Ground/Grind Hog Day

One section at a time; a quick key up of the shiny fillets and then bogging any of the gaps and taping in one hit.... why didn't we do this all in one go when the boat was upside down at the stitch stage? However one section at a time is quick easy and manageable. The keel area is next so we might skip this (just do the chines) and come back when the keel trunk is made. I think we will mould the trunk seeing as we have the keel section, but a ply trunk would do just fine.

As an aside, the sail plan is with North Sails and we hope to have something back from them shortly; when we have a itinery I will add to the blog.

Stuff used:

See previous entry!

Taping Up

A few hours on the weekend (thank you Ed) and finally we have begun taping... that's the trouble with this time of year; it should have been a winter project when we had some time. Ed popped in and started the taping on the promise that he will be the third member of our crew when it comes to sailing time. A few hours of prep (sanding back the fillets) and taping and it is starting to look good. The transom was an easy area to reach and finish and has stiffened up the back of the boat enough to hopefully work on the next section easily. This is not the way to do the boat in one hit, but if you are short of time and resource its quite a nice way of working! I prepped the next section early on this afternoon and intend to pop back this evening and tape. If we ever manage to get a couple of us down at once we will finish all the bottom in one hit!!

Note that we added a few tapes at the bottom of the transom to spread the load to the hull from the rudder. This was done before the addition of the longitudinal to ensure continuity of the taping.

You may be able to see that the peel-ply is not fully wetted out; this won't give as nice a finish, but it will mean that we do not have an excess of resin and therefore less weight ... there are arguments either way but we will probably wet out the peel-ply fully where we will add additional reinforcement over the top so that it adheres better.



Stuff used:
Peel Ply
100mm Tape E-Glass 450 +- 45
Ampreg 21 Resin and Hardener
Roller
Paintbrush
Scissors
tongue depressor
Resin/Fibre mix for any gaps

The Longitudinals

A few hours on the boat today; cutting out and fitting the longitudinals.

No measurements required as the templates were spot on (I like this). The same technique as the bulkheads but not surprisingly it all seems to go together a bit quicker now we are little more experienced.

The Longitudinals won't be tabbed in yet as the inside of the chines will need to be done first. Doing the longitudinals at this stage was basically an visualisation exercise to see exactly how much structure we have and whether there needs to be any re-thinks at this stage. It all looks good so far.


Above; Cutting out by hand from printed templates


A little cleaning up of excess resin with this cunning tool, but a circular grinder would have done a similar job. It is so much easier to see with the boat the right way up - not to mention better light in the new workshop.

Items used today:
Full sized printouts
6mm Ply for the longitudinals
Sandpaper
Hand plane
Spikes (for marking out the longitudinals through the paper.)
Grinder