare I say, paint.

Trimming The Deck

Yesterday I did spend a bit of time in the boatshed and did most of the trimming on the deck section. I was happy to get this done since it makes it look like a deck and not a shapeless strip of plywood stuck to the hull.

It's done except for belt sanding the last bit to flush. This will have to wait for me to get a new Shop-Vac since mine died and running the belt sander without the vacuum is unwise.  In the meantime, I will focus on completing the electrical installation. I'm not looking forward to this since I expect it will be mostly chasing down little parts and fooling with squirrely little hardware.

Today is our kickball game I want to win and I want to stay uninjured. If I had to choose, I'll take the win.

2nd Deck Section Installed

I had this backed into a corner so much that when I finally did it, it wasn't much work.  First an embarrassing build notation has to be made (since this blog is actually my build documentation).  The offset for the aft side of the forward beam bracket bolts needs to be 1 - 3/4".  I need to write this down since it will be harder to verify now that the deck piece is installed.

The reason this is embarrassing is that on the forward side of the beam the offset is 1 - 1/2".  Technically none of this is a problem except when it comes time to build beam brackets I will need to match small size differences to various locations.  Some of this is my fault due to the way brought the beam cradles into square. But I think at least 2 sizes are implied in the design, since you are necessarily working off two different sides of the bulkhead. On one side you have bulkhead superstructure to work with, on the other you don't.

Here is the picture of the installed piece of decking. Went on easy, two clamps and three screws.

From here there will be lots of fiddly little jobs. The following is a quick look ahead.
     Trim 2nd deck piece at hatch, mast partner and gunwales.
     Install beam holder T-Nuts
     Install interior ladder
     Finish electrical installation

After that it will be considering the next deck section and finishing out the hatch opening.
 

Let There Be Light

All I managed today was a rather paltry effort at wiring. But I did get this far.

The light is the LED wired inside the hull near the mast step. Next step is installing the next deck section, still.

Out Of Commission

So last week we had company so I was out and about enjoying myself, including 2 days of sailing. Then Sunday we had our weekly adult kickball game which was a disaster. Not only were we soundly spanked by a mediocre team (24-4), seemed like half our team (including me!) came away injured.  In my case I pulled both hamstrings.  I used to do this in high school and maybe a couple of times in college. This is the most serious muscle pull I've inflicted on myself as a grown adult that should know better.  Today I'm more mobile so I got the last coat of epoxy on the next piece of decking.  Next step is to finish a bit of wiring and get the next deck section installed.