The shaping of the second float has pretty muched finished now and I should be able to start glassing the outside skins this weekend. So between laminating the second float and faring the first one I should not run out of work any time soon.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Floats and Rudder
The shaping of the second float has pretty muched finished now and I should be able to start glassing the outside skins this weekend. So between laminating the second float and faring the first one I should not run out of work any time soon.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Floats taking shape
Managed to get the deck built and glued onto the first float with all the HD foam inserts in the right place.
HD foam ready to put into the deck and float ready to have the deck glued on
Then the deck glued on
Work also continues on the second float with the bulkhead flanges, compression strut and chain plate in place. So now I will continue to fit the deck to the second float and shape them both before laminating the outside skins.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Two Floats! (nearly)
As for the 1st float after I finished the bulkhead flanges as in my previous post I went to work on shaping the keel. Forgot to take a photo of the finished shape unfortunatly but I was surprised how a small radius on the keel made the float look so much more like a hull of a yacht. I also put an extra layer of tape on the inside at the transom as I managed to sand right down to the laminate while shaping the keel.
Other small jobs done were the making of the two compression struts for the bow of each float and fitting the first one. Also glued together the foam block to make the bow for the port float.
Block of foam all glued together and joined to the hull waiting for the sander.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Bulkhead flanges
Just a little bit of tidy up required and that will be another one ticked off the list, only a few thousand more to go!!
Sunday, August 2, 2009
4th float half and 1st float joined
However I finished the chain plates that I molded last post. Got the required carbon on and after a bit of an issue trying to find a small leak in the vacuum bag managed to get a reasonable vacuum of 25"Hg.
Out of the bag then cut in half to make the two chainplates
Work then carried on with the 1st joined float. I finished taping the bulkheads into the 3rd 1/2. The bow bulkhead proved to be a real test of patience. It was so much easier to do when there isn't another float 1/2 sitting on top! I managed in the end to be able to just reach the bottom of the bow bulkhead by holding the brush with my finger tips and used the theory of just get more resin in there and it seemed to turn out OK.
Then removed the joined float from the frames and taped the keel join. Thought it would be easier to tape the keel join with the hull sitting upright and working with gravity rather than against it. Also got the 4th float half ready to laminate but will do that next weekend.
The photo below shows the joined hull upside down with the 4th half in the frames in the fore ground. This will make it a little more civalised to do the Bulkhead deck flanges that are called for in the plans. With it at this height I can sit down with just my head inside the float.
Started to work on the mold to make the beam flanges which is proving to be a little difficult to hold the angled plate in position. In the photo above I am holding in the plate by screwing it to the deck flange plate but I may change my mind yet as I am a bit worried that I may get resin into the screw threads and it becoming a permenant part of the foat! I will see how I feel tomorrow when I start to glass it all up.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
1st Float joined
But before all that excitment I got the G10 fibreglass tube glued on to the foam to start making the chain plate. The photos below show the mold setupand the result. The tube ended upnot being exactly square but perfection is very hard to achieve so it will be good enough. I can;t seeing it make alot of diference in the end except that one of the mast stays will be 1 or 2 mm longer than the other one.
Then this weekend moved the 2nd half into position and joined it up. Sounds so simple but feels like a bit of a milestone has been reached even though there is still a long way to go! It must have been a big moment as even my wife came out and gave me a hand, which is quite good as she can actually get into the bow bulkhead. I'm still not entirely sure how I am going to tape up the bow yet!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Slow progress, 3rd float 1/2
The other thing slowing down the build is the cold weather at the moment. I seem to only be able to do anything of consequence on the weekends as it gets to cold to work with the resin at night after work, yep that bloody work thing gets in the way of yacht building! However last weekend I did manage to assemble a few mates around to give me a hand and laminate the 3rd float 1/2. It didn't turn out as good as the second half and there were a few spots that had to get a bit of attention and patches put in. Then this weekend I glued on the chain plate pad and the stringer which now just need the putty around the edges sanded and cleaned up before I put the glass on top of them. So I am hopefull that assuming the putty willgo off sometime in the next few days I will be able to glue two float halfs together and make it look like some real progress!
Foam all laid in placed and waiting the fibreglass cloth to go on.
In the picture to the left you may notice that the colour of the bog has changed from the earlier float halves. I changed to a low density filler to glue the foam together after a comment Ian made that the glue powders are too hard and not to surprisingly he was right. Thats why I am not designing the yacht and I am sure its a common rookie mistake. I have made a bit of extra work for myself a bit later on when I come to faring the outside of the hull.
Chain Plate pad and bow stringer bogged in place. Just waiting for the bog to go off enough to allow it to be sanded and glassed over.
As the weather is so cold I have also started work on making some molds. This week I started the mold for the wing net support rails. The advangtage with such good plans is being able to do jobs well ahead of time when things slow down a little. I hope this will save me time in the long run.