The Morning After!

It took about 3 gallons of resin to wet out all the glass and then I used about another 1/2 gallon plus filler to smooth out the weave and blend the chine and bottom seam tapes. When mixing the resin for the glass, I measured with standard size yogurt containers (2:1) and didn't foll with the pumps to get batches slightly over a pint in size. I was at it from 10 am till 9 pm with my 5 minute sandwich break around 2 pm!

One Go

I had long hoped to glass the outboard hull side with one piece of cloth. The stuff I have is 72 inches or about 1.8m wide so will reach clear from the sheer around the bilge panel and to about the centerline of the bottom. The main motivation for this was to avoid joints in the glass work that would require lots of fairing and sanding and still likely show somewhat. I actually don't plan to do all that much fairing and having a long consistent panel will look better than one with lots of filler here and there.
So here it is! Can it be done??

Quick lunch break! I started with about 8 feet amidships then worked the section in front of that and the section behind. Then the bow section and last the stern. With the Raka Tropical hardener I was able to keep a wet edge and the middle was just starting to harden when I finished the aft section.

Heaps!

Not much on Tele Friday nights so figured I'd chuck up some more pics I took today.


So many holes to fill!

Almost forgot about this side.

On the inside, only one side of the chines have been glassed, but those seams can be seen in this pic.

Another pic of the good side near the bow showing the fully glassed in forestay fitting.

Abby checks out the galley to be.

A Dusty Mess!

As the family tracks thru the build site a few times each day and is nearly a part of the house; I've tried to keep the sanding dust under control. I sanded the hulls before primer with a 1/2 sheet orbital sander which doesn't throw the dust as bad as a disc orbital. I wasn't quite happy with the finish on the aft section so filled out the weave a lot more on the bow section, which then required more sanding!

Stole this from Jim Brown/ Jo Hudson, but pretty appropriate in relation to getting a decent finish on a boat you plan to actually use!

A good idea of the dust piling up to be vacuumed away on the bow section.

1/2 Hull

So I have half of half the boat (one hull) fiberglassed. I also tried out some of the 10 gallons of primer I bought last week. It's light blue as opposed to the more common grey or white, but looks nice and was a good deal. I have just one section of chine joints to do on the inside before rolling the hull the other way later this week or over the weekend. Progress is likely to slow right down for a few months while I complete another job and I fear it will be too hot to get much done after that. Hopefully get bunk tops, cabin sole, etc fitted in the evening at least.
This was the first (aft) section I did to the forward end of the bridgedeck cutout. Using tropical hardener I was able to work this 20' long piece in 80 degree F weather. I may still try and do the other side in one piece, but see how the weather is.


I also taped the outside of the hull seams on top of the fiberglass sheathing while it was all still wet.

I didn't put as much fairing into the weave when wet on this aft section as I did when I did the bow section last night. Most of this ares will have a lot of bits glassed onto it later, hull beams, bridgedeck, cockpit floor, etc. I left primer off these areas and still need to cut the reverse transom shape on the aft end of the hull sides.

How Many 2 by 4s? does it take??

12 to safely roll a Vardo hull in my patio. The walls and roof are not strong enough so I built this gantry with a top beam made of one 2 by 4 on edge epoxy and screwed to another's centerline. There was very little creaking and it all seemed quite solid as I rolled the first hull this morning.



The plan is to glass the inside chines on the downhill side and then glass each hull side on the outside. Adding a few coats of epoxy to the large sheer butt blocks will be easy now as well. The hull is now resting on the outboard side on 4 tires.



I'm starting a 2-3 month repair project on a Searunner 34 trimaran at the end of the month and after that will be spending several weeks in Michigan so most work on the second hull will have to wait until the end of the summer. I had imagined not getting a lot done anyway in the hotter weather as the patio seems to get hotter than the outdoors temp due to the metal roof and dark colored walls. Hard to say but should still have 2 hulls hooked together this year.

Plans Change

Long story, but I decided to cancel my trip to New Zealand. I had been winding down on the boat the last week or so prior to my trip, but got back to it this week.

I got 16' of bilge planks fitted on each side. I ended up fitting a mid-bilge stringer as shown in the Romany, but not Vardo plans. I was a bit nervous about the 9mm spec'd for the bilge panels and felt the stringer would help. I sheathed the inside of all panels with biaxial glass which makes it roughly as stiff as 12mm would have been. The stringer made fitting and shaping of the sides and bottom much easier. Hans said he was OK without chine logs or stringers, but it seems like it would be rather difficult without either.

I shaped the forward outboard side to see how it went and found it's rather difficult to access especially near amidships due to the low roof height. Doing any trimming of the bilge to bottom joint amidships is near impossible. My current plan is to finish fitting the bilge planks then roll the hull 90 degrees to do the seams and fit the second bottom lamination. I had originally planned to glass to the waterline in this position, but I really don't have the access.