Walls: Continued

The weather has been as good as promised the last 10 days or so. The only issue is the dewpoint is quite high which requires some patience especially as things tend to be rather damp unil mid-day and my no-blush epoxy is blushing a bit.


I've made good progress on some of the hull planking. I have around 12' of the outboard side planked and the next 8'piece rough cut and glassed. On the inboard I got a 8' piece attached today so have nearly 20' done on inboard. As is typical, the planking has proven to be a surprisingly large job to get it to look good. A typical large panel takes a good half day to fit, screw and fillet in addition to the time to drill all the holes and glass and sand the inside surfaces.






As I mentioned, I've put a lot of effort into getting the inside joints clean and well filleted. I hadn't initially considered a bright finish for the interior, but I now thinking these bunk areas will be bright finished with the bulkheads painted an off-white or creme color. The colors of the wood look so nice it seems a shame to paint them. Note in this picture I still need to go back and sand the butt blocks and give them a coat or two of epoxy. This picture is taken from the floor under the transom looking forward.

Daddy: Why did you put that wall there?

The weather has been so good that I'm running a bit low on slow epoxy hardener. I decided to rough cut and fit the aft most hull panels inboard and outboard. They were glassed on the interior side after being cut to shape.

John was on his way either in or out to play when his path was blocked by a hull panel resting between the door and the framework. Hence his concern over the "wall" in his way.




After glassing I refitted to the hull to mark the inside face for the stringers. Then I can remove to drill the holes for the screws. Each panel will have somewhere around 75 screws. Then, fit again to drill the pilot holes into the stringers. Remove, again to sand the areas that will contact the stringers to assure a good bond.





The same panel with all holes drilled and bearing surfaces of stringers, gunwales and butt blocks sanded. On future panels I will stop the glass at the lower stringer line to make the prep for glassing the chine joints easier.

Clamps, Clamps and More Clamps!!

Prior to fitting the final stringers I wanted to establish the curve of the sheer with the laminated gunwale so the stringer that will be the most visible in the interior matches that line.


Note the consecutive cuts I had to take from the tempory transom to match the curve of the sheerline. So far everything seems to have come up pretty fair and the laser level has been a big help making sure the bulkheads are still vertical when adding these final pieces that will lock them in place.



The funny thing about this is that I was really scrambling for a few more clamps when the epoxy was getting close to gelling last night. When I dropped John at school this morning, I found one more loose on the roof of the car!

The weather is supposed to be excellent for the next 10 days so I'm hoping to get quite a bit done with temps each day in the mid-70s! Hopefully the first bottom plank as well as maybe a few sheets of hull planking??

IT LOOKS LIKES.......

A bird? A plane?
Hopefully more like a boat to most.



Fitting the stringers has been a bit more work than expected, but has gone quite smoothly and enjoyably. I currently have 4 glued in and the large fully 1" by 3" wing/ bridgedeck stringer mostly fitted and will glue tomorrow. I've monkeyed around with the placement a bit to get the galley counter top to rest on a stringer as well as the aft and forward bunks. I still also need to do gunwales which I have the timbers cut and scarfed for.
Once they're all fitted I need to laminate an additional 1 by 4 to the stem and plan to epoxy coat all the stringers prior to planking. Hopefully by the end of next week I will be close to planking.

3D

Despite the cool weather, I have managed to make some progress this week. I still have to remake bulkhead #3 seen in the left of this picture, but should have good warm weather for that the next few days. Think I'll just go with the marine fir I have as that is what bulkhead #1 and 2 are.
It's exciting to get some pieces actually into place and not just lying around or leaning against the walls. After I get bulkhead #3 remade, I will get the rest setup and start fitting the stringers. I need to scarf up some suitable timber for the gunwales and the inboard wing stringer. On the upside, the gunwale on the inboard side is broken at the bridgedeck so no need for scarfing on that side.

I'm also a bit concerned about the spacing between bulkheads #1 and #2. It seems to me this part of the boat will take quite a bit of bashing and I think I may add another partial bulkhead below the sail locker floor or a large backbone type piece.

Frame as Required...

Here the stem is fitted up to the backbone. I glued this all up and cross braced it so the stem and bulkhead #1 were fitted to the floor in one piece.

There isn't much detail yet to the plans so some things are just requiring my best judgment. I decided to glue up the backbones and the stem with the bulkhead clamped to the table saw. This is my only 100% flat surface and the constant temperature swings and humidity changes are making it difficult to keep everything straight.

A few snags....

I nearly made my goal of having all the bulkheads done by the end of the holiday period. The bad news is that I've discovered some issues with my order of plywood and will need to remake bulkhead #3 and figure out what to do with 30 sheets of wood I didn't order. Noahs has a good reputation and I'm hopeful they will make it right.

I pulled out my new laser level and was pleased to see I can line up all my floor marks with the vertical posts I had already leveled up. The tripod is a bit short to reach the 1670mm waterline height, but it's all self leveling so I should be able to set it up on some buckets. I got both backbones cut and fiberglassed today so should be able to work on getting the stem cut and joined to bulkhead #1 tomorrow if it's not too cold. The weather looks good Friday and Saturday to replace bulkhead #3, just need to figure out the wood situation.