Glassing Pictures

First up is my epoxy stir stick. Add a cheap battery powered drill and a good pair of protective goggles and you can go to town on stirring your epoxy.


Here you can see the corner where the glass lifted, I have cut away the lifted glass. I will sand this down and patch it up later.

When you add the epoxy, the glass becomes almost transparent. You can see the pattern of the weave, which apparently is about right. Too much epoxy in the first pass, and the glass will float off the ply.

Alway wear overalls, goggles, gloves and impermeable shoes when you start slopping epoxy around. The stuff gets everywhere.

Imagine if these had been sneakers, I might have found out later when I tried to take them off that the epoxy had soaked through and bonded my shoes and socks to my feet.

Centerboard case in progress...

The first glassing went well.

It's amazing to see what was a white opaque glass cloth become transparent with the application of a litte epoxy. The grain of the ply looks wonderful. I still need a second layer of epoxy to fill the weave. Apparently that's the way it should be, too much epoxy in the first pass, and the cloth floats off the wood.

I need to fix a corner where the glass lifted a little. I see my first practice at lapping glass cloth. Wish me luck.

D

Starting the Centerboard Case

Now that the new shed is in place, and all the boat parts are out of the kitchen (really) I've started back at work on the boat. I have more free space in the new shed, then total space in the old shed.

I took one side of the centerboard case and made an attempt at glassing it. Later today I will know how well it went. It's like the good old days of film cameras, when you had to wait to see the result of your work.

I had no idea of how much to mix, but since I was working on a small area, I was not too worried about the epoxy setting up while I mixed up more. I can see that for a large area, having an assistant to do the mixing would help.

I had left the cloth long around the edges of the plywood panel, but as I squeeged in the epoxy, the weight of the hanging cloth was causing the it to lift just inside the edge of the plywood, in much the same way as if I was trying to glass a right angle, once I trimed the cloth to an inch or so, it was fine.

Now I simply have to wait till it sets up, and see if it had made a good bond, or not. Then I'll bang on another layer of epoxy and see how it all looks.

Pictures will of course follow.

I have shed my shed

In the quest for more room for high speed, sharp, spinning thing I have decided to move up from an 8 x 6 shed to a 10 x 8 shed.

Now all my stuff is in the attic - moving it up two flights of stairs must constitute my exercise quota for the day.

You would think that knocking down a leaky, somewhat rotten shed would be trivial. The down side it that it's only rotten in places.

In order to fit it in a mini skip, I need to break it up pretty small. This takes a whole lot more effort than you would expect. I really wanted to avoid using power tools since all this wood is treated with nasty preservatives, and I did not want to leave fine toxic sawdust in my back garden.

Now I wait for the new shed to arrive, and I catch up on my Maths degree. Boat work may be delayed a little.... 8-(

Mixing Epoxy

I took a tongue depressor (bought by the box) and a disposable chopstick.

I Cut about 4 inches off a chopstick, then cut the tongue depressor in half. Taped them together to make a long narrow spade.

I put the chopstick end in an old cheap variable speed electric drill, and Voila, one gloop mixer.

When adding Silica and Glass Beads to the mix, I folded them in by hand first, then mixed it with the drill.

I wore gloves, a face mask, goggles and a boiler suit and did this in a shed.

I do appreciate that grabbing a handful of trigger on the drill would result in a hazardous epoxy spray.

I intend to get a chuck for my electric screwdriver, since this has a fixed and slow rpm.

I suspect this would not be great for a clearcoat, as you stand to introduce to many bubbles into the mix.

Disclaimer: If you try this yourself, take all precautions you deam necessary. This has the potential to go horribly wrong. If you do not understand what will happen if you grab to much trigger, then sit down and think about it until you do understand. All of the ingredients in an Epoxy Gloop are harmful to you in some way or other.

The Stem

I didn't like the idea of putting screws into the side of the ply that makes up the stem. Screws into the side of ply are not generally considered "A Good Thing (tm)".

Instead I bought some bronse rod, a tap and die set (spend some money here. Cheap taps and dies are marginally less use than chocolate teapots), and set about making double ended bolts.

I clamped the stem in place, using a block cut at 90 deg on the table saw, and drilled two holes right through the frame into the stem.

I then drilled through the side of the stem, to intersect with these holes, to put nuts in. This gives me a sort of bed bolt.

I spent some time with a sharp plane making sure the end of the stem was at 90 deg, then I prepared some Epoxy, Silica and glass beads.

I soaked the end of the stem in epoxy first, this was to prevent the ply wicking the epoxy away from the joint. Then I glooped up the joint, and bolted it all in place.



As you can see in the photo, the epoxy could have been neater, but I doubt that anyone will get much of a look at this joint. I'll cut back the bolts next. Then clamp it all back in place on the scaffold.

Just to see the lines

I ran some softwood battens along the frames to see if things lined up, and also to see how it might look.
It is starting to look kind of like a boat.

There's still so much to do. But it's progress.

Incidently, The stem is just sitting there in place I see a bit of goo and some bronze in it's future.

D

Lining It All Up

To get the frames in the right places, I cut a few blocks with accurate 90 deg Angles on my table saw. (A sled helps for this)

Then I clamped these in pairs to the frames, now the frames would sit bolt upright at 90 deg to the scaffold. A roofing square allowed my to check that the frames were square across the scaffold.

I marked off the distances on a long batten and ran that from the transom.

A quick check with Pythagoras ensured me that the difference between measuring along the batten and the strict horizontal distance was less than 1/16 of an inch, so I just ignored it.

The frames are now held in place by these blocks which are pocket hole screwed to the scaffold.

I now need to center the frames left and right and make sure that they are level.

Just to see what it looked like, I cut a half dozen soft wood battens and held them up against the frame notches, They line up pretty well and it starts to look like a boat.

Pictures will follow soon.

Out of the kitchen

In spite the forecast, it's hardly rained at all today, but it always appears to be on the point of a downpour. You know, two or three drops here and there.

I took a chance and clamped the frames in place on the scaffold. They are just roughly in place so that I could get an idea of the final shape and size. Also the front frame needs cut into the scafold to sit a few inches lower.

I think that for final placing I will cut pairs or square blocks to clamp fore and aft each frame so that the frames sit vertically, that will mean one less thing I need to worry about as I place them.

Right now, the blue plastic is covering it all once again, and as usual, I await better weather.

D

I now have a scaffold

You know, in spit of reading Steve Henry's advice on the GlenL Forums, I went and built the scaffold and then looked at the the frame sitting by the wall and thought "Ah fiddlesticks*, Steve warned me not to do that.".

One of the frames has a cross piece and needs to be in place before you screw the scaffold together. A little bit of dissasembly followed.

I now have a scaffold, the transom is mounted, one frame is on the scaffold. I need another good sunday to position the frames properly. Then we get our kitchen back.

I built the scaffold about 6 inches higher than the diagram, to make it easier to work on.

I suspect that I will need to shim some of the frames to make sure that everything is level, since there are a few individualities in them, but that should be easy enough.

Pic's will follow once I have all the frames set up.

* "Fiddlesticks" may not have been the exact word that came to mind.

Inch by Inch....

Cutting the Centerboard Case Logs went well. The bandsaw coped admirably, those dinky 3 wheel models may not be perfect, but they are better than a Jigsaw. I wandered more than the saw blade, but that's what course sandpaper is for.

The wood for the scaffold had arrived. I have also built a simple water level out of a 5 meter clear plastic tube (ebay), a plastic bottle, and some silicon sealant. Add some soap to the water to reduce the meniscus, and it's more accurate than I'll ever be. Total Cost, a whole lot less than a high end laser level, and perfectly visible in daylight.

I now have everything I need to start assembling the frames.

On the next good weather day, I'll be cutting the scaffold. The verticals will be pointed and simply pounded into the garden. I guess that once I am finished building the boat, I will have to dig and reseed that section of the grass.

This will get all the frames out of the kitchen at last. (Thanks for being so patient Caroline.)

So little progress

I blame the Dark,

Since I'm working outside, and it's dark before I get home from work.

But Partly it's the Rain, and the Cold.

There's also Real Life Commitments to deal with.

In the last while, I inherited a small bench top three wheel bandsaw. Which if you coax it just right, and go slowly will cut 1" oak just fine. It'll never cut 1/16" veneers from 5" Walnut Planks, but there you go. It was free.

I am about to cut the side logs for the centre board case. I have planed them down to size, and I just need to cut the curve. I am thinking of cutting the first one on the bandsaw almost to the mark, then sanding it down with a long flexible sanding board.

Then I will cut the other close, and use a Router with bearing guided flush bit to trim it to be an exact match.

I tried a little carving...

Since it's dark in the evenings, there's not much work done on the boat these days.

Instead, I tried my hand at a little letter carving, since the boat will need a name.

The boat will be called Lady Caroline.

This is a first try, and a little rough around the edges, but I think it turned out pretty good for a first try.

A mock centerboard case

Next up it the centerboard case. But it will involve using epoxy glue, making epoxy fillets, and glassing around a curves.

All new skills.

The case itself uses a lot of spendy marine ply, a lot of Oak that I have spent time and effort to prepare.

Sounds like a recipe for a test piece.

I've glued up the two halves, and added the fillets.

I need to round over the edges a little more and sand things down before I start glassing. Then I'll trim it, and cut a slot for it in another peice of scrap.

If it all goes well, I'll try it or real.

Incidentally, the fillets today were brought to you by 2 parts glass bubbles to one part cabosil and a plastic spoon.

And then there were Five

It's been a while since I posted. Life got in the way, Exams*, holidays in warmer places, Family Stuff.

I have cut and assembled the last and final frame.

As always I have learned a little, and the frame could be better, but most of the improvements are trivial.

Bronze REALLY is soft. I had been laying out the parts on a marked out plywood board, drilling holes, applying glue and screwing things together. This meant that I could not clamp all the parts together as I could not reach all parts of the frames with clamps. So I just trusted the screws to align everything nicely.

Maybe with a Pine and Steel screws, but not with Oak and Bronze. If things get out of alignment, the screws don't pull it all back into shape, they just shear off when you try to tighten them.

What I should have done was to cut holes in the ply to put clamps through. Hold everything in place while the glue sets and add the bronze screws later. I tried this with the cross piece of the frame and it worked perfectly.

Luckily, the frame is out by about 1/8^th of an inch, so it will either be faired, or shimmed. And also, the sheared screws, along with the additional ones that I added later, are conveniently hidden from sight.

My next job is the center board case. I think that since I have not done any real epoxy work, and this needs to be epoxy glassed on the inside, I will make a small mockup first. See how it all hangs together.

* Some people think that I am a little crazy trying to do a Maths Degree in the evenings, and Build a boat while coping with the changes in life that a one year old child brings. Some people use another word instead of "little"

Cut away anything that does not look like a boat.

Only one frame to go, it's cut, the stem is cut and laminated, the centerboard is cut, the CB case is cut, even the rudder is cut.

I've an exam coming up, so this is on hold for a bit, but it's starting to look like something that might eventually be a boat.

I'll glass the inside of the CB case, glue it up and then I start building the scaffold that I put this all together on.

A better stick.

I took a peice of oak about 1" x 1" about 3 feet long. This time I cut a scarf in it using using a jig and a circular saw. And cut a second matching scarf on the same jig.

I dampened the surface of the scarf, glued it and clamped it.

I left it for 48 hours and then set it up across two bricks. It happily took my weight. Then I started bouncing up and down on it.

After a fair bit of bouncing, It finally snapped. Though as you can see from the photo, the break was not along the glue line.

Broken Sticks

Since I am in a sense running a grand experiment in that I am using PU instead of epoxy for any joints where I have smooth flat surfaces to join, I thought a break test would be in order.

I found two oak offcuts about 12" long, 1" thick, and sloped to a point and glues them up as a scarf joint. Albeit a short scarf joint at about 6" long. PU was applied and they were heavily clamped and left for 24 hours.

Where I have laminated peices with PU, any cuts that have crossed the join have shown a what could be a single peice of wood except for the grain. So I was expecting great things.

The scarfed oak stick took my 200+ lbs quite happily, until I started to bounce up and down.

Then it broke approximately along the line of the scarf, The glue did not fail, rather the wood broke apart. If you look at the two peices of wood, each has hills and hollows where it either tore wood from the other side or wood was torn from it.

In one or two tiny patches the break was along the glue line, but mostly the wood actually failed.

I appreciate that the scarf was short at nearer 5 to 1 than 8 to one, so my next test peice will be 8 to 1 and will be better prepared - this was really two bits of scrap thrown together.

But I was sort of hoping for the wood to break like a single peice or wood. I'll try to post a picture later.

And I'll post the results of a proper 1:8 scarf subject to the bounce test.

I can bounce up and down on it...

I took down the laminated plank that I will use for the deck beam.

I happily bounced up and down on it, not a worry.

It will take some planing, but apart from that it seems fine.

And the cling film / plastic wrap did indeed just peel right off.

Laminated Deck Beams....

I went to my wood pile, to find a peice of oak for the last deck beam.

1" x 4" x 6'.

The longest "piece" I had was about 5' 4". Or I could cut into the lovely 16' plank that I had intended for the sheer clamps.

Maybe I could laminate up a plank. After all, this is going to be supported by a post in the middle. And glue is stronger than wood. And.. And..

I have cut a whole set of 1" x 1" strips, and most of them 5' 4" long, and staggered the joints so that when I cut it to shape, and cut the notches I should not have any weak points.

The whole lot is glues up with Balcotan PU - which does not stick to Cling Film / Plastic Wrap - and clamped with about 30 F-clamps.

It's sitting in my garden shed, awaiting a bounce test.

I reckon that if I can put a block under each end and it will support my 200lbs bouncing up and down on it, then it should be good.

It is for a 14' sail boat, not an ocean going clipper....

Any thoughts or comments.