Prep School

There isn't much to do when it's cold outside, so I find myself not doing much at all. I've spent some time reading, working, watching movies, and acing Candy Crush, but little in the way of boatbuilding.

Some might recognize the Yeti.

Oh, yeah, there was New Year's Day, too, which for us this year meant Monsters University, some champagne, St. Germain, and a fireplace. Cozy!

New Year's celebration.

I should also report a casualty. After many years of fine service and much abuse, Sprout leaped off the bedroom table and split his asparagus open. I then promptly raided him for beer money.

RIP, Sprout!

Every now and then, I was able to steal away and run a layer of epoxy down, and it's slow going -- but what's the rush? It's not like I can take these pieces and screw them onto the boat. Not until May, at least. We had our usual winter Winnipeg bagpipe competition cancelled this year, and there's no Chieftains in town, so it's tough to even pull out the bagpipes (that's me third from the right on stage).

That meant figuring out how to epoxy 8' pieces of wood in a 10' basement shop. I "borrowed" three TV dinner stands, layered on some plastic, and behold - a long table. That plus the workbench allowed me to work on two sets at a time. Since some of these pieces laid in the garage for 6 months, they got a little sanding and a wipedown as prep. Good practice, anyway. More annoying was sanding off the "Joubert" stickers and the little nubs that attached them to the kit. However, once epoxy'd, most of these won't get sanded much at all since they will face, essentially, the inside of a sealed box.
 

Cockpit sides and decking ready for epoxy. No 'glass here.

Sides and decking done. Nice tone to the wood. I briefly considered leaving the cockpit bright (about 4 seconds), but no way I can keep that much volume in good enough shape. The "tall" half will be sanded to 120 as that will be painted towards the end. This serves as the inside of the cockpit locker.

Foredeck 'glassed and sanded plus unsanded cockpit sides and seatback decking. The foredeck only got a quality sanding where it would sit aft of bulkhead 1 (about 2/3 aft) since that's the only area visible in the cabin. The seatbacks are uniform in color. That's the shadow of the would be router table darkening the right side.

The centerboard isn't quite done as I laid down a layer of 9 oz 'glass on the leading edge and feathered that in. Something to point out here is that one edge of the 9 oz glass is rather thick. I'm not sure if it's just my roll, but I decided to take no chances with the centerboard and trimmed back the thick area. I lost about 1/2" of width but it was a much easier exercise to feather it down and epoxy. I'm reminded of my efforts with laying 9 oz 'glass at the keelson joint between bulkheads 7, 8, and the transom. It was a bear to get that to feather smooth. When trimmed, it was really easy.

Laid down 9 oz strip here over 2 overlapping 6 oz strips. The edges got feathered down smooth.

Epoxy'd the 9 oz glass down. Looks good. I'm not done sanding here. This was just a quick rub with low grit but will eventually get sanded to 400.

I like to think that I'm preparing for the thaw now that I've 'glassed the underside of the foredeck and cockpit decks. At a minimum, it will take about 2 weeks to finish these, so better to spend 2 weeks when it's below zero outside than 2 weeks stalling boat progress. This extra fiberglass schedule isn't called for in the manual, but what the hey. I need to epoxy them, anyway, and I'll feel a lot better when some slobbo jumps onto the boat from the dock. The cockpit deck will get the usual 3 coats and then it will all be sanded down. Given that the hull sides took about 4 hours each... sigh.

Cockpit decking gets 'glassed. This is the underside - facing the interior of the cabin. The wide part is highly visible in the cabin (it is the area that strides across the centerboard trunk) so had to be ready for prime time.

I plan to head to the Big Box store tomorrow (or maybe even a Big Boy Lumberyard) to source wood for the Macgregor rudder. Let's imagine a rudder that's in rough shape. Now make it rougher. No, rougher. Yes, now you're closer. That's what the rudder is today. Don't believe me?

I'm not sure how this actually steered anything.

The photo doesn't do it justice, as this is only half of the full rudder. The other half looks worse. I contemplated just filling the gaps but my wife (whose boat this is) wants a brand new rudder. I got the, "if you can do it for your boat why can't you do it for mine" thing. New rudder it is!

Playing with Half a Foredeck

The scene through my upstairs window was chilly, but captivating at the same time. There's a certain wonderful quality of light from the low afternoon sun. Filter that light through the fractals of ice as it crawls on the window pane, and it's almost worth staying here year round.

As my wonderlust continued, I found this scene on the Wooden Boat facebook page: a literal "boat house" somewhere in Scotland.

And then of course I left these daydreams behind to mix epoxy and 'glass the centerboard in the basement shop. I had a lot of remnants of 'glass from various cuttings through the summer. It didn't make sense to roll out a full sheet for the centerboard when I could use a few sheets that would be perfectly acceptable. In some way, this would actually be stronger than just one sheet as the overlaps will provide extra support.

Laid out the 'glass.

I found a leftover wider piece and used that for the bottom half, then cut a smaller strip for the top half from the big roll. Both ends were in good shape, removing the need to feather and taper where they met. In other words, I could do this at one time and not have to wait for the bottom half to cure in order to clean up the top.

Half the centerboard 'glassed. This is just the first weave layer of epoxy.

I also cut a couple darts here and there around the curve, especially by the corner. I imagine, of the whole centerboard, this corner will get beat up the most. It's unfortunate it's also one of the more difficult areas to lay 'glass.

Close up of trailing edge. Earlier posts showed voids here and there, now fixed. Some darts helped the bends.

On the straight leading edge, I wrapped about 3" under and applied epoxy there. It required a little bit of technique as I was working effectively upside down, but it came out really nice. The hours spent shaping and sanding were worth it as the 'glass went on like a charm. Granted, I'm better at this than I was a few months ago, but mostly, I learned that proper prep can make or break a good layout.

View of the "underside." This is where about 2" wraps over the leading edge and up against the other side. I was worried I'd get a lot of bubbles or whatnot here, but it went on great.

A few hours later, I was on a quest for more offcuts as I went for the flip. The only downside to the offcut method is that the overlapping 'glass takes up more epoxy than a single layer. That might seem intuitive, but hey, I never said this would be a deep blog. I trimmed back the overlap and various odd angles to that there was about 3 inches at most of double fiberglass.

Found more offcuts. This is a set of 4 arranged in a compelling pattern.

Wetting down the 'glass.

Down the length - this is where the table saw ate my centerboard, 'glassed over. All good now.

I wrapped another 3" around the other as I did the other side, thereby having 2 layers of fiberglass on the trailing edge. When all of that cures, I'll add a strip of 9 oz 'glass here, too. Bring on the logs!

Underside, 2nd layer of 'glass.

I'll be painting my centerboard and would like to add a design, like a big eye ball on each side to make it look to sea critters like a big fish; maybe then they'll leave me alone. With my luck, they'll try to mate with me. I thought about (albeit too late) epoxy'ing some design in there, like they do with Kaholo stand up paddle boards. But alas, eyeballs will have to do.

Beautiful stand up paddle board built by Boat Building by the Bay.

I hate using up supplies on relatively short projects. The foam rollers are about 50 cents each; my gloves are 5 cents. Yes, I know. My Vetus portholes will be 900 times more expensive. But darn it, I'm gonna save those 50 cents. So before I geared down, I looked around to see what else I could 'glass. The dogs were not immediately available, neither was the TV. The triangle-shaped piece that is the foredeck volunteered itself, so I propped it up on the would-be router table and set off to find more offcuts for the 'glassing.

Now, 'glassing the underside of the foredeck is not specifically called for in the manual, but it's recommended. This is an area that gets pounded by anchors, by people standing on it, sitting, whatever. Just a little extra piece of mind that takes just a little extra work. I'll be doing the same to the cockpit decks over the next couple weeks.

Same as before, I found some strips of scrap fiberglass (kept in good shape of course) and layered them on. I did the left (aft) half first and let that cure overnight because, unlike the scraps used for the centerboard, the edges weren't as good, and I needed to feather it down some. The aft half is actually visible in the cabin as it is the ceiling of the forward locker. I'll do at least a second layer tonight and be done playing with the half foredeck until it's time to sand.

Bow deck underside with fiberglass layers. Looks like a Christmas tree.

One sheet 'glassed.

Next day, did the others

With that curing, I started fitting the pieces for the cockpit locker dashboards. I plan to put speakers in there with a couple 12v outlets.

Fitting the locker speakers. They'll have to be trimmed back a bit but otherwise fit well.

Though I'm a few months off from making this a reality, the plan is to copy the "solid" seatback supports and install a second one just a couple inches aft of the structural one. This will reduce the space in the locker by a little bit; the upside is I'll have the cockpit as I want it without affecting the flotation. The wires will run down behind this wall into the laz area where the bus bars await, then forward to the battery. If I can only figure out where to install the VHF antenna that would end the planning phase of the electrical.

Note: The work represented here took place over 3 days, with lots of waiting for stuff to dry in between. Everything got 3 coats of epoxy and is now awaiting sanding.