Some Overdue Photos

I meant to post this months ago - a neat photo of the assembled boat that my sister took with her cell phone camera.  I like the way this turned out:

Despite the lack of posting here, some progress is still being made.  Lately this has been work on the three main beams and the aft net beam.  I've had fiberglass sheathing and fairing to do on all of these, as well as building added parts that go on them like the mast step.  Looking back at my last post that included photos, I realized too that I never got around to posting cockpit pictures.  I did get the foam sandwich floor for the cockpit laminated last fall, and most of the basic box is built.  I have yet to build the under seat storage boxes and complete the motor mount. I need to take more photos of the assembled cockpit, but here are some showing the beginning of laminating the foam core to the plywood skins:

First, I glued solid wood spacers around the perimeter and the motor well cutout.  Solid blocks were glued into the corners where scuppers will later be drilled.  All these wood parts are made of cypress.

 

Then, the 3/4" Divinycell  foam was cut to fit within the borders, and plenty of holes were drilled in it to allow excess air to escape during the lamination process.

I used everything heavy I could find for weights to hold it in place while the epoxy cured.  It takes a lot of evenly spaced weights to insure that the air is squeezed out and the foam is in good contact with the plywood gluing surface.

The top layer of 4mm plywood was then glued on after this cured.  I didn't get photos of that though.  Other work I've been doing lately is all the tedious glassing of beam surfaces and the add-ons like the anchor roller on the forward beam, shown here with unsanded fairing compound:

Here's a shot of the teak mast step, almost complete except for some final shaping and reinforcing fillets. 

These old style Tiki 26 beams take forever to sheath in fiberglass because of all the unnecessary exposed surfaces.  I would advise anyone building a new Tiki 26 to incorporate the newer Tiki 30 beam design, in which all the structural parts are inside the plywood panels, making for a smooth, triangular surface that is about 10 times easier to glass!  But one day in the near or far future, I will at last have these beams glassed, faired and painted.