Staging Areas

Another late night at the ol' shipyard. No blood yet, but certainly some sweat and tears. Since the joy that was the lead pour, there have been a few setbacks. Some minor, some not so minor. I'm thinking the shakedown sails should last 3 years and never be in water deeper than 3 feet. Here are just a few of the lowlights:

• The cinderblocks that held the keel together for the lead pour were too tight, causing an hourglass shape on the aft part of the keel. I had to shim this back open a bit and pour another 10-15 pounds of lead in there.

• In dragging the keel over to the garage from the backyard, I hit the noseblock against a tree, knocking off about 1/4 of an inch of my nice and smooth nose. I epoxy'd some stuff in place in my lame attempt at rhinoplasty.

• One of the bilge panel fingerjoints aren't aligned right after not having them flat against the ground. I thought by putting them on a 2x4 that would help as my garage is not terribly flat. It caused some to pull out of alignment. I'll need to epoxy these down and fair them before the install.

• The keel blocking was not correctly set way back when I didn't have plans. So rather than keeping 1/2" from the top clear at the butt joint, I had that go all the way to the top. That meant chiseling out space for the cap.

So there you have it. Just a month in and enough setbacks to make me think I should've started with the boat cradle instead of PocketShip. In the meantime, I've decided to push hard for the hull assembly this weekend. The various lower hull parts are strewn around the house waiting for their turn.

Top side panels getting a good night's rest in the guest bedroom.

I'll then need to sand these down (after fixing the finger joints where relevant) to prepare for the 'glass. I haven't done 'glass on this scale before so I'm not sure what to expect. I'll also need to do final prep on the keel, such as installing the keelson and allowing that to cure. It's close, but not ready. There's also a bit of a race against the clock as we're due for a cold front in a couple days. It was 82 degrees Sunday and it will be maybe 40 as a high Thursday. Welcome to Minnesota!

The basement shop is next to the family room. No room in the shop? Use the family room!

Side panels getting glued & pressured. Bilge panels done but will need to epoxy them smooth since the finger joints got a little misaligned. The thing with all the clamps is the keel cap getting glued shut.

Some things that have gone well are the epoxy layers on the floors and cleats. I've gotten pretty good at mixing epoxy (thickened or not) and don't waste nearly as much as I did in the beginning. I finished up the smaller floors tonight; they're ready to be installed.

Floors ready for duty. Not the centerboard - he's gonna wait a bit.

I now have the larger bulkheads cleated with their first epoxy layer drying. With the weather warming up, I also need to be more efficient with the epoxy coats. The plan is to do the first layer of epoxy before going to bed, then a second layer when I get up ~6 hours later. That means no sanding in between coats. It also allows me to do the other side when I get home from work, and then second layer of the second side before going to bed. 24 hours and I'll have 2 layers down vs. over 2 days which is what's happening now. With a small shop, these logistics are important if I want to finish before maxing my social security.

Larger bulkheads drying out. Large bulkhead in front is a highly visible, important bit. I'd like to keep this mostly bright so trying to do a real pro job here.

One thing I noticed is that there is no electrical conduit hole pre-cut on bulkhead 7. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not but if I want to run a stern light, I'll need one. Not a big deal as I planned to cut a second set of smaller holes the length of the boat for a second line, but it adds to the half dozen or so annoying things about the kit (aft keel blocking not labeled in the manual; aft keel blocking pattern too short; Joubert stickers exactly where I don't want them so I have to sand them off; etc). I haven't built a boat before so perhaps this is normal. But it's been five years since the prototype launched so someone should go back and edit the stuff. If you're reading this, CLC, I heart you ... but sometimes you make it difficult.

I think I also found the culprit to the photo upload issues I've been having with blogger. I recently did a Java patch which mucked up a couple other things. Hopefully blogger figures this out or else this will be one text heavy blog.