F22 trimaran building by Menno

Update (2): trampoline rail braces

2011-08-13T01:34:00.000-07:00

The original braces under the trampoline rail on the float almost immediately broke after starting to use the boat. It's probably due to a fault by me building them, although I can't really imagine what I did wrong. Anyway, the rail worked without the braces but I got tired of the floppy feel while walking on the trampoline, so I put five sturdy braces (pvc foam wrapped in 600 gr glass) under the rail. It's not executed very well (had to work whith the boat folded on te trailer) but for now it's ok. Rail feels much more sturdy. Problem is the attachment of the rail on the float decks is loaded the wrong way because of the rigid braces - not only in sheer because of the trampoline pulling but also 'peel' - and they are developing some cracks round the tapes which hold them on te deck. I'm still planning to repaint/refair the floats to get rid of the damage caused on the first sail of the boat, and then I will make a better and permanent solution.

Update (1) - retaining of rudder cassette spacer

2011-08-07T09:28:00.000-07:00

After launching the boat I stopped updating the blog. After two full seasons of sailing there are some things to mention that might be helpful or interesting for other F22 builders....

So starting with something small: the spacer in my rudder cassette is bolted with 6 mm nylon threaded rod with normal ss nuts. This might seem a bit weak solution, but till now it hasn't failed. The good thing is that in the event of the rudder breaking out, there will be no or not much damage to the cassette. I had the rudder breaking out once while motoring about 6 knots and running into probably some mud, and the nylon 'bolts' holding the spacer at the back of the cassette were easily cut by the cassette, freeing the rudder.

One thing I learned from this occasion: make a small retaining line for the spacer (the rudder is also tied to the boat with a piece of rope, by the way) to make sure you don't lose the spacer when the rudder breaks out, like the example above. I could easily collect the spacer when I lost it (it floats - it's made of cutting board which is apparently lighter then water) because I lost it in calm circumstances, but it's probably not possible to collect it with a lot of wind and waves. With the rudder and the spacer retained - and 2 or 4 spare 6mm bolts - it should be no more than a few minutes work to get the rudder up and running again.

Pulpit, furler, tiller-tamer

2010-06-29T23:38:00.000-07:00

Yes, this is yet another go at the diy furler: mk3. The all plastic cage on my furler mk2 didn't work as well as my furler mk1, because the furling line had a tendency to slip on the drum. Feeding the line in and out via one big eye works much better (actually it works perfect). For the rest the fuler is the same as my Mk2. From this weekend on I'll be sailing with my family for hopefully about three weeks, after that I can probably tell if this furler works in all conditions or not.
From a distance the boat still looks quite good, in my humble opinion. Here we are anchored in knee-deep water.

Below my 'tiller tamer'. Simply release the shockcord from the camcleat to release the tamer. With the tamer tensioned, there is enough friction to keep the tiller in one position.

I originally planned to put bownets on my boat but after having a good look decided it's probably not worth the effort, as the nets will be very small.

One thing I however DO recommend to install is a pulpit. Originally I thought a pulpit would just be for show, but after having been forced to go to the foredeck a few times with a bit of wind and waves to sort out the jib I know better. It's very uncomfortable and (in my opinion even) dangerous working on the tiny foredeck without anything to hold on to.

I thought making the pulpit myself would be a nice opportunity to learn something about working with metal tubes and a good excuse to finally buy my own MIG welder. I bought a 200A inverter MIG welder. It's about the max I can run on domestic power (even had to put heavier fuses in the fusebox, as it would blow the normal fuses by just turning the welder on).

Step (1): make a mdf mold to make the big bend at the front of the pulpit (here I'm using two 18 mm pieces of MDF).

Step (2): probably not necessary: make recess in the two halves of the mold with a router, after that I glued/screwd the halves on top of eachother.

Step 3: bend by hand. This bend was around a mold with the radius the bend should have in the end. Not a good idea, as the tube has a lot of 'spring back'.

So..... I made a mold with a smaller radius, and did the final bending on that. On the first try I was not careful enough and extended the bend too much. Couldn't rectify that and had to start all over again with a new tube. With the below 'design' for bending it's however easy to carefully bend bit by bit - bend - check - bend - check etc. This worked well, but to bend like this (with a lever) it's necessary to first make a part of the bend by hand on a lager mold (as above) as it's only suitable to do the finishing bending.

Maybe it's because I'm not a metalworker, but the dwawings of the pulpit weren't very helpful to me. In the end it was easiest to just set the pulpit up with some scrap wood and some lines on the floor and measure & cut & grind till all the pieces more ore less fitted the drawings.
For the tube notching I found this tip helpful.

Because I had to do a lot of tube-cutting I had a good excuse to buy yet another tool: an Evolution Rage 3S mitre saw, which is supposed to be able to saw metal, wood and plastic with one blade. That sounded just perfect for me - one machine fits all. Big mistake. This machine itself is pretty lousy build but the worst part is the blades. They wear down very fast. I ruined one blade half way building the pulpit, and the other is already starting to get blunt. I know stainless steel is a pain to saw, but a few cuts in thin walled pipe shouldn't be too much to ask, now should it? In short: I should have known it sounded too good to be true and should have just bought some extra metal-blades for my table saw.

Welding the tube: put all settings of the welder as low as possible, and just spot weld round (starting with 4 welds: top, bottom, sides). This seems to be the only way to weld the thin walled tube without burning through.

Below end result, with welds roughly ground. Total cost material: 35 euro for 4 meter tubing (type 304, 20 mm diameter, 1,5 mm wall) and 10 euro for the ss plate to cut the baseplates from.

Ian Farrier recommends to first test-fit the pulpit before welding. That's not a bad idea. I first welded the frame of the pulpit, and after that test-fitted on the boat. It didn't fit perfect, and I had to make some adjustments before welding the aft base plates. The front base plates should be just in front of the front bulkhead, but in my case this didn't work out. I managed to drill two of the four holes of those baseplates IN the front bulkhead, aaaaargh. I'm not going to correct this: I will just fill those holes with epoxy and tap a thread into the epoxy.

diy furler mk2

2010-05-10T11:12:00.000-07:00

The 50-miles race I joined with my brother didn't go too well for us. Right at the start the pin at bottom of my furler broke (I already had my doubts it would be strong enough, see earlier post). After sorting out the mess and hoisting the jib flying, we made good progress, overtaking a lot of monohulls. But halfway the race the attachment of the main halyard on the mainsail broke (what a shame, it was still on my to do list, but I thought it would hold as it had done so last few sails) and we left the race and sailed back using the jib only.

So it was no succes, but at least it was a good test for things to improve on the boat. Lesson learned: don't underestimate the forces on the rig, they are quite big even for such a small boat.

For other multihulls the race was a big succes. Against over 100 boats, line honours were taken by sorry alice (F31), second was Tom Siemerink with F32 Tresoor, third was Arno Molenaar with F31 Thrill Seeker. Fourth place was for the first monohull, a brand new 11,5 meter long carbon monohull skippered by withbread and Volvo Ocean Race skipper Roy Heiner. 5th place was for a dragonfly 970 and 7th place for a corsair 28.

After the failure of the first roller, I was ready to give up and to spend a few hundred euros on a commercial furler, but my brother convinced me it's good fun to try to build a proper working roller for a fraction of the cost. So I gave it another try. Below is the result. This time I made a cage for the furling drum enclosing the whole drum. Unlike with furler Mk1 it's not possible to feed a continuous line, but who cares? The furling line will just stay on the roller.

The roller MK1 had two big flaws.First the attachment points were not strong (enough). Beside that, the cage of the drum of the roller wasn't fixed in place. I mistakenly thought that made sense, but the result was the roller tended to roll instead of the sail. I fixed the cage by drilling through the main bolt and putting a pin into the hole.
The pin fits into a slot, cut in the cage, and locks it in place.
The attachment on top of the fuler is now made by a bent m6 (6mm) threaded rod, locked in place by two nyloc nuts in recesses (see photo below and above).
To fix the eye of the roller to the central bolt I made two threaded holes to put in short bolts. They are not bolted through (because that would weaken the bolt too much and it would snap again). The two stainless steel strips attach to the bow web pin, and will make sure the roller (+cage) can't twist.

Still some things to post about

2010-04-26T11:57:00.000-07:00

With the start of the new sailing season, I thought it was time to invest some money into proper equipment. Like these two high end fenders (thank you, kids). I'm not much of a salty dog armchair-sailor so these can remind me which is port (green) and starboard (red).
Also, I made a ring of tube (held in place with a bolted eyelet) on the end of my boat hook to be able to dock with a bit more ease (provided there is a pole on the dockside to grab with the ring).

Below is one of my high end fenders. I can use the loop of rope to drag it to the bow of the float. When not in use I can flip the fender to the inside side of the float. Having a fender at the bow of the boat is the only way to safely dock the boat moving forward.

I also made an extra support for the mast. The hole in the support (see first picture of this post) is to put the maststep-ball into, and locks the support in place. The black strap is double sided velcro. Very handy for tying ropes to the mast. You can buy it at marine stores for $$$$$ but you can also buy it at AV-companies for normal prices (about 2 dollars per meter).

I didn't bother to put a masthead on my mast - can't see the benefit. With a bare mastend it's easy to fix the (in europe) compulsery marking sign for 'long cargo'. The sign is held in place with a piece of 6 mm rod sticking through the mast and secured by two rings.

In the category things breaking: with one float unfolded the pads on the beams sometimes bind/jam a bit. I ground the edges of the pads already, but not enough. When I stamped on the beampad to put it in place, the epoxy glue snapped. Not sure if this happened because the surface wasn't prepared well enough before gluing, or because the epoxy is not flexible enough to handle this kind of peak pulling forces. I will clean and sand the gluing area, and then glue the pad again, using pu-kit-glue. This glue is superstrong but also a bit more flexible than epoxy and won't snap as easily.

We tested the diy roller furler (see earlier post), it seems to work ok. Watch for yourself.

This saturday me and my brother will join a 50-miles doublehanded sailrace. Just for fun. I only have the main and jib, and no lightwind sails so we will probably be smoked by at least the other 8 multihulls which will be in the race.

diy endless line furler (25 - 30 dollar)

2010-01-31T11:24:00.000-08:00

For some time I have been toying with the idea to make a endless-line furler from standard automotive parts. Below is my fist try. It's made of an aluminium pulley (10 euro = 14 dollar), a standard skf double row ball bearing - type 3200 if I remember correctly - (10 euro), some stainless steel bolts and eyes and some plastic parts made of cutting board.

Since I have a backup forestay I can take some risks: even if the furler will fail nothing serious will happen.

The drum is a standard aluminium v-belt pulley (type Z). This pulley is 8 cm diameter. I would rather have a bit bigger pulley, but couldn't because my lathe is not big enough to handle bigger diameters.
I drilled 8 holes through the pulley (hope the photo shows the idea) to make sure the furling line won't slip. Big succes - the line locks in the pulley beyond my expectations.

Below the furler before assembly. From right to left: tang to mount the jib, cap made of cutting board to seal bearing, M10 bolt, bearing, the pulley with a recess for the bearing (made that with the lathe, of course), 3 rings to form a spacer, line-retaining drum made of cutting board (also on the lathe), piece of cutting board with an eye to feed the line, ring, nut with a hole and shakle.

I put the bearing in a liberal amount of grease, and sealed the bearing-recess with a plastic cap. I think this should be watertight enough.

The eye for feeding the furling line is held in place with a small recess in the furling drum (below).

Below a part I'm not too happy with yet: I used a 10 mm bolt to mount the shackle of the furler. Because it's threaded it's effecively less than 10 mm diameter, and with a 6,5 mm hole drilled through there is not much steel to hang on to. To fix this I drilled through the bolt and the nut, hoping this will be somewhat stronger. Added benefit: the nut is locked in place. I will probably replace this bolt by a unthreaded 10 mm rod.
Other part I'm not too happy with is the tang on the topside of the furler. there was not enough space above the bearing to just 'bolt through', soI fixed the tang with two short M6 bolts. Because the shape of the tang (wide, v-shaped), the forces on it will be quite high. I will probably think of another solution, but not before I have done some tests to see if the furler works.

Movie to show the furler: as you can see it can turn and swiffle in all directions, and it's not much work to put the line on the drum.(PS the movie is often down, I'm sorry)

Working on details

2010-01-12T11:24:00.000-08:00

I added cleats in the center of the floats - will make tying up to a dock much easier.
Detail of my new halyard-routing. The halyards exit the mast about two meters above the deck, and run through two blocks, then to an organiser and then to the cockpit.

I found handling the jibsheets without winches too heavy with a bit more wind (even with 2:1 setup) and therefore added two winches. It's a shame in a way the boat gets cluttered more and more with stuff. My plan was to keep the rig very simple and to use as little as possible hardware.

Something I should have known: make sure there is a hole in the anchor locker hatch to run lines or chain through to the locker. I had to make this hole off center because there is a tab in the center of the anchor well to support the hatch.

I messed up most of the trampoline grommets because I didn't have the proper die set to fix the grommets, so I replaced them with a piece of webbing (sandwich webbing-trampoline-webbing).

Without the grommets the trampoline is not so 'bling' anymore, but I believe the webbing-loops will spread the loads much better thant the grommets. I didn't remove the grommets closest to the hull, because the lashings to those grommets have to be loosened every time you fold, and with the lashing throug a grommet that's easier than with a lashing through a webbing.

Detail: the webbing runs through the holes of the former grommets. The 'eye' of the webbing will be on the lower side of the trampoline.

Next project will be: making some sort of removable galley with a kerosene burner because next summer I will be sailing with my family for a few weeks and I want some cruising comforts by then. My plan is to make a sort of box which will stand on one half of one of the cabin-seats. Ideas are welcome....

Just a perfect day

2009-12-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

It is winter now in the Netherlands, and I've finally got some time to catch up updating the blog.
About three months ago it was nice weather, and I went sailing with my wife and kids for just a day. Some pictures to show this boat is a nice (albeit small) family-cruiser.

Some improvements

2009-09-09T11:46:00.000-07:00

After the first sail with the boat I went on a vacation with my family (camping, nog boating) and since have been sailing only once. In the meantime I've been busy adding some improvements to the boat.

I ordered some 8mm 'anti torsion rope' at www.allspars.co.uk. It took them ages to send the rope (and they sent it to the wrong address), but in the end it arrived.
This stuff is really stiff. It's a sort of bundle UD (believe it's kevlar) with a normal mantle.
My sailmaker replaced the wire of the luff of my jib with the anti-torsion rope and at the same time shortened the luff a bit (the luff was a bit too long - with the roller in place I couldn't hoist the jib properly).
Big succes! The jib now furls with no problem, even with a lot of wind. That's a relief as I wasn't really pleased - understatement - with the hank-on setup. Probably OK for racing, but not for cruising.

Because I have no pulpit I needed something else to put the mast on while trailering. I welded a sort of aluminium 'fork' and made a flanged insert of a piece of PVC-pipe and a brace made of wood.
Below the setup: the insert is on the foredeck and when trailering I can just stick the fork into it. I still have to shorten the fork. Will do that when I've got the mast down. It will be easier to judge how long/short the fork should be. I'll try to make it as short as possible, so the forces on the fork and insert are as low as possible.
I also altered the setup of my halyards. My choise to keep all the halyards on the mast proved to be a mistake. Now both halyards are led back to the cockpit. It seems to work fine, although I'm a bit concerned it will inhibit mast rotation. The halyards exit the mast 2,5 meter above the deck, are led to two blocks at the base of the mast, and then run through an organiser. I'll add a picture of the setup later on.
I put the organiser on a piece of perspex to lift it high enough for the halyards not to rub against the deck.

I also replaced the 'bare' dyneema sk75 halyards with dyneema rope with a mantle (will hold better in the stoppers) and made them 2:1 for less compression in the mast and easier hoisting. This also is an improvement. Downside is there's a lot of halyard in the cockpit. Below is my trick to attach rope to the mast: I make flanged bushes of HDPE to prevent chafe, put it the mast (flange inside of course), put a rope through and fix it with a double figure 8-knot. I also used those bushes to attach the line for the trampoline to the wall of the aft beam mount recess.

To prevent chafe of the jibsheets I glued a piece of pvc pipe cut into quarts to the cabin.

That's it for now. More to come within a few weeks.
I'll be sailing a multihull race the weekend of 3/4 october and will certainly post about that weekend.(NOTE: the race was cancelled due to bad weather).

some good advice

2009-07-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

Tom Siemerink (www.f32.nl) sent me some good advice about handling the boat under power wich might be of interest for other builders.
I tried to translate it, but I'm not sure about the english nautical terms so I hope it's understandable.

Congratulations on the launching of your boat, it's looking good.
I'll give some unasked advice, hope you will benefit from it. We met a lot of the same problems.

To 'park' the boat we use at the bow and stern of the float a big round fender. This is the only way to avoid damage and it works really well.
Mostly it's better to dock backwards than going forward. With a lot of wind it is in any case difficult to dock on the windward side and difficult to get away from the side downwind.

You're right on your site: the boat is square and light and will drift quickly. On the downwind side we like to dock against another sailboat, because you can use the round shape of that boat to sail away (motor a bit forward while keeping the back docking lines attached and then motor away backwards, or the other way around). While docking it suffices to use one docking line on the middle of the float. When you fix this line first, the boat wil go nowehere and you've got plenty time to fasten the other docking lines. In the lock we only use this one middle line (now that's the good thing about owning a square boat).

Video footage

2009-07-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

A compressed clip from Luis Matos with some video of the sailing in Holland. Hope you will enjoy. Thank you Luis.

test-sail-week

2009-07-27T02:36:00.001-07:00

Just back from my first week sail with my brother. We had not so good weather, still a good time, but also some problems. I started to learn about what works and what doesn't on the boat, hopefully other builders will benefit. Didn't take as much pictures as I should have, sorry. Again a lot of text.

Starting with something not working yet: the supports under the wingnet-support. First day one broke in the middle. I took a picture at the end of the week and now I see the other one also broke. It's not a very big deal: the supports work without the two studs underneath (especially if you make sure you lace the most outer eyes on the trampoline tight so the trampoline can't sag too much at the outer end). I will mail Ian about this, maybe he'll have to look at this part of the design. For the time being I will leave it as it is.
The wignet-support itself is in my opinion a really nice idea: it's looking great and it's nice to have the trampoline more or less level and above the float decks.

Below is a picture with the mainsail up. Upper batten is not in the sail on this photo, that's why the top is sagging. My mainsail has cars on every battens, this works ok. I made the mast a tiny bit longer than the plans specify, but maybe should have made it even longer. The mainsail only just fits, I had to fix the lower corner of the luff to the mastfoot with a shackle to get it low enough. No space to fix a tackle to tension the luff, as I planned (will have to put a cunningham in the sail).
I first wanted to keep the rig simple with no winch and no lines to the cockpit, but the week sailing taught me this doesn't work. I will put a winch at the cockpit + stoppers, and lead the halyards to the cockpit.
Looking at the picture above (third day of our sail) it's hard to imagine the day before Hans and I had rough weather and damage to the boat.
We planned to go sailing on saturday, but there was too much wind for a first sail (beaufort 7 = appr. 30 knots) and we stayed at the marina working on some details. Next day the forecast was better. We started on sunday morning with a nice sail with light to moderate wind, but weather changed very quickly in the afternoon with spells with winds up to 7 - 8 beaufort (or so I was told).
We managed to sail to the wind to the lock near our destination, got the sails down and motored to the lock. Near the lock I released the throttle of the outboard to have a good look at the situation, and the motor died. We couldn't get it going again and before we knew were blown downwind on a coast with a dam(n!) made of piled rocks. We had to be pulled off by another boat, and had considerable damage around the keel of the right float. Amazingly only a lot of deep scratches and dents, but no visible big cracks in the laminate. The sandwich panels proved to be really strong (apart from being prone to denting, that is): when we were banging on the rocks I was sure the whole float would be crushed.
I didn't want to sail again with an outboard I couldn't trust, and on monday I was lucky to be able to buy a quite new one and get on with the sailing-vacation.

And now for something completely different: tip for other builders. Put a rubber ring between the bearing pad and the studs for the hatch. This way it's easier to firmly fix the studs in a certain angle.
Another thing to bear in mind: the eye for the raising wires of the mast is too high for a small person to reach. On the picture below I'm stretching as high as I can. I'm 1,68 meter tall. I'm going to lower the eye 25 cm or so. When you use the raising bars at the side of the cabin, as per plan, it's probably not possible to put the eye lower because the bars won't be at the right angle anymore but I don't use the bars. Below a detail of the clearance of the lashing at the wingnet support. As you can see it's possible to cut the support away to - say - 4 cm to the corner of the support and still have plenty of clearance. Folded the lashings rub against the support, but I guess this is unavoidable. The jib has given us a lot of trouble. In the picture below we had it on it's furler, but that only worked in easy conditions. In trying conditions, with gusting wind and in need to quickly get some sail away, it didn't work. At all. The low part of the jib would roll and the upper part wouldn't - leaving a big pile of unrolled jib banging wildly at the top of the mast. We removed the roller, made some hanks on the luff of the jib with pieces of 4 mm dyneema, and hoisted it the normal way. Some of my ideas after this week sail:

Don't hoist the furling jib with a small line from the top of the jib through the (fixed) swiffel to the furling drum. It's a nice and clean system when it works, but a pain when it doesn't. On our first eventful sail on sunday we had to get the jib down in big winds and it wouldn't furl. Hans had to crawl to the furling drum to loosen the hoisting line. No fun at all - luckily at that time we were in open water with plenty of clearance to mess around with the jib. From now on I'll only hoist the jib with a normal halyard which can be loosened from the cockpit.
It's difficult to hoist and lower the jib (and tie it down on deck) in stronger winds and waves when the jib is not on a furler but just hanked to the forestay. The foredeck area is small to work on, especially because it's sloping down and it's got the jib in the way. We opened the front hatch to have a sort of secure position to work on the jib, but that is not ideal. I will for certain install front nets on the boat: it will help a lot to be able to safely work on things on the foredeck.
The problems with furling may be partially due to the low forestay/luff tension. I'm going to try if it's possible to put an anti-torsion cable into the luff of my jib (like the ones made by facnor) and see if that helps. If it doesn't I might switch to a full blown reefing furler with an aluminium luff profile, but I hope this won't be necessary.
With the jib low on the deck sailing to the wind it's hard to get a good view of the boats downwind. I may put a window in the jib.
Put the camcleats of the jib on blocks (1 cm or so) else you will have trouble to get the sheet in the cleats in stronger winds.
(Should have know this....) Put a piece of strong plastic on the corner of the cabin where the jib-sheet runs to the cleat, else the sheet will grind through the paint and fairing in no time.

I worked out the tiller and believe it's fine now. I started with a long tiller with a short joystick (as can be seen last two pictures on this entry) but that didn't work because the sheet + traveler line were tangled in the tiller + joystick every time you tacked.
Now I've shortened the tiller to be just long enough to stay in front of the traveler, and made a two-sided joystick. Both sides are 2,5 meter long. They are fixed to the front of the tiller, and the mainsheet hangs in front of the tiller and the joysticks, and doesn't get tangled anymore. The joysticks are made of two pieces of 3/4" pvc electricity pipe, a piece of reinforced pvc tube from a kite shop as the pivot and three bolts. It cost me about 6 dollar alltogether and it works fine. On tuesday and wednesday Luis Matos from Portugal (wearing the hat on the picture below) paid a visit to check out the boat for real and to get some ideas for his own build. He's an experienced sailor and could give me some good advice. Luckily those two days were good sailing days, and we had some really nice trips and time to get to know the boat in normal conditions. Time to sum up some of the impressions about sailing and motoring the boat:

The folding is just amazing and works really well effortlessly.
The boat sails really well, also in choppy (but not too high) waves. It is VERY dry compared to the monohulls I've sailed in similar conditions.
To the wind we were at least as fast as much bigger monohulls, downwind the same thing when there is not too much wind. With more wind the boat picks up speed and leaves the monohulls behind fast.
The boat will pick up speed to about 7-8 knots easily, and then seems to stay on that speed until there is enough wind to really push it. Then it will suddenly accelerate fast to above 10 knots. Top speed so far has been about 13.5 knots with jib and single reefed main and for me that was fast enough for this first week. The rig + sails still need a lot of tuning (luff of the mainsail is not tensioned right, for instance) so I guess there is room to improve.
When the boat goes over 10 knots, it lifts up the bow of the main hull a bit like a powerboat on speed. I was a bit surprised, because I thought the bow would be pressed down a lot when powering.
Although the jib tracks are short, they are long enough to trim the jib if you also have a plate at the back of the jib to change the sheeting angle.
With the boomless main you need the 6:1 + 4:1 = 24:1 sheet system, else you won't be able to sheet in the main far enough to go to the wind.
Not sure about the trimming of the mainsail yet. While reaching it has the tendency to twist a lot and hang against the shrouds, even with the traveler all the way out. Going to the wind twist control with the traveler seems ok.
Getting alongside the dock under power is difficult because the boat is more or less square. When the bow of the float is nearly at the dockside you usually have to make a sharp turn, but when you do that the boat will more or less pivot around your centerboard and will be in line with the dockside but about 1,5 meter away from it. Hope the drawing below will help to explain.

Maybe taking the centerboard up might help a bit, but then the boat will drift even more. First thing I'm going to try is to put big fenders, or maybe even permanent rubber profiles, on the bow of the floats so I can just 'park' the nose of the boat against the dockside and then push the back to the dockside with the motor.

Last thing: camping in the boat is going fine! I thought it would be a bit cramped, but it works out very good. I've got a lot of interior room because of the centerboard, maybe it will be a bit more cramped with the daggerboard case. With the all white basic interior with blue cushions and the pop top raised a bit it's a nice place to stay when it's raining outside.
Luis took a small tent and put that on the trampoline to sleep. That worked well also.

And finally: this makes it all worthwile for me. Sailing your self-built boat on a sunny day doing 12 knots effortlessly with almost no heel.

First 'sail'

2009-07-13T06:06:00.000-07:00

This sunday I finished the rig (only have to alter the cars on the main and work out the tiller to get the boat ready) and could manage a 8 minutes trip with the jib + motor up and down the marina before we ran out of time and had to pull the boat out of the water to get home in time.

Next weekend me and my brother will go for a one-week sail to test the boat, finish all kinds of loose ends, and hopefully learn to sail it. On tuesday of that week Luis Matos, another F22 builder, will join us (all the way from Portugal!) for one day to get a feel for the boat in real life.

Last sunday I had no time for pictures, but for those who are interested anyway here is some text-only about things I noticed:

With the aft cockpit-boomless-version of the F22 the tiller has not much travel left-right before it hits the point where the traveler sits on the cockpit seat. It's probably a good idea to put some extra blocks under the traveler to lift it a bit and make some more room for the tiller. It will only help a bit though. I will alter it this this winter.
Because the tiller is fixed and can't swiffel up you can't stand up holding the tiller when sailing/motoring, and don't have a clear sight. I'm going to attach a joystick to the tiller: problem solved.
It is possible to hang a small-ish outboard (mine is a 4 HP two stroke Mecury long shaft) on a bracket next to the rudder: the prop can't touch the rudder in any position and there is enough clearance to tilt the outboard completely out of the water.
On low speeds the rudder doesn't seem to 'bite' very well. I guess this is normal for this type of rudder, I'm just not used to it as I've only had boats with relatively large rudders that worked well at very low speeds.
Manoeuvring with a (very) low speed, as will be necessary in the sometimes very crowded and small locks and harbours/marina's in the Netherlands, will probably only be doable by steering with the motor. In this respect I'm glad I built the aft cockpit version.
Because the boat is so light and wide, it drifts quite a lot with only mast up when there's some crosswind. Going to have to practice a lot to learn to manoeuvre this boat under power in tight areas.
The overall strength of the sandwich hulls is great, they're stiff and light, but I'm not really happy with the impact resistance (concentrated load). Sunday my second bulge (very small one) in the boat was caused by a brief encounter with the corner of a jetty. First small bulge was caused by a corner of the plastic wheel arch of the trailer which pressed against the float when the boat was rocking a tiny bit on the trailer while driving. Since then I've lowered the wheel arches. Guess there will be a lot more scratches and bulges to come.
The shrouds stay tight folded, unfolded and while folding. Nice!
Raising the mast is easy when you use all the raising wires to support it and also use the 'ears' on the maststep. The pops on the ball (raising) or pivot-pin (lowering) with ease.
Centerboard lowering needs a bit of muscle: didn't expect the board to be that bouyant.
2:1 jib sheet seems to work fine.
Sailing with jib alone to the wind is possible (a bit), but you have to helm a lot (duh).

Working on rig.

2009-06-28T23:57:00.000-07:00

My brother Hans has gotten really enthousiastic about working with the dyneema ropes and is making all kinds of handy parts for my rig, like soft hanks and, below, a tackle for my back up forestay (nylon washers make sure the lashing-rope doesn't bind).

Below picture for my wife Jacomien: yes, I fitted the wind-pointer (???). She demanded I'd fit one (she still has good memories of two boats I owned earlier on - a nordic folkboat and a waarschip 7.25 - which had the same pointer). Telling it's not necessary to have one were to no avail: she gave me the pointer for my birthday and how can I refuse this present?

For ease of mind I made a backup fitting for the shrouds with a piece of 6 mm dyneema and some vulcanising tape (later on a picture which will be more clear). The knot is the same knot used for the soft hanks (don't know the name), and is made by Hans.
Finished.

My plan was to attach the shrouds with 8 mm olivier links produced by Precourt. However, I got fed up waiting for a response from Precourt about the links he is supposed to be working on, and decided to use two pieces of hardware that were delivered with my mast-section. They are actually meant to anchor ball-terminals, but I figured they might as well anchor a dyneema loop.

Below the overview of the setup: 6 mm dyneema soft hank (the line is fed through itself and then finished with a big 'turkish' knot). The end-knot is not finished smooth: instead the two ends are left proud and there's an extra knot in both lines to make sure the knot won't slip and open up. I made a hdpe bush on the lathe to make sure the loop doesn't chave.

Below an overview of the attachment of the shrouds: 8 mm shrouds (SK75) anchored on the ball-terminal-loops, and secured to oneanother and to the extra mounting point with a piece of 8 mm SK75. The mast will only come down when all three mountings fail, which I don't expect to happen. I will be cruising only, and this setup seems plenty strong for that purpose.

I will for the time being keep my rig very simple. Main halyard with a stopper on the mast (not running to the cockpit) + a tackle at the mastfoot to tension the luff of the main + backup forestay + furling jib with a fixed swiffel (jib will be hoisted with a dyneema line 2:1) + 2:1 sheeting of the jib with no winches. Unfortunately the swiffel & furling drum take up a bit too much space: the jib would hardly fit in between and would not furl properly as the backup forestay was in the way. I need to make a separat tab a bit higher to mount the forestay.

Below a detail of mast raising setup: the trailer winch-band which I use to raise the mast is kept central with a dyneema loop round the bullnose. Here you can also see the stainless steel furling drum which I could buy second hand for not too much money. It's difficult to get anything attached in the hole in the deck with the bow web below and I don't think this setup will work properly (just too small). If I remember right Ian Farrier wrote this is still a loose end in the design.

A part of the design I didn't follow (yet?) is the mast raising wires-supports bolted to the side of the cabin. Instead I made a wire between my lifting eyes with shackles at the ends, and with an eye at the height of the pivot pin. This works well, just onhook the wire and you're done. Loads will be a bit higher because the wires are not at the edge of the cabin, but I don't think loads will be too high.

Overview of the setup (sorry, forgot to turn the picture).

And this is how it looks the right way up....

Below: mast raised 30 cm and feeling steady. Before rigging all the support wires we tried to raise the mast with just the raising pole, but quickly quit. Although this mast is quite light (30 kg or so) it's not easy to handle. Raising it with just some muscle and faith is not for me.....

And.... the mast is up. The rake is of course way too much in this picture. We kept the shrouds short to make sure we wouldn't tip the mast over when raising. You can see the support wires for the mast raising pole are slack, that's my mistake: I used the maststep ball as a reference point for the mounting point of the support wires instead of the pivot pin.

Finishing the boat and all the hardware has taken a lot of time, and I'm still not there. Need to lower the mast again, make a new tab for the backup forestay, grind a slot in the mast for the cars of the main, fit the outboard (will be tight), make a tiller, try to lower the furling drum 2 cm to get a bit more clearance at the top of the jib, etc. etc.

Still the plan is to launch in about three weeks. I'll sail the boat for a week with my brother, and use that week to tune the boat and see if everything works the way it should.

In the water

2009-06-23T06:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend me and my brother laced the trampolines and put the boat in the water to test it. We were in a hurry, so I didn't take my time to get nice pictures. Still here are some....

Photo below: the lifting eyes work well. I need to make the front two hoisting slings a bit longer to lift the boat horizontally.

First time in the water. The centerboard pivot doesn't leak (didn't think it would, but you never know). The boat is floating very high. Hope this is how it's supposed to be.

My brother is lashing the trampolines.

Close up of the trampolines below: lashed with 2,5 mm dyneema SK75 (cheaper than a roll of nylon, but hard to get tight as it is difficult to pull). I still need to work on the attachment of the beginning + end of the lashing to the hull. Details will follow in due time.
The trampoline is a bit too close to the hullside to my liking, and it is difficult to get the lashing tight like this. I'll have to live with it for at least this sailing season, maybe I'll alter the trampolines this winter. Tip for future builders: maybe make the trampoline a few cm less wide than plans specify, or first finish the hull + floats before making the trampolines, so you can measure the actual distance between the float-rail and the hullside.

Below the front view. I guess the boat will be a bit lower in the water once I put the mast on the boat and put some extra gear in it. That would be a good thing, because the floats are now a bit too high above water.

Trampolines

2009-06-18T12:15:00.000-07:00

I stitched my trampolines on this old Singer sewing machine (it is motorized). It can't zigzag, but for the rest it works just fine. The trampoline was put together with double sided tape before stitching. Lesson learned: stitch directly after using the tape. One trampoline was put away for a while unstitched and more or less fell apart. What a sticky mess! Other tip: spraying a bit of WD40 on the needle helps to make sure the needle +thread don't stick too much to the tape.
For the lacings to the hull I won't use rings, but a 6 mm alu rod in the sleeve. Probably stronger than rings, and less fuss.

The shop I bought the materials warned me the last ring on the side of the trampoline is loaded a lot and has a tendency to fail. That's why I strenghtened it a bit.

Apart from the tiller and some small jobs the boat is ready. I still have to take care of the rig and the raising pole + wires, though. I can't finish that because I'm still waiting for Erik Precourt to fabricate the 8mm version of his Olivier Link which I plan to use for the shrouds. Erik mailed me he would be working on the links this week, so I hope there will be some white smoke at the end of the week.

Plastic Fantastic

2009-06-15T03:08:00.000-07:00

Working on some of the last parts of the boat: bushings.
Some time ago I bought a very old Unimat SL micro lathe, it works OK for plastics and small metal work.

Below: piece of Arnite (PETP) rod in lathe.
Step 2: outside diameter ready.

Step 3: inner hole bored. I tried to do this on the lathe first, but this didn't work (too slow: in stead of cutting I melted the bushing-to-be). In the drill press it was a piece of cacke. The two pieces of hardwood with triangle-formed cutouts keep the rod level (vertical). This works well, as long as you make sure the cutouts in the woodblocks are cut precise (no problem for me, because I'm a happy owner of a very precise festool table saw).

Below: finished bushing for the rudder. No, it's not as good looking as a professional bushing. Yes, it will work anyway. No, it's not worth to save money this way (unless you've got time to spare) but I just enjoy trying to fabricate parts myself.

Below: bushing for mast pivot ball, made out of Delrin rod. The router bit was very expensive for the (this) one time I will use it.
I've got plenty of delrin to spare, and my expensive router bit. If someone is interested: I can send some delrin rod with the hole routed in it for the costs + a few dollar for my invested time, and save you the trouble of buying the router bit. I also have a spare type 316 1" ball I can send with it.

Plans call for acetal washers for the folding system. I couldn't find ready made washers, so just drilled a hole in a piece of delrin rod and chopped washers off on the bandsaw.

This weekend I drove the boat to my home to pick up the mast (the mast was hanging in my garden) and tried to shoot some photo's back at the marina but instead by accident made a film. Still some people might be interested, so below is the clip.

Mast Step + Retaining Thingies

2009-06-04T00:03:00.000-07:00

Still got to make some pieces. Below is the mold + glass for the four beam retaining brackets. I made the mold on the bandsaw (my advice: buy one if you haven't got one!) of some scrap pieces of mdf.
When cured I cut the mold + glass in four straight pieces on the table saw. I know it's not good for the sawblade, but for this kind of work I use a blade that's already damaged (hit some screws with it long time ago).

Below the finished brackets and the (almost) finished mast step.

Welding aluminium and making it good looking isn't easy. The mast step looks messy (+ I burned a hole in the top side of the tube) and sure won't be in the book 'This is pro welding". I'm not dissatiefied though; part of the fun of building for me is trying to acquire new skills and experience (like welding). Having a not so good looking mast step is the price I have to pay for that choise.

Although the mast step is not good looking (looking from close range), I'm sure it's strong enough.

I have to do one more weld in the low corner and cut off + isolate the bolts and then have to decide on the finish. Camouflage paint might be the best option.

I'll probably just prime it with epoxy primer and then paint it. The mast foot in the mast will also have to be treated, as well as the mast support and the (still to weld) mast raising pole.
I would actually rather leave all those pieces untreated, as painting will probably look messy and anodizing is a lot of trouble and not always possible (can't anodize the mast foot as it is welded in the mast). What will happen if I leave all the pieces as they are? My boat will mostly be sailed on fresh water. Anyone with good advice?

Fitting folding system + floats

2009-05-26T04:25:00.000-07:00

This will be a bit long and maybe boring post, but I thought some of the other builders would be interested in as much details as possible about my experiences fitting the beams.

Saturday and sunday me and my brother Hans worked hard to get the folding system and the floats installed. Saturday we worked on the folding parts on the mainhull which was on its trailer in the marina. Saturday evening we pulled the trailer with the mainhull to my workshop. The square in front of my workshop is used for parking cars from monday till saturday, but on sunday it's usually not occupied. So I had one sunday to install everything and move the boat again.

On sunday we started working at 8 in the morning, and worked almost non-stop till 9 in the evening. By then the boat was assembled enough to be able to bring it back to the marina (about 1 hour drive). My idea to pick up the mast on the way back was too optimistic. I'll have to drive back another time to pick it up.

First thing we did was fitting the bushes in the beam mounts. This can be easily done by sticking the bush with some double sided tape on a sawblade and use that to insert the bush in the mount.

Then we leveled the trailer (used a tube with water to level; when you do this make sure there are no air bubbles in the tube). With the trailer leveled we attached the upper folding struts to the hull and then to the beams.

This took more time than expected, because on one beam mount the holes for the bushings were not in line (see last part of the linked entry). The pivot pin would not properly go through both bushes because of this misalignment, and we had to use a lot of force. Destroyed one bushing in the process, but luckily I had a some spare bushings.

The fit of the beams in the aft beam recesses was not perfect. I had to grind one beam end back a bit to make it fit in the recess (but not as much as the line drawn on the photo below).

Because I knew I didn't have much time to install the beams I made two dummy decks of the floats (below - box sections of fir battens with cheapo 3 mm multiplex) so I didn't have to worry about the distance between the beam ends nor the twist of the beams.

I don't know if it would have been difficult without the dummy decks, but with the dummy decks aligning the beams was a piece of cake. First we put the end of the dummy decks on two ladders and put blocks and shims underneath until the beams were level. Then we clamped some battens along the edge of the dummy decks and used a rectangualar piece of mdf to check if the angle between the beams and the dummy deck was 90 degrees (see photo below).

With the level and the piece of mdf it was easy to quickly recheck the alignment now and then during the installation. I was a bit worried the fore-aft alignment of the beams would give problems as I had noticed that at least one beam mount was a bit out of angle fore/aft (it was pointing slightly to the front), and apart from that for some reason I managed to get the location pins of both floats about 8 mm too far apart. But much to my surprise the vertical alignment of the beams seemed near perfect. Maybe by miracle I also installed the beam mounts 8 mm too far apart, but more probably it's just hard to notice the few mm misalignment.

On all four beams it seems the beams are sticking out a bit too far at the beam mount, and I will have to grind the end of the beams (maybe even considerably on some beams) to make space to fit the beam end plate. Thought this part of the alignment would give the least problems and the fit would be the most accurate, but clearly it is not so. Don't know why.

The brackets all fit on the bolting area perfectly. Big relief again.

After aligning and bolting the beams+folding structure we had to hoist the floats down. This time not with a crane, but with some lines and chain hoists.

Yes I know, this is not a very smart way to hoist a float. Still the floats came down with not too many scratches.Bolting on the floats was not difficult either. We folded out the beams, put two workmates underneath the beam ends, lifted the float on the workmates and while one person held the float steady at the bow, the other put some blocks under the keel till the beam bolts stuck in the float deck at one beam. Quickly put a nut a few turns on one beam bolt and it's temporarily fixed. Then fix the float at the other beam the same way. It's not necessary the float stays level: it's possible to put the beam bolts on one side in the float deck with the float hanging, say, 20 to 30 cm below the other beam end.

After fastening four of the six bolts per beam the boat was solid enough to fold in and drive it back to the marina. I still have to glue all the brackets and beams and to fix the beam end plates.

The folding works very well, it's something you've got to see/feel for yourself to believe.

Below the boat is ready for the ride back.

Detail below: I replaced the stainless steel trailer eye by a loop of 6 mm dyneema with a knot on the inside. Easy and it seems to work well.

I never realized how wide the folded boat was at the bow end, but now I do.

Last photo: getting the trailer out was only just possible.

To conclude some lessons learned/things I noticed:

It's not necessary to level the boat lenghtwise to install the beams. It's sufficient to make sure the left and right beam mounts are level. When the boat is on a trailer (make sure it's tied down firmly on the trailer) this is easy: put fixed blocks under the front end of the trailer and one of the two aft corners, and jack the other aft end of the trailer until the aft beam mounts are level. Front beam mount should now also be level.
Bolting the aft beam compression formers with the four bolts is terrible. There is by no way enough space inside/underneath to get all nuts on with washers. I even had to redrill two bolt-holes at a *very* slight angle to be able to get a nut on. Maybe it can work out right on a computer screen, but I doubt ever in the real world.
Important for european builders: I thought the bolt blocks hanging inside the beam mounts would be tapped M12, but (should have known this probably) they were tapped with a non-metric thread. I had no possibility to get the right bolts on sunday, and had to turn in my M12 bolts in anyway. I probably damaged the thread too much and I will have to replace those blocks.
When making /installing the aft beam recess mold plates, rather err on the 'big side' because this area is tight when done properly and too tight when you make the recesses by mistake a little bit smaller than per plans.
It's easiest to line up the metal hardware on the aft beam mounts by first only putting in the outer bolts left and right, and then use a wire or a long straight piece of wood/metal to put the hardware on both ends exactly in line with eachother. This way you can correct any possible misalignment of the beam mounts (in case they are angled a bit forward or aft).
The holes on my beam brackets were all a bit less than 10 mm diameter and I had to redrill all the holes. Better check & fix this before putting the folding struts on the beams.
Fix your main hatch while driving. Maybe it's enough to firmly fix the front legs of the hatch. I thought the driving wind would always be pushing the hatch down, but while driving the wind got underneath and the front popped up. The hatch then acted as a big 'wind trap'. Good thing is now my whole boat has had an excellent ventialation.

Welding & drilling

2009-05-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

I lend a big mig welding machine from a neighbour. Before I had only done some arc-welding. MIG-welding is much easier. Mig welding aluminium is a bit more difficult than welding steel but with a little practice it should be doable (so I'm told).
My plan was to spend a day practicing welding aluminium first, but I ran out of time. I needed to get the mastfoot + mast support ready because I need them this weekend: the boat will be assembled and moved. So after some trial welds I started on the real thing.

First part: the mast support.
Close up: bit messy but the best I could manage at that time.
Mastfoot welded in mast. It was a bit tricky welding intense enough to get the weld to penetrate both the mast and the mastfoot-plate without burning a hole in the relatively thin wall of the mast.
To drill the holes in the float (and my dummy float decks, see next post) as easy as possible I made a mold which centers on the center pins in the float deck. It can be lined up with a laser shining from the other location dowel.
Trial fit of a beam. In reality the beams look much more massiven than shows on the picture. When tapping for the saddle eyes on the beams, I missed a backing plate at three of the holes. Those holes were after consultation with Ian Farrier backed with HD epoxy mix.
Next post hopefully will show the floats two floors lower atached and working well. This weekend (today and tomorrow) me and my brother will get the main hull from the marina and install the floats.

Rig

2009-05-18T07:39:00.001-07:00

A few months ago some of the parts for my rig were delivered. Building the mast was mostly just a matter of drilling and sawing holes and popping or screwing the parts into the mast profile. I made sure not to have any sharp corners in the cutouts, as I've read those will be prone to develop cracks. To insulate the aluminium from the steel I used silicone kit, but it would have been better and easier to use 'duralac' - but unfortunately I found out too late about this product.

The upper part of the diamond stays are anchored with T-terminals. The spanners are on the lower part and need to be attached to a tang. To bolt the tang to the mast I cut two pieces of 1 cm thick alu:

Using some solid electricity wire it's easy to drag the piece to its location....

Below the piece is bolted in place. The hole in the middle will be tapped to receive the short M8 bolt which will hold the shroud tang.
I've always tried to avoid marine shops. In my opinion they charge outrageous prices. The last time I had to go there I saw a blister ordinary type 304 nyloc m5 nuts being sold for 1 euro (about 1 dollar) for each nut. I had just bought a 500-box of exactly the same nuts at an online materials-shop for about 10 euro. Maybe most people owning a sailboat are so loaded they don't care what to pay. Or maybe they think they get superior quality, because why else would this small nut be so expensive?

Anyway, to save myself the anger of having to pay 30 euro for two tangs, I bought a strip of 4mm stainless steel for less then 1 euro and worked maybe 10 minutes:

(1) Saw two pieces and drill four holes,

(2) slam each piece two or three times with a hammer, and
(3) file the edges a bit so they're not sharp. End result is for sure not as polished and good looking as the shop tang, but it's good enough for me and I've saved the earnings of working for more than an hour at the office in 10 minutes.

The setup of the mast will be as simple as possible.

I'm thinking of putting in halyards for only the main sail and jib (jib with 2:1 halyard). The halyards exit the mast high, so I can raise the sails by hand. All lines stay only on the mast. The idea is to raise the main by hand, fix the halyard with a stopper, and then tighten the main by pulling a tackle form the mastfoot to the eye at the bottom of the sail.
Maybe I'll attach a fixed rope as a backup forestay, also because this is easy for raising and lowering the mast.

The only expensive cleat on the mast will be the stopper for the main halyard. It is bolted to a tapping plate I made of a strip of 4 mm stainless steel. Because the mast is not flat where I need to mount the stopper, I put a piece of cutting board between the backing plate and the mast. The idea is the cutting board will set to the shape of the mast and prevent point loads of the steel backing plate on the mast.
The stopper was installed using the 'copperwire' method I've shown above.

Erik Precourt mailed me he is working on a version of a bigger version of the Olivier Link for 8 mm lines, but this one it is not in production yet (pictures of the smaller links can be seen on http://www.precourt.ca/). Seems to me the perfect way to attach the shrouds. I'll splice them directly on the links. Clean, easy, light and probably very strong as the link will only pull on the mast from inside and not through bolts. Problem is: will the links be available fast enough? Else I will have to go with the plans, buy the wichard padeyes, make the backing plates and the epoxy pads etc.

The only thing to do is to weld in the mastfoot. More about that later on. I've got the welding machine at home, now I only need the skills to use it. So I'm already halfway there.

Floats ready

2009-05-16T13:14:00.001-07:00

After filling some small spots I re-primed the whole floats. Then I sanded the primer back with wet-sanding (grit 120 and then 240 if I remember correctly), using the very old sanding machine below. This machine is my favourite machine. For the work on the boat/epoxy/filler it works much better than my two fancy and very expensive festool sanding machines.

I didn't work very hard on the inner side of the floats in between the beams, as no one will ever see those areas under the wingnets.
Below the floats have been painted with one coat. The next evening I painted a second coat.
Looking from really near it's easy to see the paint job is not a professional spay-job, but standing 1,5 meter afway it looks quite good in my opinion. The gloss is OK (see below), I guess it will even shine a bit more after putting on wax.

Below most hatches etc. have been bolted down. Don't underestimate the time it takes to install all fittings and hatches. There are a lot of bolts to fasten, and all rvs bolts in alu parts have to be insulated to prevent corrosion. I'm using a product named 'duralac', a sort of quick drying paint especially meant to insulate metals.

I didn't put non-skid on the bow and stern area of the floats, as I expect I won't be walking there. If necessary I can buy a pot of gray paint and extend the non-skid any time.

heavy metal

2009-05-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

Me and my friend Eelco worked a bit on parts for the trailer.

End result of a few hours grinding, sawing and welding: two float supports, four adapted trailer supports for the angled support for the main hull and a mast support which will slide into the 45 degree angled winch tube of the trailer. Welding is a bit sloppy, I'm using a small arc-welding machine not very suitable for the thick steel. For the aluminium welding I can lend a big MIG-welding machine and I intend to do a lot of practice runs first before actually welding te parts, to make sure they will come out good looking and strong.

wignet supports

2009-04-28T00:55:00.001-07:00

When I started building (a very long time ago, it seems) the plans for the wignet rails weren't ready yet so I just finished the floats. Now I've got to grind back the finish to attach the wignet supports. I used some screws to keep the wignet rail in place while marking the areas I needed to grind back.
Not too much damage done.....

Below supports are taped to the hull (plastic, no peel ply, I'm out of peelply). It's nearly my last laminating job. Before laminating I just glued the supports using some screws to hold all in place, and only taped the inner side of the inner supports (they're not reachable once the main support is put in to place).

deadeye slots float

2009-04-23T04:18:00.000-07:00

With the main hull out of the way, I can start working on the floats. First task was to make the slots for the precourt deadeyes.

I treated myself to a Black&Decker powerfile. It made work much easier.

One down, two to go.

2009-04-21T01:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted pictures for a while as I've been really busy with all kinds of non-boat issues, but I hope these pictures will be worth the waiting.

This weekend the main hull had to be taken out of the workshop. Although I already have some experience hoisting hulls (the floats) I still was very nervous.....

Above a very tired & stressed owner/builder (me, that is) apparently thinking smoking a lot of cigarettes will prevent the boat from falling down.

It was a very tight fit and I needed to built a roller to stick the boat out of the workshop as far as possible while keeping it level (only 5 cm play on the topside because of the overhanging roof).
When hoist-day came nearer I had to do all kind of small stuff to the trailer, the workshop and the boat and I had to rush and work till late at night to get it all sorted. That's why I didn't find time to clean the boat before hoisting. In hindsight a pity as this was the perfect 'photo opportunity'.

My brother Hans and I stuck out the boat as far as we dared. On the above picture it was almost balanced. Then we had to wait for the crane (below).

Very interesting machine. This company (http://www.witkraan.nl/) specialises in small cranes for tight urban areas. This is their biggest crane.After attaching the first hoist-sling we had to stick the boat further out of the workshop, crawl in the boat to the hoist hook of the crane and attach the second lift sling and tension it with a hoist. Brrrrr (but all went well).
Above the boat is almost down.....without the floats it looks a bit ehmmm ....well... funny, if you ask me.

Look at the overhang of the boat on the trailer! I'll have to watch out in the corners as the boat will swing out a lot.

Just a picture of the cockpit. The bolt in the traveler will be used to attach the support of the mast-support.

I made an extra set of lights + plate. When the full mast support is on the boat, I will use the same setup only the lights will be a bit higher because the lights have to be above the outboard.

The outboard mount by the way is bolted to the transom with three M8 bolts (+ backing plate of course). Because the transom is not straight but 5 degree angled, I made a wedge to get the motor mount pointing straight down. To be sure I also made a RVS support from the top of the motor mount to about 10 cm in front of the mount. Pictures will follow.

After reading all the heated debate on the F-boat forum in the (in)famous 'tow vehicle threads' I was a bit nervous if my car would be able to pull the boat. It's not an 8 cilinder, 4 liters, monster car which some people seem to need to tow a boat, but just an 16 year old volvo 240 stationwagon (2 liter). It turned out the car pulled the trailer with ease, and I'm not concerned it will be a problem when the boat gets a few 100 kg heavier after fitting the floats/beams/mast.

Cushion covers.

2009-03-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

Sewing the cushions covers is straightforward. First I cut out the top and bottom with the mdf templates I used for cutting the foam. Make them 1 cm wider than the template. This is the distance between the needle of the sewing machine and the side of the foot of the sewing machine. To stich the panels & sides together, just hold them together and make sure while stitching to keep the edge of the fabric at the edge of the sewing machine foot (hope it is clear what I mean).
I used a chalk to mark the outline of the panel on the angled side of the cushion.

I stiched the zipper to the inner side of the fabric.....

.... and then cut the zipper-opening from the outside. Worked well, although I guess you can only do it this way with a fabric dat doesn't fall apart at an edge which is cut.

End result. Have to work a bit to get the cushion cover at exactly the right place, but it seems it will work out fine.

Foam for cushions

2009-03-17T03:08:00.001-07:00

Cutting the foam for the cushions with a hot wire tied to two bolts. I used an ordinary car battery charger. Worked well. Had to jump start the charger with a 9V battery because it will only shut on after it detects a working battery. Current is automatically reduced within working range of the charger; I guess this is standard for most modern chargers.

I first experimented with some electric guitar string as a cutting wire. This didn't work at all so I had to order proper cutting wire - a big difference as you can see on the photo below. I got quite some cutting wire left, so if anyone is interested I can send some by mail. I also have some spare frontrunner fabric (Jay sent me quite a big piece) for the rudder cassette. If anyone is interested, let me know. This stuff is hard to find (at least in Holland).

Trial fit of cushions below. A seperate cushion with lifting straps will go on top of the lid in the front bunk.

To cut the cushions I made wood (MDF) templates of the top and bottom. To make the top templates I measured the angle of the side of the boat every 50 cm and calculated the added width. Extra widht varies between app. 12 cm (in back of cabin) to 1,5 cm (near bow).

Non skid done

2009-03-09T01:03:00.001-07:00

Before painting the non skid I first had to apply masking tape. It's very important to use good masking tape, because the thin two pack paint will easily get under the tape. I took care to buy good tape, but still had some leaks. Maybe I'll touch those spots up with a small brush and some white paint but... maybe I won't.

Marking the outline of the non skid on all the sloping areas of the hull is very easy with this tool. I made a small mark on the upper part of the tool, and used that to put some dots on the hull. Then draw a line with a flexible batten and put the masking tape on.
Corners are rounded. Step 1: draw a corner.

Step 2: carefully cut the corner.

Step 3: remove offcut.

End result. The cockpit floor edge looks a bit messy on this picture because the masking tape is still on.

Now it's time for the nice work: bolting on all the hardware. I'm going to wait till my friend Eelco and my brother Hans have time to come and help. They have helped doing all the dirty work, it wouldn't be fair to keep all the nice work to myself.

And now, the end is near...

2009-03-03T06:43:00.000-08:00

....or so I thought.

When painting the boat I felt it wouldn't be long before I could go sailing, but today I made a to do-list and it's quite depressing how much still has to be done. I'll keep the list on this site as a reminder and also to make me happy seeing it getting shorter and shorter.

Main hull:

- Painting non-skid DONE 8/2/09
- Sawing + gluing Perspex sliding hatches - DONE 9/3/09
- Plastic strips to slide hatch - DONE 9/3/09
- Make outboard mount - DONE 12/3/09
- Cutting foam for cushions - DONE 13/3/09
- Wooden strips to retain perspex hatches - DONE 13/3/09
- Fitting windows - DONE 15/3/09
- Fitting hatch + bolts - DONE 15/3/09
- Install outboard mount - DONE 15/3/09
- Install mast support-tubes DONE 15/3/09
- Sewing cushion covers DONE 15/4/09
- Bolting on hardware DONE 18/4/09
- Bolting on hatch + inspection port DONE 18/4/09
- glue cover plate centreboard line DONE
- INstall centerboard retaining cap DONE
- make rollers for mast support DONE 22/05/09
- Ordering PETP DONE 11/05/09
- weld mast support DONE 22/05/09
- Weld maststep DONE 03/06/09
- making bushes rudder DONE 10/06/09
- Finish + Install maststep DONE (installing) 13/06/09
- Wax on boat
- Make tiller
- Saddle eyes in beam recesses

Floats:

- make 1 wingnet support - DONE 14/3/09
- Make slots for deadeyes - DONE 23/4/09
- attach wingnet support DONE 26/04/09
- fixing last dings - DONE 08/05/09
- new HD inserts (updated plans) NOT DONE-NOT NECESSARY
- fair wingnet supports DONE 08/05/09
- Bolt rope extrusion on supports DONE 15/05/09
- one new coat primer DONE 08/05/09
- 2 layers paint DONE 10/05/09
- non-skid DONE 11/05/09
- bolt on u-bolts + padeye DONE 15/05/09
- bolt on hatches DONE 15/05/09
- bolt on inspection-ports Done 15/05/09
- drill holes beams - DONE 18/05/09

Sails:

- Pick sails up at sailmaker DONE
- buy line for sheets DONE 10/06/09
- Furler DONE 23/05/09

Rig:

- Buy dyneema for shrouds and halyards DONE 10/3/09
- Dig out hole in mastfoot-rod (lathe) - DONE 16/3/09
- Fit sheaves DONE 21/3/09
- Fit T-terminal holder for diamond wire - DONE 21/3/09
- Fit forestay-tang - DONE 21/3/09
- Buy Precourt deadeyes or the like - DONE 20/3/09
- Fit exits DONE
- Weld mastfoot DONE 22/05/09
- Weld mastfoot in mast DONE 22/05/09
- Make bearing for mastfoot (UMHDPE/delrin)
- Fit spreaders DONE 10/05/09
- Press lower terminals on wire DONE 14/05/09
- Fit lower terminal holder for diamond wire DONE 13/05/09
- Fit cleats
- Attachment shrouds: Olivier link or padeye?
- Make A-frames for mast raising wires (or as per plans)
- Mast raising wires + attachment
- Cut + weld mast raising pole DONE 10/06/09
- Mast raising wires
- buy line for traveller

Folding system:

- Buy POM rod to make acetal washers DONE 11/05/09
- Cut washers out of POM rod - DONE 22/05/09
- bolt wingnet eyes to beams - DONE 16/05/09
- make dummy float decks DONE 14/05/09
- Install all hardware on main hull DONE 23/05/09
- bearing plates on beams
- Beam end caps DONE 14/06/09
- install beams DONE 24/05/09
- drain-pipes in floats
- make + install float retaining thingy DONE 03/06/09

Trailer:

- Make main support for hull DONE
- Make connector for extra set of lights DONE
- Buy extra set of lights + plates + cables DONE
- Make support to hang extra lights at transom DONE
- Buy marking sign DONE
- Make new attachment for existing side supports DONE
- Make float supports DONE
- fog lights on trailer (re-wire)
- new lower weel arches DONE

Other:
- Sew trampolines
- Buy lacing line
- buy outboard
- buy hoisting slings + hooks DONE 02/05/09
- Rent crane to get mainhull out of workshop DONE
- make rollers to roll hull out of workshop DONE
- insurance
- buy/lend MIG-welder DONE
- learn to weld MIG (a bit) DONE
- and…..big party to celebrate launch!

Multiple projects

2009-03-02T01:51:00.000-08:00

I bought a mast from Z-spars + some parts like spreaders, tangs, sheaves, etc. When it gets warmer I'll start working on the mast, which is laying outside in my garden.
The mast section is a Z-spar 301. Unfortunately no wing-shaped section. Those are hard to find in Europe. Good thing about this mast it's relatively cheap (950 euro for the anodizes mast section) and light (3 kg/meter). I got a 12 meter section and had to cut it to length to fit it in my backgarden.

Trick to get a straight cut: wrap a piece of square paper around and use that to draw a guide-line for the saw-cut.Plans have been updated: the original ruddermount is not strong enough and needs some extra glass. Here the extra glass is in place. I could have chosen the option of the side supports in stead of the glass, but thought it would be better (looking) to sand down the bog + primer and put on the glass. I checked if with the ruddercase would still fit with the extra glass. No problem.
Tip for other builders: when building the ruddercase, check the clearance in the cutouts for the gudgeons. I found out these were very tight and had to make the cutouts a bit deeper for the ruddercase to fit.
Also: don't try to put the rudder pin retaining screw in the center/front of the tube, else you won't be able to reach it. Put it angled a bit sideways (see photo below).

Interior paint is ready.

Mold + glass + plastic on top for the wignet support. Using a piece of aluminium angle is o good way to keep the glass from lifting at the 90 degree edge. The finished support is very floppy but I guess it will be very solid once it has been fitted to the float.

I bought an old bandsaw for less money then I had to pay for the 30 cm G10-tube for the rudder. Wish I had bought it earlier. This is a fantastic tool for sawing pieces of wood and aluminium, so much better than using a jigsaw. Here is the plate for the mastfoot. 3 minutes work and almost ready. As with the parts for the mast-step it's best to drill all the holes first using a drill-press. As long as you've got all the holes in the right place, it's hard to mess up these parts.

First layer of white paint (RAL 9010) is on. Tonight I will put the second layer on. After that I only need to paint the grey non-skid to basically finish the hull.

Working on rudder + centerboard

2009-02-15T23:48:00.000-08:00

I put on the second coat on the hull las friday. I think it looks good enough, although the coat has some dust in the paint on some spots. Most of the hull wil barely be visible anyway once the hull is upright and complete with the floats. The visible parts (stern & bow) look pretty good.
When painting the first coat I made a big mistake trying to mix all the paint in one go and mixed way too much. This time I mixed some paint, painted the bottom of the hull and one hullside first (weighing the amount of paint needed for both parts of the hull) and then I knew exactly how much more extra paint I needed to mix for the last hullside. It's pretty obvious this is the way to do it. It's a shame I had to screw up the first time.

Before turning the hull for the last time I'm going to put some wax on and put the centerboard in. Below are the parts for the centerboard: sheave assembly (plexiglass + tuffnol sheaves), alu cover plate for control line exit, a bumper-stop for the centerboard made of a piece of PVC-tube filled with putty, and a cap to cover the pivot-pin made of cutting board (HDPE). I bought an antique Unimat SL lathe to experiment a bit, and the recess in the pivot pin cap was the first practical thing I made on the lathe.
Here's a picture of the control-lines and the sheave assembly. The top of the plexiglass spacers is level with the cover of the centerboardcase, so the lines will be retained. The bumper-stop is visible below the sheaves. Earlier on I couldn't decide how to finish the interior of the centerboard case, but now I had to make a decision. Searching the internet I found people telling it's absolutely NOT necessary to use anti-fouling in a centerboard case, and people telling exactly the opposite.
To be sure I put coppercoat on the centerboard and the case interior, and regretted a lot I didn't decide earlier about the finish and paint the case before assembly. It was a terrible job to get the coppercoat properly inside the case.
Although I will keep the boat on the trailer for now, it's nice to know that when I decide to put it in the water permanently I only have to antifoul the hull and don't have to worry about the centerboard and the centerboard-case.

According to the plans a washer should be welded at the end of the centerboard pivot pin and this should be screwed to the doubler. This seems to me a bit difficult solution (for instance: washer should be welded perfectly square) and my idea is it is easier and more leak-proof to retain the pin by screwing a cap over it.
The cap is a bit small. I'm going to make a bigger version.

The control line for the centerboard is continuous. The camcleat will be bolted to the side of the cockpitseat.

The rudder + case is almost ready. I used nylon m6-threaded rod instead of alu bolts to retain the block at the back of the ruddercase. Put stainless bolts on the nylon rod, just for the 'bling'.
Going to try to make my own PETP bushes on the lathe, not to save time or money but because I want to make as much parts as possible myself.

The tiller (next to the rudder) will be made of a spare handle for a spade, bought at the hardware store for 6 euro (6 US dollar). I got this tip from the F-boat forum. The tiller will possibly be the cheapest part on the boat.

First coat on hull

2009-02-09T06:35:00.000-08:00

Primed hull is sanded wet till grit 400 (except for the bottom: grit 220).
When working with your face so close to the hull you keep on finding small spots & holes after every sanding/cleaning. I found it difficult to stop correcting but in the end decided enough was enough.

Then I put the first layer of paint on. I use 2-pack paint, roll it out and tip off with a brush. Before painting I use a tack-rag to wipe off the last dust and I mopped the floor to keep it a bit damp to trap as much dust as possible.
I used about 850 mg to cover the whole boat, much less than I thought I needed. Had to trow away a lot of mixed paint - downside of the two-pack. It has to stand for at least 30 minutes after mixing, so it's not possible to mix some extra in the middle of the paint job as you have to keep on painting wet in wet, else you''ll see an overlap in the paint job.

On the bottom there are still some sanding marks because I didn't sand it as thoroughly as the sides. The sides are not bad at all for an absolute beginner like me. Had a (very) few runs and a few visible brushing strokes and a few spots that show a very slight orange-peel-effect because I didn't sand down the rolled-on primer far enough.

Below a picture to show the gloss after one coat. By the time I'm writing this the whole hull is dull again, because I decided to wet sand out the last imperfections with grid 400 before putting on the final coat. I didn't have much dust in the paint. When painting the rudder I had more problems with dust and rubbish, but in hindsight that rubbish was probably trapped in the brush I used on that paint job. This time I cleaned the brush just before painting.

I also put the second coat on the rudder after sanding 400 grit. The hull will have the same finish after the second coat.

I was not very happy reading earlier this day a comment on Grant's blog, saying it's important the trailing edge of the rudder is no more than 2 mm thick. If I remember right my rudder's trailing edge is about 3,5 - 4 mm (4 layers C+layer in middle+ not very compact laminate).

If I'm going to try to correct this on my rudder, I'll have to do the paint job all over (+ primer). I'm tempted to leave it for now, and first try the rudder as it is.

paint on rudder & centerboard test fit

2009-01-28T07:50:00.000-08:00

Rudder is ready for painting. While painting it I hope I can learn what works best, before painting the main hull. Below is the primed (I put some blue colour in the primer) and sanded rudder. I touched up the last small holes & dings with polyester filler. Worked well for this (very) small spots, easy to sand flush and it only takes half an hour or so before you can sand it.
Pleasant surprise: it's possible and not even difficult to get a very nice coat rolling and tipping paint. I only put one coat on and the result was beyond my expectations. I use two part paint, thinned with a special thinner for brushing. The paint self-levels really well. Biggest problem was small rubbish getting trapped in the paint, although I cleaned my attic/workshop thoroughly. Next time I'll wet the floor to get rid of some more dust in the air.

Work on the main hull is starting once again. My brother helped me to trial-fit the centerboard.

Problem: the centerboard can't fold all the way because one edge touches the hull too fast in the area where the upper part of the board folds in (look at the picture below, you'll understand). Problem was solved by put a 45 degree bevel on that side. It seems like with more parts on this boat the design doesn't allow for a big margin for error.

Centerboard

2009-01-19T03:46:00.000-08:00

I didn't put a layer of glass in the middle of the foam blank, but in stead routed a groove in the middle of the aft side of the blank and filled that with putty. Before starting shaping the blank I marked the centerline on the putty fill.After gluing the blank I cut out the center spar, replaced the middle of it with a wood part as high density area and tried to figure out how thick the spar needed to be (taper). After the as always mediocre wrapping-exercise and the not-so-succesful attempt to keep the spar straight while curing the wrap, I tried to glue the spar back in position as accurate as I could. End of the story: it's harder than you might think to properly make and fit the spar.
After the fitting of the spar and after I had glued the HD-inserts in, I started shaping one side with a router..... I found shaping easier than on the rudder, because the centerboard is a bit bigger. I routed mainly in steps of 4 mm.

I didn't try to shape and laminate the centerboard in one go, as I did with the rudder. After shaping one side of the centerboard, I put the first layer of C on together with the carbon UD. While laminating this side I could keep the still flat side of the blank on a straight bench to make sure the blank would cure without twisting. With the sheating on the one side the blank is already quite stiff and strong. It's possible to shape the other side without too much flexing of the blank.

After laminating the second half + carbon, I did second (last) layer of C in one go, like this. I ran out of peel ply, so it's just plastic over the glass with some extra packaging tape to keep the glass in place round the pivot-hole.

Being afraid to make the board too thick, I made the recess for the carbon UD a bit deep, so I had to fill this area after laminating. I had good results using a piece of hard and stiff plastic to 'retrace' the profile (of course with two hands to make sure the spreader closely follows the profile and not with one hand as in the picture)
Recess filled. On the upper part of the centerboard I only filled the recess around the HD-inserts, as this will be the only areas that will bear against the case.

After curing of the first fill I put a layer on the whole profile of the centerboard (not on the upper part, as a smooth finish of that part is of no use). Now I only have to do some sanding, put on some primer and coat the board.

rudder(case) part 4 + trailer

2009-01-05T10:25:00.001-08:00

Happy new year everyone. I made a bit of progress last few days.

Laminating the ruddercase with carbon was not difficult and a nice job to do. Below is the case with the stub shaped in foam.The tiller stub was the last piece I had to 'wrap' with cloth, luckily. I still haven't got the hang of it - and now I probably never will unless I'm going to build another fiberglass boat - and had a really hard time to get this piece right. I used vacuumbagging and also plastic and packing-tape in an attempt to keep the cloth in place, but it was not a big succes. Had to re-laminate the front of the stub.
Here's the end-result. Good enough for me. I have to glue&laminate the stub to the ruddercase and then I can finish & paint the rudder and the ruddercase.

I also bought an american-style trailer. It's very wide - only a few cm less wide than the maximum-width allowed over here. I'll probably have to add some extra tubes to be able to mount all the supports/rollers/etc.

Rudder(case) part 3.

2008-12-28T02:57:00.000-08:00

I managed to reshape + laminate the leading edge of the rudder, so I could continue with the rudder case. Couldn't find a proper 4 mm thick plastic to mold the case. Instead I wrapped the rudder with the frontrunner fabric, and put two thin hard plastic sheets on top of that. Tried to mold the edge of the flanges with clay, but wasn't satisfied and instead just used an epoxy fillet (also handy to keep the mold plates steady). Once the case is out of the mold I can round off the fillet on the inside of the case.

It worked out well, although the case may be a tiny bit too 'loose'. I'll probably have to make the plastic block at the back of the case 1 mm less wide, to squeeze the case a bit together.
Couldn't think of a good way to put the glass spacer plate in the center of the molded case, and just guesstimated when I glued it on. To glue the tube properly alligned to the spacer plate, I put the case upside down on the rudder and used a piece of tube as can be seen in the picture below. I'm sure this method is not very accuate, but it was the only way to allign the tube I could think of.

In the meantime I'll also work on the centerboard. I wanted to use western red cedar as a core, but changed my mind when I found out in the Netherlands this is not the 'economy option'. Divinycell is cheaper. I think it's quite a big blade; should be easier to shape and laminate than the rudder.

Rudder part 2: FAIL

2008-12-17T02:23:00.000-08:00

I laminated all layers (2 c-layers with the carbon sandwiched in between + extra layer round leading edge and top) in one go, hoping this would give the most compact laminate. Next time I won't, and just do one layer at a time. All the glass in one go is difficult.

Although the laminate itself came out ok, to my dissapointment the leading edge of the board has a much too big radius. I didn't take into account enough the thickness of the 3 layers C: to get the profile right I should have shaped the leading edge much more precise than I did.

I don't feel ready to throw away the rudder. Instead I'm busy shaping the leading edge again, this time hopefully right, and then re-laminate the front end of the rudder. Because I have to remove almost all the glass from the front till the carbon uniderectional, the carbon won't be totally enclosed by C-glass anymore (I mean: the layers under and above the carbon are not connected to eachother anymore on the front side), so the rudder might be less strong. I'll take the risk.

Rudder, part 1

2008-12-15T11:19:00.000-08:00

I could found enough scrap foam to glue a blank for the rudder. Between the two halves I put some glass to make the blank a bit more stable.

Then I glued in the spar. I used fir (or was it pine?) as a core for the spar. Ian Farrier said that's ok, as long as you wrap the spar with the specified cloth.

Here is the blank with the still unsheated spar.

And here I'm gluing the spar in. Some small blocks under the spar (hopefully) keep it centered in the blank. I put some weights on to keep the blank straight while gluing.

The blank is initially shaped using a router. Grant used the same method. I've never shaped a rudder before, but I thought it went quite well this way.

The routed blank looks like a mess......

...but is actually not too hard to shape. I put some marker lines in the corner of the routed areas, and then it's easy to sand down. Just keep on sanding until the lines start to fade. I mostly used a surform to do the rough work, and a longboard to finish. In this picture the top half is nearly done. I was surprised how small (thin) the board is; because it's so small it feels like every mm mistake really counts - and it probably does.

End result so far: blank with 'HD' insert (mahagony) at front end. At the whole back of the blank, and the low tip of the blade, the foam is removed and replaced with putty. I also made the HD fill at the back with putty. This is easy to do because of the layer of cloth in the middle of the blank.
The rebate for the uni-directional with the spar in the middle of it make up a big portion of the whole board, and it feels like all the careful (ahem) shaping has been waisted. After glassing I'll check if the profile is still anything near the real thing and if not try to restore it with fairing compound.

Primer (finally)

2008-12-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

I'm finally busy putting high build primer on the top exterior. This time I'm not spraying (too much hassle + needed a lot of thinner) but just rolling. I apply two thin coats in one go: this primer hardens so quickly after applying you only need to wait 15 minutes to be able to roll the second layer without messing up the first layer. I'll sand this layer down (grit 80-120), touch up the last spots (which show much better with the primer applied) and then apply one more layer primer which I'll sand with much finer grit.
One thing I learned is it is easiest to do as much rough sanding as possible within 24 hours. The primer is already sandable without clogging the paper too much, but not as rock solid as it becomes later.

Cockpit area cleaned and ready for primer. I'll try to finish this this night.
The corners in the cockpit-area will be high gloss and very visible. To get them nice and even I put on a new fillet after fairing the flat parts of the cockpit. Not much work and I think it will look quite good.

Some advice for builders shopping for hardware: if you've built up your bow (as I have) you need a trailer-U-bolt with VERY long legs to make it to the inside of the boat. I couldn't find a suitable U-bolt and will for the time being be using a simple eye epoxyed to a piece of M10-rod.

Interior primed, exterior work

2008-11-08T01:09:00.001-08:00

Still busy fairing the interior and exterior. This is taking longer than I thought. It's a lot of surface, with all kinds of nasty turns, corners and edges.

Interior fairing is finished..

....and primed with normal house primer. The floorboards and the lid of the centerboard case will be made of some blue flightcase material I happened to have laying around. Still have to trim the centerboard flange.The exterior is almost covered with fairing putty. Still have to do the cockpit floor and the starboard cockpit seat. I did a rough sanding, and will do one extra run with putty and sanding to finish all the last spots. I won't try to get all the walking areas perfect, as they will be covered with non-skid. Will work hardest on the shiney areas (cabin sides & cockpit coaming & main bulkhead).Detail of the traveler, mounted on hardwood blocks.

wignet rail cutouts + transom

2008-10-12T02:20:00.001-07:00

To make uniform cutouts in the wingnet rails, I used a piece of aluminium angle as a guide for the (metal)saw. The angle is cut off at 45 degrees on my table saw.

By accurately marking the widest points of the cutouts (36 mm wide) and keeping the low edge of the alu guide more or less at a uniform distance from the hullside below the rails, it is not too difficult to get nice uniform cutouts.Although mounting the outboard bracket on the aft panel of the cockpit seat as plans advice is probably the most sensible thing to do, I'm just not ready (yet?) to cut away a big part of the hull to make room for the outboard leg. Instead I'll mount the motor on the transom. The setup will be something like this.

main hatch

2008-09-29T07:16:00.001-07:00

My first attempt to glue the ply bearing pads for the hatch supports was a failure. The pads have to be (and weren't) EXACTLY level in all directions. Even a very minor misalignment of the pads results in the supports noticably not standing/lying straight and thus not lining up properly for the slide tracks on the hatch.
Also the heads of the 10 mm slide bolts were about 6 mm thick, and together with the insulating nylon washer I needed about 8 mm between the coaming and the supports. Because the bearing pads were (as per plans) only 6 mm thick, the bolt heads rubbed against the coaming.
I hacked the bearing pads off again, and made new thicker (10mm) pads and a MDF jig to glue the pads properly aligned. Overkill? Maybe, but...
....this time the supports alligned beautifully. My home-made slide-tracks and slides also work well. I'm happy. I put some 600 gr glass on the pads to strengthen them, as ply alone will probably wear down (too) fast.
I want to drill all the holes and make all the inserts before fairing the outside of the hull. One of the last pieces I have to make before fairing the outside are the inserts for the mast support. Here is my mold (one sideplate removed): I use the two metal studs to keep the tube at the right angle in the mold.

interior + mast step

2008-09-17T08:04:00.000-07:00

With the hull upside down it was time to finish the upper part of the interior. Prior to fairing I made four HD inserts + extra glass for the lifting eyes. Two eyes just in front of the front beam bulkhead, and two eyes at the main bulkhead.

Fairing the interior took a lot of time and it was one of the most unrewarding jobs so far. Despite that I tried not to rush it and to work just as long as it takes to get it right. End result so far (boat is right up again). The interior is primed from the gunwale up. The part in front of the beam bulkhead is finished with polyester topcoat with a textured roller. It looks OK but I'll think about it a little bit longer before I roll the whole interior.
I finally managed to get all the alu to build the mast step. Finding a shop willing and able to sell the alu took a lot of time and effort, and in hindsight it might have been easier to build the mast step in stainless steel, like Tovio did.
I was a bit worried I wouldn't be able to saw the alu, especially the 1 cm thick plate, but it turned out to be no problem. I glued a copy of the plans to the alu sheets and cut all the parts to (roughly) the right size with a jigsaw with a blade especially made for cutting alu and some cutting paste to grease/cool the saw. Finishing can be done with a file (????) and waterproof sandpaper.
Here is a picture of some of the parts put together. As you can see they are a bit rough, I still have to file and sand them to the final shape and I've got to epoxy-glue some extra pieces to the ears. The lightening hole was cut with a normal hole saw and my drill press. It looks good, and it might be handy to tie some things to, but that's it. The weight saving is minimal.

I'm still sanding... (yeah yeah yeah)

2008-08-09T04:19:00.000-07:00

Last post I mentioned I enjoyed the sanding of the hull, but that's over now. Sanding this hull is a lot of work, and because of all the concave curves not as easy as the float hulls.
It's nearly done now, luckily. Yesterday I sprayed some high build epoxy primer on the hull.
For the primer I'm using this 'HVLP' paint sprayer for home use. It's probably not good enough to spray the final layer of paint, but for primer it works ok.
After that it's sanding time again, this time not by hand but with an electric sander. The primer is rock hard and sanding it shows imperfections much better than when sanding the relatively soft/coarse fairing compound. I started sanding a part of the hull and it seems I have to sand off a lot of the primer (+ guide coat) to get rid of all the scrathes and other imperfections. I'll sand with grit 80 and after that spray another coat of primer which I will eventually sand with a much finer grit.
When I get tired of sanding I try to work on some other parts. For instance on the slides for the hatch. Using real jib track + slides for the hatch would be very expensive so I decided to try to make it a bit cheaper. Since the slides will only have to bear the weight of the hatch itself, I thought the slides needn't be superstrong. I made a track by sawing a groove in a 2*1 cm aluminium profile. Then I made slides from a thick polyethyleen (HDPE) cutting board.
It's easy to make the tracks&slides if you've got a table saw with adjustable depth of the saw-cut. I think sawing aluminium with a good wood-sawblade won't hurt the blade too much, but to be sure I used an old damaged saw blade (hit some screws with it earlier on).
By cutting the grooves in the slides not at the same height, I angled the sliding track 7 degrees as per plans. I'll glue the tracks to the hatch with epoxy fillets, so I won't need to bother with HD inserts and screws.
Tomorrow I'm going on vacation for two weeks, after that I hope I can get the building up to speed a bit again. Still trying to finish the boat before next summer.

Fairing hull

2008-07-08T12:35:00.000-07:00

Last few days I and my brother have been busy sanding the fairing compound on one side of the hull. I actually quite enjoy the sanding, I try to sand about 1,5 hour a day during lunch break and then it's a nice break from the office work.
I believe a trick for succesful/easy fairing is to put a sufficient thick layer of faring compound on to make sure you're able to sand the whole surface down to the required end result in one go. Much easier than to start with a thin layer, filling low spots, sanding, filling more low spots, etc...In my experience filling and sanding low spots is difficult without messing up the surrounding area which previously was fair.

Still a lot of sanding to do before this hull side is ready....

After a while I found myself only working with the four tools below: a bigish longboard (self made of cutof sandwich panel with paper glued with contact glue), a smaller and less wide longboard from a marine supplier shop, a brush and a drywall-trowel (hope that's the english word) to put the fairing compound on.
It's difficult to work on the concave part of the hull with the big(ger) longboard, so I ended up doing almost all of the sanding in that area with the small sanding board. As far as I can see now the result is still fair (enough), but maybe defects will show once some paint is on. Anyway, the bigger part of this hull area will never be seen once the boat is finished because it's under the wingnets.
The drywall trowel works really well: it's much thicker (stiffer!) than the normal iron squeeges and after some practice it's easy to put on a layer of fairing putty with a consistent thickness. I only use metal squeeges - they're easy to clean with just a paint heat gun and a scraper. On the first hull half I have used the 'ridge' method to put the fairing compound on, but on the other half I'll probably skip that step and just trowel a layer on.

Port side windows + mastpost

2008-06-23T23:50:00.000-07:00

Putting on ridges of fairing compound with a candy bag on the port side. This time I put on more ridges than I used to do, about every 5 cm, and this worked better for me.After the ridges have been sanded flush they are used as guides to put two layers of fairing compound on.

Then it's time to sand with the long board (P40). Notice the bad spot above the front window in the picture below? On this spot there was some not cured fairing compound - apparantly not properly mixed by me. Stupid and some extra work....I'll make sure this won't happen again.

I used a different manner than on the starboard side to mark the cutouts. This time I used the templates to mark the outline of the windows, and then used a flexible batten (and some nails) to mark the cutout (2,5 cm overlap window) in stead of just sliding the templates 2,5 cm up/down. I believe this way the cutout is slightly more 'fair'. Not that anyone will ever notice once the windows are glued on.....

The hardwood mastpost is glued in place, and has to be trimmed and glassed to the cabin roof. I'm thinking about putting a lifting eye in the deck just aft of the mast foot (and two lifting eyes just aft of the aft beam mounts), so I'll probably strengthen this area a bit with UD running up on the aft side of the mast post to the deck + some biax on top of that.

With all the basis components and cutouts done, I'll put the hull upside down and start faring the ceiling and sides of the interior and the outside of the hull.

Doing some leftover tasks

2008-06-16T01:36:00.000-07:00

I still had to do the exterior laminate for one beam mount. The other three I laminated while the hull was standing upright on its supports. Stupid: it's much easier to work on the mounts whith the hull laying on its side, like I did with this last mount. You can easily roll the hull on your own.
I have learned it's easiest to laminate the hull-upper folding strut slot corner later on with a light cloth instead of trying to do that while doing the 'main' laminate.

I'm also working on the mast post. It is made of a piece of hardwood. In the picture I'm using soms scrap wood to measure the angle I need to cut the mast post.

Karel Michielsen urged me to strengthen the supports for the anchor well hatch with a filet and a piece of glass, which I thought was a good idea indeed. Here's how I did it.
At the moment I'm also using a lot of time to search for companies to deliver the hardware, masts, sails, etc. I'm having a hard time finding a store to buy the metals and bolts. I bought the 1" stainless steel ball at the ebay-shop of toolsupply (thanks to Grant's blog) but that's about it till now. In the US there are some very nice online stores for small quantities metal, like http://www.industrialmetalsales.com/ and http://www.onlinemetals.com/ in Seattle but the shipping costs of those companies to Europe is very high. Any tips to get metals in Europe (6061 T6 Alu and 316 Stainless) are appreciated!

hatches and cockpit floor

2008-06-02T00:36:00.000-07:00

This weekend Karel Michielsen http://home.ozonline.com.au/f41_sail33/ paid me a visit (he was in Holland meeting family). It was really nice to talk to such an experienced builder. I'll try to pass on some of the tips he gave me in this blog. One of those tips was to put a sanding disk (grit 40 or 80)on the angled grinder and use that to touch up fiberglass seams, spills and generally do all other kinds of sanding.
Maybe this is no news for some, but I had never thought of using the grinder for this kind of work. In Holland the angled grinder is considered by most people to be just a tool for cutting & grinding metal and not a sanding tool. Anyway, I did some tests with the grinder and with some practice it indeed is a perfect tool for cleaning up fiberglass, cutting out bubbles and smoothing tape edges.

Anchor locker hatch will lie on some supports cut out of some leftover sandwich panel.
This is how it will look. I'll not bolt through the hinges. Instead I'll drill oversised holes in the hatch and deck, dig out a bit of foam and then fill with HD putty. Then I'll tap a thread to bolt the hinges with short bolts.
I made a small foam coaming for the forward hatch. Has to be touched up a bit and then I'll put some glass on.
Cockpit floor still has to be doubled. Good opportunity to get rid of the scrap foam pieces. Some of those pieces got a little sunburnt during the last two years. The divinycell is apparently not very UV resistant....

minor progress

2008-05-21T23:49:00.000-07:00

Not much progress last few weeks due to a holiday with the family and nice weather (been sailing my hobie 16 instead of building).

It's getting time to start thinking about the hardware/sails. I'm trying to find some affordable sheet tracks, travellers, tracks & slides for the hatch etc. but that seems impossible in the marine field.
In an attempt to save some money I bought a Rutgerson main sheet traveller second hand, but I'm having second thoughts about it. This traveller is very beefy (and heavy) and way overkill for my boat. I'll probably sell it and buy a new midrange Harken traveller.
All interior panels are taped. I'll leave the interior very basic first, and will decide later (while sailing) what works best. I'm happy I chose the centerboard: cabin looks quite roomy.
Cutting holes is always a scary part. I used a lot of time trying to figure out the right shape and came up with this. Still not really certain if this is 'it', but I guess it's better to just cut it and move on..... Now there's no way back.......

main hatch 2

2008-04-26T06:15:00.000-07:00

Sawing the front end of the main hatch (angled 45 degrees). After that I screwed a piece of foam to the edge to act as a mold plate, and laminated the inner front side with a big filet in the corners to be able to sand a nice radius in the corners before laminating the exterior.
End result (roughly cut)...
Other angle....

Main hatch part 1

2008-04-22T01:13:00.000-07:00

I'm using the hatch cutout-section of the deck to make the hatch. This seems much easier than making a hatch from scratch.
First step is to glue some foam round the edges to get to the required size.
After that I made a mold to laminate the sides and aft side of the hatch. This leaves me some time to think of a way to mold&laminate the front end of the hatch.
Sides & aft-side laminated. Finally something other builders might consider: in the plans the deck stringer is positioned almost against the hatch coaming. That may be the strongest solution, but might be difficult to laminate & get fair. After seeing the picture on the site of Oliver Doms of the coaming-stringer edge I decided to make the hatch cutout 1 cm less deep to get a bit of working space between the coaming and the stringer. Guess this won't hurt the 'integrity' of my boat.

side faired and windows cutout

2008-04-20T02:36:00.001-07:00

After glassing the wingnet tubes I could start to fair the cabin sides. First step is to put on some lines of putty with a candybag, and sand them flush to act as a guide for putting on the main layer of putty.After that the putty is put on. I do this in two layers (second layer when the first layer has not totally cured), as the first layer is usually a lot lower than the guiding lines. After that sanding with diagonal movement of the sanding board. I was afraid the laminate of the wingnet tube would be hard to fair, but that turned out to be very easy.
Got to get the hang of the fairing a bit again. I put on a too thin layer of putty. While fairing I (almost) sanded through the layer on a couple of spots too quickly, making it very time consuming to finish the sanding in these areas (got to be very careful round these spots).
To mark the 2,5 cm overlap of the window on the hull it's easiest to just hold the window template 2,5 cm lower and mark the cutout line.
Final result...
I will first fill the edges, and then sand them to get rid of some small jigsawing-swaying.
In the process of cutting out parts for this boat I have ruined countless jigsaw-blades - till now. I switched to using an abrasive jigsaw blades in stead of normal blades, and this works perfect. I read this tip on the tips&tricks section (plywood/glass) of Michael Leneman's site www.multimarine.com.

forward bulkhead flange + window templates

2008-04-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

I used some leftover divinycell foam to make the mold for the forward beam bulkhead flange. Worked OK, you've only got to use the heat gun a bit to form the lower corner. After laminating the flange I'll use the foam to double the cockpit floor. Trial fit of the templates for the windows. Plans state they should be placed vertical in the middle of the flat side..... ehm right...which middle? We decided to put the aft end of the aft window in the middle, and keep the lower end of the windows parralel with the gunwale line. The windows are about 3,5 cm above the level of the top of the beam mounts (I scribed this line on the hull with the laser level this weekend).
NOTE 20/4/08: the vertical line on the picture below is the position of the main bulkhead. When cutting out the windows I decided to put the windows about 3 cm further back than shown on this picture, as the front of the window was a bit too close to the beam mounts to my liking.I find it difficult to judge if the windows are in the right place. I'd like to stand back a little further, but that's not possible in my workshop.

When I'm satisfied with the place of the window-templates I'll drill some holes to mark their position and then first fair the cabin sides before cutting out the windows.

cabin floor + wingnet support tube

2008-04-14T01:27:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of small tasks lately (finishing taping etc.) with no visible progress. Yesterday however me and my brother Hans got some new items done....

In the centerboard version of the F22 putting in the forward cabin floor is mandatory. I preformed a flange on the 'front' of the floor....
...and used some cheap&light foam to form the other gluing flanges (same trick I used for the cockpit coaming). This week I'll put the floor in.
With the beam mount laminations complete we could continue to glue the wingnet support on the hull. I'm going for the 'tube' option - maybe a bit more difficult to fair, but much cleaner than mounting a support with a whole row of bolts through the hull.
We first tried to locate the position of the tube by guesstimating where the gunwale edge should have been (the edge is gone because I had to round it prior to laminating) but this didn't work very well. Luckily I recently bought a not too expensive laser level - this worked perfect.
Tube in place with some temporary screws and fixed with dots of glue. I'm fitting a tube for the optional bow net as well.
First pass with putty and almost ready for laminating.

Interior panels

2008-03-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

Getting a bit fed up doing the laminations on the beam mounts, I decided to first do some of the interior panels.
I'm making a straight side on the starboard settee, with three access holes. For this panel I used lighter, cheaper, foam than the standard divinycell whicht turned out to be a big mistake. Very weak and therefore difficult to work with.
Later on I'll probably put in a raised floor. Not fixed, but removable panels resting on some edge glued to the centerboard case and the side panel shown below.
Also test-fitted the storage compartiment panel. It's running parallel with the settee-fronts and on all points at the same height relative to the settee. It looks a bit odd because the hull-side area between the panel and the settee is much wider at the front of the panel than near the main bulkhead. I'll wait a bit and make sure I want to keep the panel like this before taping it in place. I'll have to fill & sand the outside of the beam mounts a bit more before I can glass it. In the right lower corner I used a lot of putty while glassing from the inside. This is handy because it's easy to shape this corner without having to be afraid to sand into the glass.

Front beam mount

2008-03-19T02:16:00.001-07:00

Last mold for this beam mount. I used a hot glue gun to put and keep the mold pieces in place and stuck to each other. Very easy, should have used it earlier on.
In the front mold area (inner side, of course) I used a lot of putty in all corners, to be able to shape the protruding area on the outside without sanding into the glass. Sounds like Abracadabra? In one of the next posts I'll be able to show what I mean with a picture.
Inner laminate on the right front beam mount is in place. It took me longer than expected (over three hours) to get this job done - both sides of the mount - and I finished at about half past one in the morning. It's very busy at the moment at work and at home, so working in the evenings/nights is necessary to keep going.
I tried to laminate the "C" glass in one big piece, as I did on the rear beam mounts. This just doesn't work on the front mounts. What worked for me was: laminate beam bracket area and a bit up + overlap on hull with one piece, lapping out about 6 cm on mount. Then laminate over mold plate and up, overlapping hull and lapping out on mount. Then one piece over the mount and the bulkhead.
Then you get something looking like this......
In an earlier post I said using the angled grinder is a good way to cut the beam bracket area flush, and that is still true. However, I found out using an old saw, pressed 'flush' to the hull, works even better and with lesser mess. Dark photo alert.

Trimming coaming

2008-03-16T02:40:00.001-07:00

Trimming the coaming with a piece of 18 mm mdf and a sander (40 grit) . Beside this I've been busy taping the underside of the cockpit seats.

cockpit coaming + work on front beam mounts

2008-03-15T01:38:00.001-07:00

Mold for the compression pad. Clamped in place with two wooden sticks. Same mold, seen from the other side.
I decided to leave a small coaming in the cockpit aft of the beam mounts. The coaming has been roughly cut, dug out and filled with putty, and is taped to the cockpit seat. Once cured, I'll trim the edge using a sander & grit 40.
Stern also has been roughly cut and filled. Once cured I'll sand it back to match the final outline.

main work on cockpit done

2008-03-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

With the coamings in place I only have to double the floor (and do some small things like filling the hatches-edges) to finish the cockpit.
I tried to get a nice picture, but it's not possible to stand back far enough. Hope this one will give an idea.
I have to decide what to do with the coaming aft of the beam mounts. Plans say I can leave a small edge here, or trim the coaming flush with the seat tops. I'm a bit in doubt here. It will be easiest and most 'clean' looking to trim the coaming flush, but without a coaming it will be very easy for things to drop into the water. On the other hand: maybe a 2 cm high ridge won't help much in this respect.
So.... I'l probably trim the coaming flush with the seats, and if that turns out to be a mistake I'll ad a sort of ridge (wood?) later on.

Any ideas are appreciated. Always nice to get real comments in stead of the 'Look Here and Here' spambot-comments.

I also cut the beam mount bolting area flush with the hull. An angled grinder works really well for this kind of jobs (lots of dust, though). As you may notice, most of the pre-molded sides of the beam mount bolting area are cut away, so it's no use to trim the home-molded side beforehand to exactly match the Farrier-molded side (as I have seen some other builders do).

Cockpit coaming panels

2008-02-28T03:56:00.000-08:00

To make the flanges to glue the top of the coaming to, I made some molds of cheap insulation foam. Like this.

Then I rounded the corner of the foam a bit to bend the tape round the corner, laminated a piece of tape on the foam and put the foam+ tape in place with some screws.

Final result wasn't pretty but in my opinion good enough. After all it's just a gluing flange and no one will ever see it. Top held in place with some woodblocks+screws to let the glue set.
Almost ready.... I have to tidy it up a bit and sand corners round etc. After that it will be covered with one piece of cloth.
To solve the problem with the opening in the coaming-storage-floor at the beam mount, I made a small 5 cm high wall in that area to prevent water in the storage compartiment to run into the main hull. Like this the water won't run into the boat, but air can flow from within the hull through the gap at te mount to the (still to cut) hatch in the coaming.

The idea is like this the coaming-storage will act as a sort of ventilation-box. I hope it's clear what I mean.

cockpit coaming.

2008-02-25T06:06:00.000-08:00

Cockpit coaming in place with temporary wood blocks on the in- and outside. I used a level to mark the outline of the inner side of the coaming to the outer side of the coaming (so the top will sit level - hopefully).
To fit the top I need to make some flanges, but how? I think it's a bit tight to do it with a mold (very difficult to get underneath with tape, brush and putty). For places like this I'm tempted to just glue a piece of wood to the inside to make the inside join, but I will resist the temptation and think of something else.
In the coaming-storage area there is a big hole with direct acces to the quarter-bed-area in the hull (as can be seen on the first photo of the last post - you can see the light shining from below). I'll have to do something about this, as the coaming-storage will be accessible from the cockpit and will probably collect a lot of rainwater and I don't want it running into the main hull. To be continued....

port cockpit seat

2008-02-24T08:26:00.001-08:00

Port cockpit fronts and cockpit seat are glued in place. I decided not to make mold flanges to glue the seat on, but to tape all joints through the hatches in the cockpit fronts, as this is probably a bit stronger than gluing to a flange.
I'll first finish the whole port side before moving on to the starboard side, so I can first discover the best way to do it and not make the same mistakes twice......
... like forgetting to bevel and round the edges of the mount-gap in the cockpitseat prior to fitting: now I have to grind the edge from the inside/underside. Not fun work.
Forward hatch opening has been cut out. I'll probably just bed the hatch on some putty to keep it as low as possible, and not make a big foam/glass coaming.

cockpit panels

2008-02-19T00:14:00.000-08:00

With the laminations on one beam mount ready, I can move on fitting the cockpit panels. Something I've been looking forward to do for a long time.
I used a router to cut out the hatches in the cockpit seat fronts.
It worked well, it's a neater job than working with the jigsaw. A bit work to make the mold, but after that it's easy and fast to route out the four identical hatches.
Trial fit of the panels. After only a little bit of trimming all panels fit well.
A bit of trimming and removing of excess glassfiber makes the beam mount look a lot better. It's a shame I didn't remove the hygrometer (black thing) when taking the picture. It's blocking the view on my, ahem, excellent glassing job.
Filling the gap between the hull and the molds from the outside before removing the molds paid of: a nice straight edge to work on in the future.
Thursday I will take a day of and my brother will come and help me, so I hope to make good progress that day. Till then no time for building.

paranoia & "hey stupid" part 4

2008-02-18T03:50:00.000-08:00

The building is slowing down lately, mainly because I've been neglecting my normal work a bit in favor of the building, and now have to catch up with some tasks at the office. Also I've lost a lot of time just standing and looking at the mounts, wondering if they were glued in place accurately enough.

I found it harder than I thought to get the job done right. After removing the jigs I found out the rear beam mounts were a massive 1 - 1,5 degrees out of line (vertically). I probably relied too much on the jigs and should have worked harder to check with the level. Stupid, stupid, I know.
Problem is the area which can be used best for this check is the beam bolting area, and this area is covered by the jigs when you glue the mounts to the hull.

The devil inside kept saying "Don't bother, just let it be or pull the mount in line a bit when laminating the walls of the mounts." but in the end I probably did the clever thing (at least for my ease of mind). I cut the bracket bolting area loose. With the mounts only fitted to the beam bulkhead, which has a bit of play as it is only fixed on the bottom side, I could quite easily position the mounts leveled right (few mm repositioning at the top) and glued them again to the hullside.

Then it was finally time to do the lamination. Looks quite messy like this, doesnt it? Next post I'll show the mount cleaned and trimmed, guess it will look much better.

My cunning plan is to fill the outside gaps with the mold still in place. This should give a nice clean & straight outer edge to work on when doing the outside laminations.
I had another "paranoia" moment when I put a G10-tube into the UFS pivot holes, and noticed on one mount the tube was not pointing straight forward, but was clearly visible bearing away to the center of the boat. This was caused by the two holes in the mount being about 1 mm (2,5 degrees) out of line.
Being - as I know now: overly - concerned about any error and misalignment in the folding system, I mailed Ian Farrier about it. Got a very quick and comprehensive answer, explaining among other things it's difficult to get the alignment of those holes exactly right every time, and given the play in the bushing of the pivot-pin it's not necesarry to alter or fix it. If I want I can fix it though......but I think I'll pass.

"Stuck on you"

2008-02-10T23:40:00.000-08:00

.....Guess I'm on my way.... hum hum hum
I didn't have time this week to get much work done, but yesterday I glued the beam mounts in place. So now they're stuck on the hull and I hope at all the right angles and distances.

I checked with Ian Farrier about the protruding area at the front mount (see foregoing post), and this is indeed how it's supposed to be.
He sent a very helpful sheet with some distances to check, as I did, and all was well. Having this kind of backup by the designer while building is a big advantage and adds a lot of value to the plans, which are by the way already excellent and very good value for money in their own right.

I do not have a clear idea how much misalignment can be mended when installing the beams. Reading the plans is not really reassuring ('1 mm error is acceptable' - 'oh that's nice, I only erred 0,5 mm'). Honestly I find it hard to believe I can build all these big pieces together with this kind of accuracy. I just do the best I can and hope the best will be good enough.

As an extra to the standard jigs I made a square panel between the front and aft beam mounts, to be absolutely sure the centerpoint fore and aft is accurate and to be sure the mounts are all aligned square. With this and all the other jigs in place, I couldn't think of anything to improve the accuracy of the alignment so it was gluing time.
I spy with my little eye and it is....
...a piece of foam in the upper strut recess, sanded flush to use as a mold for putty-filling + protection from putty getting into the recess.

Looks like the A-team is building a boat, right? We taped some foam as mold plates to assist the filling. It didn't come out quite the way I hoped, but this will be easily mended with one extra go of putty from the outside.

Beam mounts, part 2

2008-02-05T04:01:00.000-08:00

Me and my brother started cutting out the beam mount openings. It's a bit scary to cut such big openings in the hull, but it needs to be done.

It took us a long time to get the hull level. We worked on one support at a time, using two car jacks to fine tune the height. The topside of the straight, long, piece of MDF you can see sticking outside the hull was our reference while leveling. This piece runs through the hull to both sides, and is clamped on the inside at the right height - that is: at the gunwaleline which is (and should be!) marked on all the beam bulkheads. Maybe it's possible to use a laser level to mark all the lines at the right height on the sloping areas, but we did this low tech with a tube of water and a yardstick hanging or standing at the right distance from the top of the crossboard (see above picture). Hold one end of the tube near the yardstick and the other near the hull, make sure the water is level with the end of the yardstick, and make some marks on the hull. Connect the dots and you have a - granted: not very accurate, but accurate enough - level line to work with. Trial fit of mount. We thought that I had made a very, very,very, very big mistake somewhere earlier on when we first looked at the result. The outer end of the bracket area on the front of the front beam mount was not inside, but a few cm outside the hull. The stick I'm holding indicates where the 'wall' of the beam mount will be formed. I was very concerned as I couldn't find a clear reference to this gap in the plans.
That was too much for our nerves, and we decided to call it a day. Back home I was relieved to see that the F22 build for Oliver doms has the same protruding area on the front beam mount assembly. To be absolutely sure this is how it is meant to be I mailed Ian. I don't want to take any chance fitting these important parts. Now just hope and pray it's ok.

Things I have to attach in a certain way to the hull, part 1.

2008-02-04T12:04:00.000-08:00

It wasn't too hard and actually good fun to laminate extensions on some things I have to attach to the hull. To do the topside extensions I found it easy to clamp the things to some timber with some extra pieces of something as a spacer. I'm not going to show you exactly how I did it. You just have to experiment yourself and you'll probably see.
As other builders I didn't want to drill holes in these things to attach the mold, and used clamps instead on the first two things. This is pointless. The things have to be drilled anyway to attach some other things later on. So it's much easier - as I did with two other similar things - to just drill the holes and attach the mold with bolts.
I tried to find a bolt with the correct thickness to attach the things to something else. Apparently, a bolt with this certain thickness is not readily available in Europe, probably because we use the metric system and not feet, inches, stones, pounds, miles and the like. Anyway, instead I used a tube with the correct diameter and a bolt fitting exactly in it. Succes! Anyone building in Europe can have mine to save some time and money once I'm done with the abovementioned things. Just let me know.
No copyright infringement intended.

Anchor well in place

2008-01-30T23:52:00.001-08:00

Before fitting the anchorwell I put some fairing compound on the visible areas and sanded it down a bit. I didn't try to get it perfect.
Then put a thin flat basecoat of normal white housepaint on top of that. In real it looks better than the photo suggests. Because it's a thin coat the gray fairing putty shows through. Also on the picture the paint is still wet and a bit shiney, highlighting the defects.
Below the anchorwell is fitted, but has to be taped yet. I only had a template for cutting the aft side of the well, and made the well fit by doing some measuring, cutting and trimming of the front end. Not too much work.

Painting the front side of the boat was a good experiment to decide on the kind of finish. I think with a bit more fairing and sanding painting the inside with flat paint would give a good enough finish without too much work. But I think I will go for a 'zolatone-finish', which should be better. I'll try to get some more informationg about zolatone.

But now I can stop working the interior for a while, because yesterday the beam mounts arrived. I hope to level the boat this weekend and start cutting the beam-mount openings.

main hatch coaming & anchor well

2008-01-28T23:49:00.000-08:00

The beam mounts are shipped but haven't arrived yet. In the meantime I'll keep on working on some smaller projects. Like the main hatch coaming.

I first laminated the corners of the hatch coaming, like this.
Also pre-laminated the end of the coaming with tape (this plies much easier than the normal cloth). Like this (tape has to be trimmed yet),

After that it wasn't difficult to laminate the sides and front of the coaming with the specified two layers A. To keep this heavy cloth from lifting in the corners I used the two tricks I know: a bit of putty before laying down the cloth (thanks Jay for this tip) and using plastic over the laminate. As I was still not certain the cloth stayed put I ended up using some pieces of wood and some clamps.

Succes! Glad I can move on to new parts of the boat. It feels like I've been working on the hatch coamings for ages. It proved to be much more work than I thought.

One of the projects is a hull-extention. When I planked the mainhull I figured it didn't matter how far the coamings on the side would extend, as long as they would extend beyond the aft beam bulkhead. Later I received the update of the plans with the instructions for installing the beam mounts, and it seems aft of the aft beam bulkhead a small portion of coaming will be used. So I had to extend the coaming a bit:
More work in progress: laminating the anchor well. I first laminated the outside, let it cure, then the inside, and put the well back on the former to make sure it cured in the right shape.

Hey stupid! part 3

2008-01-23T00:10:00.000-08:00

Making mistakes is part of the building (at least part of my building) and as you may have noticed I decided to show them even though some are a bit embarassing. I hope others will benefit from it.

When I made the hatch coaming I figured it would be best to start it at the beginning of the deck-main bulkhead radius:

Then I realised the aft side of the hatch will slide on the coaming and drop down at the end of the coaming. The coaming should thus be extended to be level with the aft side of the main bulkehead, or els the aft end of the hatch can (will?) drop down on the cabin gusset and on the hatch slides.

Fixing it: molds of foam scraps to extend the coaming with some putty.

Putty out of the mold.

Coaming + putty end shaped and ready for lamination.

Main hatch flanges + hull supports

2008-01-21T04:09:00.000-08:00

Laminating the flange for the 'doorway' (don't know the proper word); four layers A-cloth. I used some scrap wood + clamps to keep the cloth bent around the former.

This worked well....
Flange roughly cut.
Hull is standing on two supports made of scrap MDF with some tube-insulation; works really well. I'll have to get the hull leveled yet and will probablye use an car-jack to fine tune the supports.
Picture to get an idea of the size of the hatch.

I'm still waiting for the Beam Mounts. They should arrive this week and I think it will take about a week to install them.

Bow bulkhead and main hatch

2008-01-15T07:48:00.000-08:00

As I expected, glueing and laminating the bow bulkhead was not a nice job to do (understatement). I made the 'hatch' in the bow bulkhead by laminating a rim on top of the section I cut out of the bulkhead. The hatch will be fastened with screws. You may notice the cutout section is not fully centered. It is 5-7 mm too far to the right. I don't know how this happened. Maybe I made a mistake cutting the section or maybe while fitting the bulkhead I didn't trim the left and right side equally. Luckily it will be out of sight once the anchor well is in place.

The main hatch opening cutout and coamings are glued in place. Nice job to do! A very big hatch (nice). The boat immediately feels much roomier inside.
My plan is to use the cutout section of the roof to make the hatch. It already has the right shape, I only need to add some extra cm's foam at the sides.
My brother is helping me. Here he's forming the foam for the anchorwell. In the plans I'm missing the template for the front of the well. I'll ask Ian about it.

update on progress

2008-01-09T01:51:00.000-08:00

Hull laminating is ready. I've got to wait for the beam mounts (expected this month) before I can continue. In the meantime I'm doing some small jobs like cutting out the anchorwell hatch and fitting the bow bulkhead.
It's easy to move and roll the hull on your own. I lift the hull with two rope hoists (one near the anchorwell and one near the main bulkehead) and once it's hanging free just turn it in whatever position you want and drop it on some foam pads.

Exterior almost lamiated..

2007-12-28T06:27:00.000-08:00

Cabin side + upper hull have been laminated. Now I only need to do the lower hull and the extra layers on the keel and at the beammounts to finish the exterior laminate.
The hull is still light enough to move around on my own.

Deck laminated

2007-12-25T01:28:00.000-08:00

With the hull on the laying on the ground it's much easier working. This picture is prior to laminating. I made three rebated areas for glass overlap with the electric planer: two on the side of the deck and one about 50 cm in front of the beam-bulkhead.
Deck is now laminated with UD in place and plastic on top. With the help of my brother it took about 2,5 hours with preparation.

Hull out of frames

2007-12-23T11:36:00.000-08:00

The hull is out of the frames and hanging in two loops from the ceiling. Now I have to get rid of all (the remains of) the battens and frames and strongback before I can put the hull on the ground and continue laminating.
I'll glass the deck first, so I can turn the hull upside down without risking damageing the foam.

Job done

2007-12-14T00:30:00.000-08:00

Laminating the lower half of the hull in one go took me 5 hours without any break. Over all I'm quite pleased with the results. No bubbles and as far as I can judge a good resin-cloth ratio.

This is the quality of the laminate I was aiming for.
However, on some spots I just couldn't get this quality. For some reason the cloth kept some wite-ish small spots, no matter how much epoxy I added. The cloth is laying flat against the foam, no bubble. This problem (or is it?) has occured on all laminates till now, pre-wetted or not, pre-coated or not and with and without peelply and plastic. I think it looks a bit like the 'bad' spots Grant (see link section) found when laminating with peelply and plastic.

That is a lot of glass!

2007-12-13T01:02:00.000-08:00

Foam pre-coated with a thin coat epoxy (hull-half took one kg epoxy). Carefully sanded 80 grit with orbital sander. Vacuum-cleaned (twice) and cloth is already laying in place smooth. All heaters in the workshop have been turned on this morning to get and keep it at 20 degrees celsius.
Now I only have to take the afternoon off from work and properly wet out this 9 square meters of cloth within 4 hours. Easy enough..........hopefully.

First exterior laminate

2007-12-10T23:42:00.000-08:00

Cabin side + gunwale area + part of deck are laminated with plastic on top. On the deck I made a rabbet with the electric planer as this is supposed to ease the fairing of the overlap of the cloth. Although I'm not really convinced it is necessary in this spot (deck will need a lot of fairing anyway because of the extra layers glass) it's not a lot of work on a flat surface like the deck, so I decided to go along.

Here is the laminate with plastic in place....

...and here the plastic is removed. The 'plastic without peelply-technique' results in a very smooth shiny surface with the weave of the cloth filled. It's not difficult to sand it 'dull' without sanding (too much) in the fibres.
Lesson learned: don't try to 'plastic' multiple-curved surfaces with one big sheet of plastic, or you'll mainly be busy trying to get rid of creases. The creases fill up with epoxy, leaving a ridge after removing the plastic. It's much easier to work with overlapping 70 cm wide pieces of plastic. Luckily it'ts easy to remove the ridge.

I'm happy using the 'plastic' technique (not a single bubble this time), although like with most things it takes some practice.

Some lessons learned the hard way:

It's still important to wet out and smooth out the cloth as well
as you can before putting on the plastic: with the plastic on it's easy to get rid of small imperfections and air-bubbles and excess resin, but NOT to shift the cloth in a major way, and
I hoped it would be possible to use the 'dry-method' with plastic, but that didn't work. On the spots I didn't pre-wet I still had a hard time to get the cloth well adhered to the foam: it just doesn't tack to the foam right away on all spots, and adding more epoxy is of no use. Does this sound familiar to other builders using divinycell? On spots with putty/ply I don't experience this problem. So it's obvious: I should build a ply stich&glue boat!
Now serious: I'm planning to see if it helps to coat the foam with a thin layer of epoxy and let it cure before laminating so I can use the 'dry method' for the lower hull half exterior.

Foam-fairing

2007-12-07T02:34:00.000-08:00

Working hard to get the hull ready for sheeting.

I'm pre-filling the edges of the anchorwell hatch with putty. My idea is this will give a better result than digging out the foam after laminating and cutting out the hatch. I intended to use a router to dig out the foam, but couldn't because aera in the forward section is not flat.

Instead I used a screwdriver: I 'cut' the inner and outer outline by pricking the screwdriver in the foam and then it's very easy to dig out the foam. Maybe it would have been even easier to cut the outline with a knive or chisel, but I didn't think of it. Anyway, this was much easier than using the router. Why do I always forget to do it the simple way?

Next photo's show the way I rounded the edge of the deck to the cabin side.

Marking lines at 2,5 cm from the edge. I tapered (??) the flat area a bit at the front of the cabin to end up about twice as small at the start of the cabin-deck edge.

'Fire up your planer' - to make a flat side
Two more flat areas are planed on the edges of the first planed flat area. The 'rounding' now consists of three flat areas. I tried to mark the outline of the two new flats, but that was pretty useless (not accurate enough)
Finishing: sand the four edges of the three flats down a bit, then round the whole edge with diagonal strokes of the longboard (lonboard of course in line with the edge). It came out pretty decent. Maybe some small highs and lows, but I can't fix that in this stage. The foam is too soft: when I fix one spot I'll probably sand a bit too far on another spot of the edge. I'll get it totally right when fairing the exterior with putty.

Starting exterior

2007-12-03T07:55:00.000-08:00

The last interior panel has been taped. I'll leave the interior for now until I can put the hull upright.
I had forgotten how easy it is to sand the foam (using grit 40). It's actually quite nice and quick work. My twinbrother sanded most of the lower half of the hull in one afternoon. The bow stilll needs some work. By the way, the foam-strip-longboard (see foregoing post) works ok, but so does a much more rigid longboard I made from a two-side laminated foamstrip.
Centerboard case has been trimmed with an electric planer to roughly match the hull. First I'll fill all the gaps, then I'll sand the last bit with a longboard.
Yet another picture of the sanded hull....
I'm also starting work on the deck. In the cutout-areas of the deck I'll put some putty in place before laminating. Afterwards I can just cut the section without having to dig out and fill the foam-edges. Here is an example of the pre-filled edge for the hole in the bow. I use a very accurate festool router to remove approximately 19 mm of the 20 mm foam thickness.

Next I'll have to round the edges of the deck to the cabin-side and the hull. The plans state it can be well rounded, but how? Should I do it just with a longboard and some guesstimating (flatten the corner with a longboard - I mean: sand the corner down to for instance a 3 cm wide flat ridge and then round the two 'new' corners with a longboard)? Or maybe I can do the edges with a piece of PVC-pipe with sandpaper glued within, but it might be difficult to get a nice even corner on a long stretch.
If anyone has a good trick or tip I would be really glad.

Main Bulkhead, cockpit floor & mast support web

2007-11-27T06:49:00.001-08:00

After taping the main bulkhead, taping the ruddermount on the inside and making some flanges I could glue the cockpitfloor. I also glued the mast support web in place (not taped yet).

Cockpitfloor flange + plenty glue

Cockpitfloor glued and temporarily held in place with woodblocks and a piece of wood between the beam bulkheads to keep the floor straight.

Mast support web tacked in place prior to taping.

As I'm almost done taping the interior panels, I have to prepare for the dreaded longboarding. I'm experimenting with a poor-man's longboard: it's just a piece of foam with one layer of tape on top and two wooden blocks as handles. I tried to glue sandpaper with spray glue, but that didn't stick. After that I used ready made wallpaper glue: this works ok but takes a while to set enough. If the longboard works well, I'll make a few so I'll never have to wait for the glue to set.
Once I've done some sanding I'll report if the longboard works. I hope so: it's cheap to make and VERY light.

Bunktop & Rudder Web

2007-11-23T04:47:00.000-08:00

The second half of the bunktop has been glued in the hull. First I had to make a flange in the most forward section, as the underside of the top can't be reached in this spot. I was in doubt if it would be easier to use the alternative for a flange as described in the plans (drop panel in a bead of putty and tape the underside and upperside of the panel only 'up') but decided it would probably be stronger to form a proper flange. This turned out to be much easier than I thougt (nearly straight section).

Flange mold...

Second half of bunktop glued in place. I use wooden blocks with screws to temporarily fix the panel. The screw-holes will be filled while taping the joints. It is very satisfying to put these large panels in the hull - it really makes a big difference in the way the hull looks on the inside.

Glueing the ruddermount with a level to check it's ..ehm..level. It's held in place with some wooden sticks, one screw and the tube (which is held at the right height with a piece of wood clamped to form frame 12).

My plan is to do all the internal taping of the ruddermount before placing the second cockpitfloor panel, instead of doing it later. To me doing it now seems much easier than trying to tape the mount through a temporary hole in the cockpitfloor (as per plans). Or am I missing something here?

Internal taping

2007-11-20T06:37:00.000-08:00

Most of the internal taping and extra laminates have been done now. Instead of using peel ply I experimented using plastic on top of the fabric.
First impression:

it's very easy to see where there's air in the laminate, and its very easy to get rid of the air by squeeging the bubble to the edge of the plastic;

it's difficult to know for sure, but to me it seems the cloth is much more 'compact' and well adhered;

after removing the plastic the surface is very smooth with the weave (almost) filled; it will probably be easy to sand it without sanding too much into the cloth;

unlike working with peel ply it's easy to see what is happening to the cloth;

the edge of the cloth blends in very nice;

the plastic-trick works for flat surfaces and doesn't work in corners (can't plie it without a lot of wrinkels)

The first results are encouraging and I''ll go on using this technique. For now I only used it to laminate on top of already sheeted foam, I'm not sure it will work as well on bare foam. We'll see.

I tried to take some nice pictures, but I wasn't able to get very good ones.
Posting them anyway....

deck stringer glued to roof

laminated with UD + C + P(lastic)
plastic removed
foam bedded for placing rudder web
Laminating the last layer of cloth (UD) on the rudder web, this time in an ordinary garbage bag, heated to speed up curing

Bow and little things

2007-11-14T13:25:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately I did not make much progress this week. I've been busy closing in the bow with foam and taping that section. Not much fun: difficult working laying twisted inside the hull. Luckily it's done now. Before I can fit the second half of the bunk top I have to finish the bobstay anchor.

Bobstay anchor: foam with putty insert.

Bobstay anchor: middle section cut.

Bobstay anchor: wow, that is a lot of carbon!

Laminating the bobstay anchor wasn't a big succes. Laminating ('wrapping') pieces this small is still not my cup of tea. To continue moaning: the fit in the hull wasn't very good either. But it's no use crying over spilled milk. Currently the final layer of C is curing so tomorrow I'll glue the anchor in place and be done with it. I decided to try use vacuum to force the last layer of cloth tight around the piece. I used an ordinary shopping-bag and a tie-wrap. This works really well.

poor man's vaccum bag?

I'm also working on the rudder web. I made two jigs to glue the gudgeons exactly alligned.

Hull joined!

2007-11-09T01:53:00.000-08:00

When trial fitting the hull-halves I noticed some gaps, especially in the bow section (ranging from a few mm to app. 1,5 cm). Maybe the upper half distorted a bit because I was not able to support it much (as I had to lift it out of the way), or maybe this will always happen a bit in the areas where there is some tension in the foam and the marine ply insert (because of all the bending).

Luckily this didn't turn out to be a problem. To be sure of a very tight join, and for ease of mind, I thought out a way to clamp the halves together. Here is what I did:

On the outside of the upper half I screwed a batten along the whole joint, held in place with scrap piece of wood which overlap the joint. See the picture below. In the bow section I couldn't use woodblocks, so I only used screws (the joint is not flat in this area). Picture of the extra batten on the outside.
The preparation took about one hour (taking it easy mode) and was well worth it. After putting some putty on the joint it was simply a matter of clamping the battens together - 2 meters at a time, starting from the bow - and correcting any misalignment by screweing some extra blocks to the outside batten to pull the battens in line. See the picture below. By the way: this part had a gap, and needed more clamps than usual.
After aligning and clamping the battens together, I fixed them with some screws and went on clamping the next two meters. The whole process only took about one hour (taking it easy mode).
Result: an IMO very nice joint.

We 2 are almost 1

2007-11-05T06:15:00.000-08:00

Trial fit of the two hull-halves. A plunge bob is used to put the halves straight on top of each other. I used the beam-bulkheads at gunwale level as a reference point, as they are by far the most accurately placed parts in the hull halfs.
Impression of joined hull (rotated, of course). Looks quite roomy for a relatively small boat.

Bow web - part 2

2007-11-05T00:30:00.001-08:00

Laminating the bow web. I did the first layer with one piece of DB. Not a very good idea (duh), just too much curves and overlaps to wrap it nicely this way. No pictures of the rest of the laminating. Let's just say 'wrapping' is not my favourite work. For the last layer I worked with several pieces of bi-axial tape (15 cm wide, I cut it in half for taping bulkheads etc.) and this went much better than the first layer. This tape is really bendable and doesn't fall apart the moment you cut it (unlike the DB cloth I used for the first layer).I screwed a piece of scrap foam to the bow and 'surformed' it level, to make a nice fitting foam insert to place the bow web on top.
I bedded the foam-insert in glue, then glued the bow web on top and used the squeezed out glue to more-or-less form a fillet on the inside. After that I taped on the inside in the still wet fillet, thinking this would give a better bond than waiting for the glue to set and trying to sand in this difficult to reach area.

I wasn't really pleased with the way the bow web looked, as it was a bit chunky and messy because of all the glass overlaps and carbon-tapes. However, after fitting the bow web it became clear how little of it will ever be visible again. Of course I knew that by reading the plan, but somehow it's different to see it right before your eyes in stead of on a piece of paper. The front of the bow web is the only 'messy' place visible. I'll tidy it up after glassing the outside of the hull.

Bow web - part 1

2007-11-01T05:40:00.000-07:00

I can't work further on the main hull because I didn't finish the bow web in time.
Ian sent me the G10-tubing necessary for making the web. Wow, those tubes are............expensive. I guess the mechanical properties of the tubes justify their price.
I left the foam of the bow web a bit oversize to hold the G10-tube in place. After filling I'll cut it back to the correct size.
Filling complete. I only have to fill the HD-insert for the bow pole before I can laminate the web.

lamination almost complete

2007-10-31T00:33:00.001-07:00

Last few days I've laminated the gunwale area and the cabin side, planked the deck and laminated the deck. I glued the deck-foam with putty instead of PU-glue and this worked much better (see earlier post about glueing the deck of the first hull half).
Although I worked really hard to get it right, there were still some bad spots and bubbles in the laminate. I know, it's not a big deal to patch them but it was still very frustrating. I thougth I should by now be able to make a flawless laminate. I suspect using the peelply might be part of the problem, as I was sure the laminate was perfect before I put it on. Maybe the laminate has shifted/lifted while I was putting the peel ply on. For the future (outer skin) I'm going to try to laminate the large areas without peelply.

Picture of the aft beam bulkhead, held in place with a jig (see the posts about building the first hull half).

Now I'll only have to fix the front beam bulkhead and make and fit the bow web before I can join the two halves. Looking forward to that.....

bit of progress

2007-10-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

I know, last few posts show the same sort of pictures of a half build half-hull over and over again. In case people are interested in the progress I'll post them anyway.

gunwale area + cabin side plankedcloth cut prior to laminating

I ran out of cloth (again!), while I thought I now had ordered plenty to finish the whole project. GRRRR have to use precious time to get a few meters of 400 gr cloth.
Maybe I'll try to laminate the gunwale + cabinside this evening (or maybe I'll stay at home for a change).

lower hull half laminated

2007-10-22T00:26:00.001-07:00

Lower hull half has been laminated with the help of my brother. Temperature is dropping in Hollland. I have to use three small heaters to keep the workshop the recommended minimum of 24 hours at minium of approximately 18 degrees C.
I'll plank and laminate this hull half in three steps: first the lower part (done), then the gunwale area and cabin side (in progress) and finally the deck. This will result in one extra glass-overlap compared to the 'two-step' I did on my first hull half, but it's much easier when working alone (better access and smaller areas to laminate).

Been there, seen that, done that

2007-10-19T00:52:00.000-07:00

It took me quite some time to finish the planking of the second hull-half. It's slow work because of the restricted space. Anyway, the lower hull is almost done. Today I'll 'dremel' the grooves between the planks and fill them with bog. Hopefully I'll be able to laminate on sunday.

Second Half started!

2007-10-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Repositioning and leveling the strongback....

Tube filled with water to check the level along the whole length of the strongback.

Frames and battens in place.
First planks in the mold. My broter Hans again lend a (big) hand. We tried a 40 cm wide foam-strip on this half, but that turned out to be too wide to be handled with ease. After that we used 20 to 25 cm wide strips, like we did on the first half.

(not so floppy) whale part 2

2007-10-12T06:37:00.000-07:00

I was afraid the hull half would be a very difficult to handle floppy 'blob', but the opposite is true. Even though this half is only sheated on the inside, it's already very rigid, I guess mainly because the floor, settee and bunktop have been fixed.

"Free Willy"

Hanging by a thread from the ceiling....
Because of the height of the workshop in the back, I can't lift this hull half very high. Only about 20 cm above the frames. I put one frame on the strongback to see how much space there is. Well, not much as you can see.
I'll have to figure out how to position the built half and the strongback/frames the best way. First attempt will be to position the strongback and the hull-half a bit crosswise.

It will be really cramped, but at least I don't have to cut belly-holes in my frame like Henny did.....

operation 'floppy whale' part 1

2007-10-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

After fitting the settee a few days ago and taping the last joints, the hull was ready to be lifted out of the mold.
Tip for other builders: the dimensions given in the plan for the settee, the cockpit-floor and the bunktop are the dimensions for the underside of these panels. Because the hullside is angled a lot where these panels meet the hullside, there is quite a big gap on the topside (at least, if you cut the outer sides of the panels straight, like I did). Of course this gap can be filled while taping, but it's probably easier to cut the outer sides of the panels with a jigsaw angled 45 degrees to make sure the outline of the topside of the panel is a bit larger than the bottom side.

OK. Now for the unmolding of the hull. It turns out to be a bit more work than I thought. Because my workshop is so small, everything has to be done in small steps.
First I had to free the hull from the frames a bit. I thought that would be easy, but it turned out to be the hardest pard. I hoisted the hull with a loop through the centerboardcase and with a line attached to the front beam bulkhead. For no apparent reason the hull seemed to be stuck in the frames, and for no apparent reason it suddenly came loose.
After that me and my friend Eelco started to remove the frames.
....and then it was getting too late to work on. Half of the frames are still on the strongback. I''ll have to remove them first before I can turn the hull-half and lift it out of the way. I hope to finish floppy whale part 2 this week, so I can start on hull-half number 2.

Forward bunk/cockpitfloor/setteeflange

2007-10-04T04:48:00.000-07:00

With the help of my brother I taped some panels.
The cockpitfloor was easy. We had to brace the cockptfloor a bit to keep it straight while taping...
Forward bunktop is also placed. Laminating the bunktop to the centerboardcase was a bit messy work (difficult to reach).
Here is another picture. In real it looks less messy.
By the way: I'm glad we used peelply, because while taping it's really difficult not to spill and leave drops of putty and epoxy all over the place. Much easier working when you know you can peel the ply and get rid of all the spills once the taping is done.
Note the pre-formed flanges on the bunktop. The flanges to glue the sette top are also molded.
Next few days I'll try to do some small taping-jobs, glue the settee top on and fix a HD-doubler at the hole of the pivot-pin on the centerboardcase. After that I can pop this half out of the mold and start building the other half.

CB-case part 2 & transom taped

2007-10-01T23:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday night I taped the centerboardcase in place, so now I can continue fitting the forward bunk top, the settee and the cockpitfloor. Before I can fit the settee I'll have to pre-mold tapes in this area, as this area will be fully enclosed with the settee fitted.
Later I'll have to decide wether I'll make some access hatches in this settee for storage, or just an inspection hatch. Any tips on how-to-make nice looking locker and 'lift-out' hatches are much appreciated. I made the hatch in the front bunk top by cutting the hatch outline, filling the edges in the bunktop and hatch with putty, sanding the edges and laminating a glass rim to lay the hatch in the bunktop. It looks allright, but not super. Is this the way to go, or are there better ways (using a router maybe?).

I also taped the transom. It has to be angled 5 degrees, and Jay shows on his site http://seattle-f22.blogspot.com/2007/09/transom-taped.html it's possible to calculate and mark the angle using the law of cosines and a plumb bob.
I used a bit easier method:
Draw a 5 degrees angled triangle on a scrap piece of wood.....
Screw it under a straight-edged piece of 18mm wood, clamp this jig to the topside of the last formframe, and....
clamp the transom on this jig and use a level to make sure the transom is positioned vertical.

This method worked really well. It's fast and the transom is firmly clamped so taping is easy. Beside that the bottom aft end of the transom is exactly alligned with the front end of te form frame as required.

Fitting Centerboardcase part 1

2007-10-01T01:23:00.000-07:00

To fit the centerboard case I first cut out the required slot in the main bulkhead. The bulkhead was pre-cut near the edges prior to fitting, so this was an easy job.
After that I cut the slot in the hull. It was more difficult than I thought to mark the outline of the case on the hull. I couldn't think of a good way to do it (and I was a bit in a hurry) and ended with a not very well cut out slot. It's a bit too wide. Nothing to worry about, I'll just need a bit more putty to fill the gaps. With the centerboardcase in place it already looks a lot better.
Detail of the backside of the centerboardcase. The cockpitfloor will be glued on top here, and the control lines wil go through that floor to two camcleats on the main bulkhead.