Fairing Up

For awhile, I had considered not doing these stem fairings. I had added an additional 3/4" piece to the inner stem before glassing which got it a bit down, but it makes a huge appearance difference to the boat.  This is pretty much a standard feature of all Woods's designs and is really quite clever as it really makes for a much more refined look.  Anyhow, used a combo of cedar and medium density pour foam with biaxial over.  I think they've come out pretty well. I've also worked out the bracing for the water tanks and made the forward saloon seatback.  Not much to see there and hope to get the foredeck and joints under the anchor locker glassed with the really pleasant weather we have at the moment. 3 feet of snow in New York in late May is equaling cool nights and fast sets with medium hardener during these long low 80s days here.

forward

I've been moving very carefully since my painful whack last Friday. I've gotten the 2 other forward panels fitted, but they all still require quite a bit of glass work. my current idea is to try and get the stems faired and the foredecks glassed in the next few weeks. I can the primer all the inner hulls aft to the front of the cockpit and perhaps even paint from the deck to the waterline. Richard still needs to work up the plans for the cockpit, but I should be onto that later this summer. I want to have as much glassed and painted as possible before moving outside to do the cabin top. I feeling like I'm about a year off from realistically launching, but still holding out hope for late this year.

there's nothing like cutting holes into well glassed hull sides! these cutouts are for the bunk lockers which need to be all worked up at the same time as other anchor locker area pieces.

more pieces

I should also post a pic of my eyebrow which I totally whacked on this first section or anchor locker bridgedeck. Thought I might need stitches, but seems to be OK.

The upside her is that this is nearly the last of the really big pieces. Of course the bridge deck cabin top will be huge, but it is really difficult getting these panels in and out of the shop and maneuvered around.

Bridgedeck

Yesterday, I got the first half the bridgedeck done. Hope to do the other side in the next few days and them makeup the sloping forward section in one piece outside next week. It will be almost 7' by 10' or 2m by 3m so a lot to handle in one piece, but I think it will be ideal if I can manage it.

Square Footage

I finally finished the port decks except for the very cabin top which I really can't get to because of the roof height.  I started working up these large bridgedeck panels in the last few days.  <BR> Around the same time I was hearing a story about how the smallest apartment legal to build in New York City is 400 square feet.  Even though this boat has a huge amount of area for 34' it will still house house us in well under 400 sq.  They are apparently trying to change this to be able to make smaller units to deal with the projected population growth of 1 million mostly single people in the next few decades.  

A few details

I've made some good recent progress and gotten the main bunk in which is nice. I was then able to FINALLY finish the beam work. Here are a few pics of finishing off the last beam end and is typical of how they were all done.

It is necessary to splice up a ton of ply to make these beams and stager the joints around. On each beam, I left one side with the ends unfinished by splicing an 8' piece right in the centerline. This allowed me to use an "L" shaped piece on each end. Also to put an additional fillet and glass joint on the center ply piece prior to closing it off. I then fitted the large 3/4" knee over the "L" shaped piece and glassed it all down front and back.

A Cookie!

The title of the last post may not have made sense unless you have seen the children's book. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Basically you're better off not to, but that's how it's been. Wanted to complete the decks so needed to put in the forward beam. Can't do the port decks until the bunk is in, needed to finish the barrier coats on the bottom before the bunk, etc, etc.

Although you'd never want to have water standing in the hulls for a long time, it seems that most larger ply epoxy boats I've worked with suffer this at some point. I therefore wanted a good seal on all the bilge areas. I also did under the master bunk as the sleepers body heat will cause the hulls to sweat a lot in certain climates and create a lot of additional trapped moisture. Best to do as much painting at once to save on wasteage and roller covers so gotten this done in last 2 days.

Also have sole done for the galley in MDO so will get that in soon as well. The MDO is not real fancy, but with the kids dropping things, sandy feet, it didn't seem to make sense to drop $300 a sheet for teak and holly.