Step Back and Admire Your Nearly Completed Hull - Again

I've used this title before, way back when I'd just completed stitching the hull together.  It's hard to believe we're pushing 7 years ago at this point but who's counting.

I finished up my third week of training today and am full up on government fiscal data codes.  The joys of 500-19___y1130000-WHA-5789-5789yy310001-2112-3124!  Luckily I had help on the exam today.  Meet Twix, my familiar.  Working from home isn't too bad.

In between bouts of 'glass I'm trying to get my garage in order.  We have a relative who rents from us who by and large keeps the house in great condition but the garage is just an overflow of... I'm not really sure what's in there.  So after a visit to a big box store who gladly accepted my $200, plus 3 hours of finger-breaking work, I got some shelving units to try to organize this insanity.

That's the easy part.  The hard part will be to actually downsize this stuff through any means necessary.  And of course there's still the other 3 corners of the garage to deal with here.

Speaking of corners, I sized out the 6oz 'glass that'll run along the chine.  This lays over a well-cured 4oz section.  One issue I didn't anticipate is the 6oz doesn't really cover up a lot.  It's only about 4 inches wide and only about 3.5" of that is usable.  Throw down some frog tape as a border and you're basically at 2.5" which is barely enough to do anything.  Yes, size matters!

It took a lot of finesse to get this right, more than I expected, which is par for the course by now.  I was also surprised how much epoxy the 6oz took over the 4oz.  It's easily double, maybe even triple the amount, to fully get this down.

That's a little cause for concern as I'm running through my MAS epoxy pretty quickly and I really, really don't want to spend more money on more epoxy.  Not only do I still have to do the transom, I still have to "fill the weave" for the entire hull and the cockpit.  But I really don't have a choice as I want a strong, secure boat, and the best way to do that is to add reasonable 'glass where it's needed most.

Speaking of reinforcements, here's another section, another 3 feet or so.   I'd originally planned to run one long, continuous chine but it will be far easier to do this in small sections over time.  There will be a small area of about 4 inches along the chine which will not have 4 layers, just 3, but I'll call that OK.  (Note: the 4 layers are from overlapping 'glass during the initial 'glassing, plus the chine reinforcement, plus the 6oz strip.)  I had this prepped to take any extra epoxy after finishing up the bow.

What's that?  Finishing the bow?  Indeed -- behold, the last of the big 'glassworks!  (minus that annoying triangular area again.)

It really is the last of it as any 'glass from here will be touchup work and wherever I need or want some extra reinforcements.  Of course this isn't the last 'glass I'll do.  It's a wooden boat after all, so I expect to do a lot as long as I own the thing.  But no more 24 square feet to wet out before my cup melts in my hand.

The Slog -- 'glassing the hull (again)

Another late night in the garage, but not exactly because of boatbuilding.  I got started late as we had some friends over and figured I should sober up before handling gallons of epoxy.  GUI ('glassing under the influence) is a big no no though not necessarily illegal.

Luckily, before imbibing, I cut out the 12" lengths that'll run along the chine as reinforcements and set them aside. 

A test showed a decent fit, so down went the frog tape.

Much later, I cut then laid out the 'glass for the forward section of the hull.  This defeated me last time so I was not going to repeat the same mistakes.  Instead of trying to finagle a bad epoxy job by the keel nose, I cut a lot of the 'glass away and will deal with it later.  This shows the layup before the surgery where I removed the triangle area.

About an hour later, here is the finished product.  Note the small touchup square a little south of the main part.  There are a few of these low spots I'm fixing as I find them.

The main side looks sleek in the garage light.

Here is the area I'll try to tackle in the next day or so.  Just forward of the new stuff is the triangular patch I'll have to rework as the 'glass won't reach from the bow here.  It's due to the geometry of the hull and people far smarter than me can probably figure out the math.  I just know it doesn't fit.

This is the keel nose where I cut away the 'glass and did not run it up the sides, but I wound up epoxying down some tape.  Luckily, I've done this a few times before and can deal with it by now.

A very (very) light crisscross score with a knife on cured epoxy will cause breaks in the right place.  Then if you put the blade underneath and lift, you can get most of this up without affecting the work underneath.  I sanded this down by hand rather than using the power tool.

So, another section done but I'm feeling the slog, mostly because I know what's next:  lift the tape, sand, and do it again.  And again.  And a few more times and maybe -- just maybe -- it'll be ready for the next big step.

Forward 'glassing the hulls, part 3

I almost skipped work in the garage tonight but my wife insisted I make some progress before going to bed.  Why?  Because it makes me happy when I'm done.  I didn't mention that I am decidedly not happy while I'm doing it but I had to agree that progress is good.  Lack of progress is bad.  At least, lack of progress is bad towards finishing the boat, but not so bad if it's watching a good TV show or a sports thing.  Any sports thing these days.

I first cleaned up from the prior night's work and noticed this little gem:  a cup, melted from the middle down.  Keen readers will note that I made a mess of the 'glass up a couple nights ago partly because the epoxy got hot in my hand so I had to put it down.  Little did I know that I might've lost a hand (or a house) to fire.

 

 

Joking aside, this really shouldn't happen.  I've epoxy'd in warmer weather before, but it's never done this.  And this is supposed to be the "slow" acting stuff.  Note to self:  work faster, with smaller amounts, else up your insurance plan.   I'm glad this was on the concrete floor of the garage and not near something more sensitive to heat.

With that set aside, I went about the usual business of measuring out the layup, frog tape, and identifying those areas I needed to redo for whatever reason, like this area of the hull where I was short about six inches the other day.  In a few hours, no one will be the wiser!

 

And here is that triangular area near the keel nose, which still remains largely epoxy free as I figure out how to deal with it.

 

The main part went pretty well, all things considered, and as far as I know there are no fires in the garage tonight.

Here is a view of the other side of the keel getting its second layer of 'glass.

  

I should be able to tackle the remaining bow area tomorrow and the area behind it the day after that.  But port is now done end-to-end once that little patch cures.  This means I can lay down the reinforcement 'glass along the chine and the keel on that side of the hull.

Big Glass Is No Fun

Today was some of the hardest fiberglass work I've had to deal with, and not just because it's been awhile since I've done it, but because it's a massive project with very delicate parts thrown in for good measure.

Let's start with a failed math project:  this is a 16' boat, shorter because of the curves and rakes, but let's call it 16'.  Each of the fiberglass large rolls is 4' across.  That means 4 sheets across should cover the hull if they don't overlap.  However, since the waterline is actually closer to 14', not 16', there should be plenty of 'glass to spare to overlap using the width-wise 'glassup instead of the lengthwise 'glassup.  Not so.

After carefully measuring everything, I tossed about 6 feet of glass over the top and laid it out as best I could in a dry fit.  This is a critical part of any 'glasswork and can save a lot of time later.  Once the dry fit is set, the frogtape goes down and I have a general outline of the wet out for this part.

 
But as I mentioned at the outset, here you can see I fell short about 6 inches; my thumb is where I wanted this to end, not where it actually ends.  The right half of this photo is the bow section.  I think this happened because I had too much waste at the transom, and then too much overlap in the second layup from the stern.  In any case, this will need a strip of 'glass and some treatment before I can "fill the weave."

It's not the end of the world, of course, but it does set things back at least a few hours and probably a day as the new application needs to set and cure and get feathered back in seamlessly.  But at least I know how to do that.

The other side looks like this.  Careful darts seemed to make this fit OK, except for the trianglar gap at the base of the keelnose block.

Annoying but fixable after this cures, just like I'll do at the bow.  I could leave it as is but I want a double layer here that extends least six inches from the centerline.  Like the other high-impact areas, this will also get a layer of 6oz fiberglass for a total of 3 layers.

Here are some examples of "fixes" where either I had to sand down to the wood again because I missed some epoxy bump, or just mis-measured and didn't extend the 'glass all the way aft.

After an exhausting couple hours fighting the 90 degrees and humidity, I got the hull done.  Looks good from these angles --

  -- but don't look at the other side.

This was.. how shall I say this delicately.. a complete sh&tstorm.  Things started OK, and then suddenly went awry.  At one point, the epoxy was so hot in my gloved hand I had to put it down.  The MAS epoxy stuff I have is supposed to be slow curing but I guess the air temperature accelerated everything.  This meant I had to go back and mix up some more quickly, and in rushing to get off the step, I spilled a bit down the hull, now forever marked by a dark river of hot epoxy.

And then for whatever reason I could not get the 'glass darts on the top of the keelnose block to take epoxy and lay flat.  It was like some cartoon kid stuck his finger in a socket and his hair shoots up.  Defeated, I did the best I could do straighten out the rest of the block except the very top.

So this, too, will need to be sanded flush, and then a smaller cut of 'glass will wet this down.  I'm not looking forward to doing this all over again on the other side, but I guess if I want to finish the boat, I don't have much of a choice.

The Glassing Begins - Port Side Epoxy Work

After a very long time trying to get the hull and rub rails just so, I finally started 'glassing the hull. This was a very, very long coming and something I'd been thinking about off and on for the last 5 years. Here is basically where I left the boat in the garage, and here is where the finish line is first in sight.

The manual calls for a long bit of 'glass running the length of the hull, over the keel, and just beyond the chine that separates the lower hull from the topsides. By long, like 14 feet long.  No way I wanted to do that. I'm sure many other builders have built very fine boats this way but my 'glasswork is rusty at best. I figured I could do a few feet at a time so decided to layer over the keel widthwise vs. lengthwise.

That said, I know that that second layer over the chine will provide some extra protection.  My plan is, once this first layer is down, I'll layer down a 12" wide fiberglass runner along the chine, and then 6oz 'glass right along the bend. That'll do. 

Some sanding required climbing up on the hull.  I couldn't resist a selfie while up there.  It's surprisingly stable but I could still hear the creaking below me as my weight shifted.  I also tried to keep my weight to the where the floorboards are so I didn't put a knee through the hull.

And then 'glassed both sides down with a little bit down the transom, about 3 inches.

A couple spots needed some filler.

All that work at the rub rails paid off as it stuck pretty well.

I let this cure a bit and headed for the bow.

And then wet it out.  The cut looks a little odd because that's how the 'glass laid flat.  I cut a couple darts and just let it settle like this instead of trimming it too much.

When I do the other side, it'll provide a second layer across the bow. Aside from the keel nose block, this area is probably going to get hit the most.  I'll finish this off with some 6oz 'glass. Bring on the logs!

I then went for the middle of the hull after the bow cured.  I first prepped the centerboard opening, laying a bit of frog tape along the inside-sides just in case.  Laying 'glass and epoxy over this makes me really nervous but there doesn't appear to be any other way to 'glass over this.

I then returned to the kitchen floor to cut the midsection 'glass.  The kitchen's been my secondary workshop lately.

So some great progress!  Port side is almost done, at least the first coat.  It got dark while in there.

That's more progress in a couple days than the last 5 years.  Here's to more progress this week.

Rub Rails Day 3

In what's a familiar effort by now, I spent a bit of the afternoon working on the rub rails.  Again.  Every time I revisit these, I find something else wrong with them.  And every time I find something wrong, I commit about an hour to fixing it.  Today was no different.

Today's session started by wiping down the entire boat with denatured alcohol.  The idea here was to kill any germs that might've grown in the grain and to also give a good wipe down from the last couple days of sanding.  Some parts really popped here like the rub rail laminations, giving a quick glimpse to what should be the finished product some weeks from now.

Most of the extra squeeze out from the original glue up remained, though. I'd only sloughed off the big stuff over the last couple midnights in the garage.  Fully awake and armed with a new, positive attitude today, I sanded away the remaining drips.  Looks pretty good! -- but also exposed serious voids between the laminations.

 

Careful readers will note I want not just a functional boat, but a comfortable, seaworthy boat fitted for overnight transits on the Great Lakes and the Caribbean.  And not just comfortable and seaworthy, but pretty, too.  The issue here is firmly cosmetic but as important to me as sail ratios and displacement.  I can't be bobbing around on something I didn't at least try to look good.  These voids are troubling, partly because the port side has not nearly as many issues, as this photo shows.

By the time I put these down,, I'd done the rub rails 3 times (I did the port side twice because it was uneven the first time), so I was over the learning curve.  I'd also discovered by then a way to pull the rub rails tight by screwing them from inside the boat.  Alas, starboard got short shrift.

This is a dilemma that has a couple solutions, none ideal.  Short of ripping them all off and slapping on some strips of pine (which I considered, believe it or not) I'm going to abandon my recent decision to pour clear epoxy in here and go with white filler.  I'd love to be able to do brown but there's already too much white and I think it'll look really bad with streaks of white then brown then white.  I'll nleed to be really careful here with the squeeze out as a mistake here could be awful.  The cure can't be worse than the disease!

The small fillet between the rub rail will also be white.  With white topsides I don't think it'll be too bad, but it will have a definite "bathroom grout" vibe which is not something naval architects ever want to remembered for.

All of this sped through my mind during the 90 minutes taking care of business here.  When I got to the stern, I then decided to trim rub rail flush with the transom.

 

I started with a small hand saw to cut away the bulkier parts, then sanded the rest down with 60 grit on the random orbital, shaping as time went on.  This wood is hard!  What I thought would be maybe ten minutes of work turned into 30 minutes of finesse.  I finally got the rake to where it needs to be but not without a lot of effort.  You can see the trapezoidal form the rail takes in a cross section.  I was done about 15 minutes later, thus completing a small task towards the finished product.