Just a brief update

The boat is now upright on a combi trailer.

I have two tent poles across the boat holding up a Tarp.

The inside is now sealed with epoxy.

Sanding and painting starts next.

I'm still in two minds about adding a buoyancy compartment forward and aft, or just using buoyancy bags, or using foam slabs.

Thanks Guys

It was like a weird and wonderful Team Building Exercise.

All we had to do was move the boat from the back garden to the front garden.

The boat has a 6' beam. The lane between the houses is about 6'10". Plenty of room.

The fun bit was the 4'-5' high wall running down the middle of the lane.

We had a short false start where we were still bolted to the ground (my Fault, sorry guys).

Then the 7 of us lifted the boat to shoulder height and manoeuvred it up over the wall (sorry about the plants Caroline.)

I somehow ended up standing underneath the upturned hull, with my shoulders to the frame. It was my first real view of the inside.

We did our best to cripple my soon to be wed brother, by trying to drag him across the wall through a bush, but he was having none of it.

The Herculean Effort culminated in The Lady Caroline* being man handled into place, in the front garden and then carefully flipped over.

So Thanks Guys, In Alphabetical order Alan, Andrew, Colum, Connor, Oliver and Peter.

And thanks Andy and Trish for letting us use your garden in the move. I hope Bonnie forgives us for locking her in the kennel throughout.

And thanks again to Caroline, my wife for putting up with this, the boat, the mess, the invasion of the house, the time spent, etc. etc. etc.

* The boat, not my wife.

From the Air

This is from google maps.

You can clearly see the blue tarp that covers the boat in my back yard.

Yes, it will fit out between the houses.

(I hope)

Helpful people

It's amazing how some people are just so helpful. Take the guys at http://www.chinawindyachts.co.uk/ I needed some stuff in a hurry, no problem, I rang on Friday, they got stuff in that was not already in stock and they shipped monday morning. Bear in mind that my order was a couple of hundred Euro, and they know I'm a hobby builder. Peter takes a genuine interest in his customers, he was able to offer help and advice.

Many thanks.

Pics

As promised, pics of the Hull.

I have filled and sanded most of the screw holes on the near side in the top pic. And as of about half an hour ago, I have filled the remaining screw holes.

The Epoxy, Glass beads, and microfibers sands easily. It seems like a good mix for filling.

I used a router, a roundover bit and a batten to round over the entrance to the CB for glassing.

And I have glassed the transom. This is a small and uncomplicated area, but it's near vertical, so you have to be careful about runs.

I no longer feel like a fraud referring to "my boat".

Sorry there are no pics to go with this, but I finished up working last night, outside under lights at about 11:30pm.

It was gluing, screwing and filling screw holes, so the neighbours did get to sleep. 8-)

The last panel is now in place. It needs to be trimmed, but the hull is now complete.

I no longer feel like a fraud referring to "my boat".

I also started the process of filling the screw holes. Some screws needed to be reset a little deeper. That was easy enough. I tried three mixes for filling. Epoxy and:

• Oak Sawdust from my sander
• Glass Spheres and Silica
• Glass Spheres and Microfibers.

The Oak Sawdust is not as fine, and is harder to sand. On the whole I won't be using it again for filling.

The Glass Spheres on their own don't thicken up, and seep to remain runny, so I added a little silica to the first batch. It's smooth, sands easily and is easy to work with.

I also filed more screw holes last night with the Glass Spheres and microfibers to thicken it. This is smooth and works well. I'll let you know how sanding goes.

Incidently, for sanding I used a Ryobi Random Orbital and some 40 grit disks. Worked like a charm. I had tried hand sanding first, but it's unreasonable to expect my grandchildren to finish the boat.

I should be ready to start glassing soon. I'll start with the transom. Less to sand off if I mess up 8-)

Photos will arrive when it stops raining again. 8-(

So close.......

The last panel is trimmed to fit, it is held in place with screws and plywood washers, and it has had boiling water poured all over it with towels to hold the hot water in place.

All in all it's so nearly a boat.

But On Sunday it didn't rain as much as it always looked like it would rain any second. This is a problem for building out of doors.

There remains some sanding of the battens to do before I can start gluing. I need to do the this in the daytime (weekend) as power sanding when I get home from work might not be a good way to win friends and influence people now that kiddies are back at school and early to bed.

The forecast looks good for this weekend. I should have a complete hull.

Then I need to set a few bronze screws that are sitting proud, fill the remainder of the screw holes and start the whole sanding and glassing process. There's a bit of tidy up sanding to do at the scarfs, but not too much.

Shortly after this I will be moving the boat out to the front garden to make way for some building work. That should be fun.

burning the midnight oil....

At about 8pm the kiddies were off to bed, so I nipped out to just sand the chines and keel, ready for a glue up the next night. But that didn't take long, so I thought, I'm here now, let's glue.

A good plan and a bad one. I had not yet marked all the spots for the screws. It's best to do this before you start mixing glue. Anyhow... I did the usual, coat with neat epoxy, then mix up epoxy and microfibers, then screw the panel into place.

I knew I had one slight "dip" in the chine, so I filled this out with epoxy and chopped strands, and pretty much left the panel at that point to just follow it's curve. It worked out well.

Half way though my halogen site lamp blew. So I had to finish the job, mixing epoxy and microfibers, and marking and drilling and screwing using a portable flourescent lamp powered off a drill battery. (Makita rocks)

I finished up at about 11:35pm.

Most of that panel is now trimmed back, and I now have only one panel left to do. Tuesday looks like a good evening for boat building. And I have some spare bulbs for my site lamp now.

I can still look inside the remaining "hole" in the boat, and it all looks sort of boat like from the inside.

I then need to trim the centerboard slot back properly (I am still wondering how to use a roundover bit given the gradually changing slope of the bottom)

Then glass it and turn it.

Then I need to get it out of the back garden. I'll pin a temporary "deck" into place to give it some strength before the lift, It should be interesting.

Cutting Limbers after the fact.

I played with a tiny ratchet driver and a 6mm auger drill bit. I clamped a scrap batten to a work bench, and I can make a 6mm hole in the batten about 1mm from the bench. This will do just fine. So when the hull is turned I'll do the job on the three battens. I will probably have to cut the auger short, and glue on a socket to the end so that I can fit it between the battens, but that's no big deal.

I will also reinforce the battens on both sides with an extra 1/2 inch from the transom to the next frame. Since these will be flat surfaces, I'll use Balcotan (Marine PU) for the Oak. Previous tests show it works just fine. My test lamination has been knocking about in the garden and in the shed on and off, unpainted for 2 years and it's still solid.

Getting there....

I've started to fit the foreward sections of the hull.

Both the aft sections are now glued, screwed, and trimmed (Since I took the photo above)

The squares of plywood are used as Giant washers.

And this is what the inside looks like

I just held the camera under the boat.The unplaned wood is the building frame and there is an oak plank in the top left corner of the pic.

Oops

Remember me posting "Note to self: I still have the limbers to cut." back about here. Well I was busy congratulating myself on a nicely glued up panel, trimmed and all, when I realised I'd entirely forgotten about the limber holes in the battens and keel.

I've been on the forums and had lots of advice, from "you don't really need them" to various ways of fixing the problem. I've cut the limbers for the other side now, this little detail will have to wait until I turn the hull and try to figure out how I'm going to drill a hole at the bottom of a 1" batten beside the plywood, with only 2" to the next batten.

The current plan is to use a right angle mini ratchet screw driver to run a screw through the batten.

Once that's through, I will feed a coping saw blade through the screw hole, and start the long slow process of cutting out the limber. I expect to have to make up a holder but that will be the least of my worries. A dowel and sandpaper should help me finish off.

The battens from the transom to the last frame aft will be reinforced with an extra 1/2" of oak. This will mean that even with a 3/8" hole, there will still be 1" of Oak. Add the strength of the . Add the strength of the plywood to that and It should be plenty strong.

1 Aft panel = Two evenings work

The oak battens, chine and keel that I was going to glue the aft bottom panel to were all tarnished from just being open to the air. It took most of the first evening and 3 belts (40 grit) on my belt sander to remove all the tarnish and leave nice clean wood to glue up. New belts are cheaper than the added time it takes when you persist in using a dead one, and dead ones burnish a surface. That's not good for gluing.

I'd gotten an attachment to allow me to connect my bosch sander to a vac, so there practically no mess.

I clamped a few guide blocks in place, and put in a few locating screws. This allowed me to consistently replace the panel. Then I marked up the places for all the screws, it takes long enough that you don't want to be doing that while the glue is setting up.

The next evening I coated the oak in neat epoxy and then pasted on micro fibre mix. A little careful lifting and the bottom panel was in place.

There's ¾" screws every 3 inches on the chine and keel and every 6 inches on the 3 battens. Add in the screws on the transom and you suddenly have about 100 screws. Two 18 volt drill/drivers means that you don't have to keep swapping drill bit/driver bit.

When I get home I'll see how well it all went.

Even so it was well dark by the time I finished, my builders site lamp is getting a good workout these evening.

More sanding this evening to start the aft panel on the other side.

And now the Scarfes are cut

One thing to note is that if you run the power planer at 90 degrees to the scarf, some of the plies come off as long splinters than quickly block the vac outlet. Run at 45 degrees and your vac will get most of the rubbish. When the vac outlet blocks up it's not subtle, suddenly there's bits everywhere.

The scarf joints are now cut, so I guess next up is to glue the aft panels in place, they don't require much in the way of fitting. Glue and trim to fit. The forward panels are cut about 2" over size so that I can screw in some locating holes, and trim them to fit. The forward panels must be trimmed before gluing, so the locating screws allow me to get the same position each time.

Then I'll apply lots of bend with towels and boiling water. A clamp on the edge of the panel, with some scrap ply backing to spread the load gives you something to tie a line to, then the panel can be hauled into place with a small block and tackle, and a rake load of clamps to pin down the progress as you make it.

The weather forecast is not looking good until the weekend.... But we'll see.

The front panels are rough cut....

I spent last night marking up and cutting out the forward part of the panels for the bottom of the hull.

I made up some patterns from scraps of ply to rough cut them (holding an 8'x4' panel against the hull to mark it off is not all that practical)

They are now clamped to the hull, with a few strategic clamps, and a few truckers hitches pulling the plywood into the required shape. I'll tighten them up each day as the wood takes a set.

I still need to scarf the foreward and aft panels together, but the bend is all well forward of the join, so it should not be a problem.

I can see a completed hull in my near future.

Wiley X Brick RX

I do like my eyes, not so much the charming boyish blue colour, but rather the whole seeing thing. It's pretty useful. They are however, not quite perfect, so I need glasses, and when I am working with high speed thingies like routers, or power saws, I need goggles over my glasses, and then it all steams up and I spend more time cleaning goggles and glasses than working on the boat.

Glasses on their own provide limited protection. If you can fit you fingers in behind the frame and touch your eyeball, then high speed sharp things can get in there too.

So I wandered down to the local optician, who had a selection of about 5 pairs of safety specs at about €200 a pair. Ouch.

This calls for a bit of surfing.

I found http://www.opticsplanet.net/ who even listed the temple size for the frames (handy when you have a 64cm head size) and I got a pair of Wiley X Brick RX prescription glasses made up for €120.

They have removeable foam padding for when you are sanding and want to keep dust out, and on hot days when you are more concerned with high speed flying pieces of blindness, you can take out the foam, and they fit nice and closely around your eyes sockets.

Glen L 14 Sailing Video

Not mine, though some day I will finish and I will post sailing videos of my own.....

This is a Glen L 14 in Vancouver

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oGMgpFavT0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRHpvXpFFmU

The Bottom

I've started the bottom planking.

2 sheets of 8x4 are now rough cut on the outsides, and fitted at the keelson.

You can see the work in progress here

When you place an 8x4 sheet up on the boat, and try to line up one side with the keel, you quickly notice that since the hull is curved the edge of the ply does not line up nicely with the center of the keel.

A quick snap of a chalk line, or just running a marker on a jig down the side of the keelson will mark the curve you need to cut. Japanese saws are fantastic for cutting long fair curves in 1/4 ply as it's so easy to line them up with the curve as you saw.

I tacked the first panel in place, and then marked the second panel against the first by tapping it down on carbon paper while pulling the carbon paper through the gap. Where the second sheet meets the edge of the first, you get a neat black line to saw to.

I've more scarfing to do, and I have to then fit the forward bottom panels, but very soon I'll have a hull.

Incidentally, this weekend I spent a whole lot of time watching for rain clouds blowing in, covering everything over until they blow by, and uncovering again. A real PITA.

Next boat I build will be under shelter.

I forgot to oil the screws....

When you put in temporary screws to hold everything together while the epoxy kicks, you really should oil or wax the screws so that the epoxy cannot stick to them.

Otherwise you will break off two screws about half way down and leave steel bits embedded in the oak frames well out of reach, and then spend the next hour heating each screw with a gas powered soldering iron to soften the epoxy so that you can extract them. You will find that about 20 seconds of blowtorch setting per screw works. When you have use large washers, they act as a heat sink and you will need more.

If you have not used washers, and the screw heads are in the wood, then a traditional electric soldering iron touching the screw will probably work, it will just take longer.

Perviously I had tried the trend grabit and concluded that bronze was too soft and it would not work, but after reading a review where they emphasised "slow speed" as the key to getting it to work, I tried it again after I stripped a haed on a 2" bronze screw which was supposed to hold down a batten. It was still proud about 1/8", like the Grand old Duke of York, neither up nor down.

Sure enough the trend grabit grabbed it and it came out nice and slowly.

Stripping one bronze screw out of 28 x 2" screws into Oak is a reasonable record.

It's all done now. Though I now have a pair of 1" long broken screw bits in my framing and no good way of getting them out. The deck screws broke in half as I started to unscrew them so the bits are about 1" down.

Glued and Temporarily screwed in place

The battens are now glued and temporarily screwed in place. Deck screws, and large washers pull everything together while it all sets up. In a day or so, I'll pop out the deck screws, and redrill the holes and countersinks, and then pop in the Bronze screws.

I've epoxy coated all the areas that won't be accessible when the skin goes on, and the block and tackles still hold down the ends of the battens to pre-bend them.

Note to self: I still have the limbers to cut.