Decks started

Whew! All the sanding, filling, fairing, glassing, sanding, etc., and the outside of the hull is finally done—for now. Washing, light sanding and painting are next for it, after the deck is done.

As you can see from the photo below, the deck ridge beam didn't go on right: there shouldn't be a space there, the foam should rest on the beam all the way forward. So the plan is to do a carbon fibre-reinforced joint instead (more about that below).

(See how smooth and shiny that hull is!)

To get the shape of the decks, I taped the straight edge of the ¼" foam to the deck ridge beam:

I let the foam lie against the sheer, crawled underneath, and marked around the sheer:

The same was done for both sides, then they were easily rough cut out with a utility knife, as the foam has no glass on it yet:

(chipped corner gets cut out for cockpit opening)

Cut out & lying where they'll go:

Below: I plan to put the deck pieces in the vee-shaped form you see in the background, and make the carbon fibre joint at the bottom of the vee, the decks resting in the form. This is the inverse of the deck, and allows me to use gravity to advantage. The ridge pole will be cut out when the deck is ready to go on.

I realized I had to glass the inside surface first, which will help to stiffen it, as the ¼" foam is a bit floppy on its own. The glass should bend at the centre seam. If it breaks, I'll tape it on the other side to hold the vee while the carbon fibre centre beam gets made, on what will be the underside of the deck.

Fussing

Putting glass tape on the chines:

The outside of the hull is now glassed and faired. The whole hull got one layer of 6-oz cloth; the bottom plank got another layer of 6-oz, and all the corners got two layers of glass tape, one 2½" and one 2". I sanded down all the edges of the tape and feathered them with thickened epoxy. The edges won't be noticed as steps now, but there will be a bump on each corner where the planks meet. The added glass and epoxy inside and outside the corners creates strengthening, stiffening lengthwise "stringers".

Today the bottom got two coats of epoxy, using a spreader and tipping with a brush. The second coat went on after the first was cured to "sticky", so no washing and sanding between coats.

The rest of the hull got two passes of thickened epoxy applied with a spreader (spatula) to fill in the weave of the cloth. Some light sanding and it's ready for paint.

For the skeg, I was going to use an off-cut from Godfrey's cedar rudder that I used for the Firefly—but I thought it was too thick. I liked the idea of it thick and shaped more, but it was out of proportion with the boat. So I used some nominal 1" cedar and stuck it on with thickened epoxy. I'll put fillets & glass between the hull and the skeg next, to support it.

Glassing

Washing, sanding, glassing. The drudgery of it all!

You do end up with something unique, though.

Inside done for now:

 

Filling & sanding corners:

6-oz glass draped over the whole hull. I lifted the hull up from the saw horses so the cloth could hang off the edge. Resin applied to bottom:

Resin all over; time to double the glass on the bottom:

(A little roughly cut!)

3" & 2" tape on bottom corners:

Forms out

Here are some photos of the hull without the forms. I've since glass taped the places where the three forms were. Whenever I have a bit of resin left over from glassing something, I put it on the mahogany plywood bottom.

Andrew pointed out that the bottom plank is foil-shaped.

 The side panels of this boat are 1" higher than the plans call for.

I'm leaving that stick long 'til I get the deck on and see how much of it I need.

viewing photos

I just discovered that I could see a higher-resolution version of the photos on the blog. Here's how:

After clicking on an image, right-click on it and choose "View Image". 

The image will come up again clearer, and in my case comes up with a zoom icon with a "+" in it to make it larger yet—if the original is large enough to begin with. My seagull below, for instance, gets smaller, 'cause it's such a small file.

-e.

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Working and dreaming

The builders' tape worked okay, but still comes off fairly easily. At least it didn't relax off overnight. The boat is now upright and I'm glass-taping the inside seams. Dreaming of sailing, and what rig and amas to use.

Above is the rig for the larger Paulsboat, copied onto the Rio Grande hull (the one I'm building). The Paulsboat is 15' x 36" compared with the Rio Grande's 13' x 28½", meaning that this boat is two feet shorter and 7" narrower. I'm expecting to sail only when the amas (outriggers) are on, thus figure it can carry the sail of the larger boat. The Paulsboat also has a small mizzen.

Overturned

Before I taped the bilge panels in place, I stuck some little bits of foam on the sides between the molds and frames, to help the bilge panel match up to the side panel and not sag:

The bits were applied with hot glue. Although they're on pretty well, they come off easily enough.

The duck tape didn't work out: it came unstuck overnight, and left bits of sticky behind. So I'm trying some builder's tape. It seems to cling well, and doesn't seem to have as thick a layer of sticky on it:

Finally, right-way up and boaty-looking!

Below: One layer of 3" glass tape on the first two sections. (I wanted to get the bow cemented in place first, since it's the area of most stress.) I'll put a layer of 2" tape over the 3" that's there now. For the rest of it, I'll put the 2" tape on top of the 3" as I'm doing it. I had thought I'd do the 2" after the forms were taken out, to fill the gaps more evenly, but I'm realizing that it's too much work because it needs to be washed and sanded before another layer goes on.

It needs to be washed and sanded before being painted as well, so no point washing and sanding twice, if it can be avoided.