Great Weather for January

It's been unseasonably warm here for this time of year, so I've been taking advantage of the good conditions to move forward with the cockpit sheathing and other epoxy work.

I completed the under-seat storage boxes that I added to the cockpit last week.  All the interior joints have been filleted, a fairly big job with a surprising 56 linear feet of fillets to make, counting the vertical joints and both sides of the center dividing partitions.  Those interior compartments will also get fiberglass sheathing, but first I wanted to flip the cockpit over and glass the exterior.  This will allow me to safely move it around to the boat and hang it in place for a final measurement before continuing with the seats that will also serve as hatch covers for the compartments.

All exterior corners were first rounded over with a router and filling and fairing completed where necessary.  As you can see, there is a small "chine" on each side of the bottom where the bottom panels of the side boxes overlap the main cockpit floor by one inch.  I did this to for ease of assembly when adding the side compartments and for additional stiffness and strength.  The overlap required a fairing fillet to allow the glass to transition smoothly from one surface to the next.  I've also wrapped the end support ledgers on the forward and aft ends of the cockpit in glass, bonding them to the panels with a strip of glass cloth that transitions from the bottoms of these to the panels over a small fillet.  The bottom of this cockpit is so big the sheathing has to be done in stages - at least for someone working alone.  I'm using 6oz. glass cloth in a 50-inch width.

Here's a view from the aft end of the cockpit, and you can see I've also moved the forward deck into the carport to get it out of the weather so it can be completely sanded and then treated with an oil finish.  The cypress deck has been exposed to heat and cold, sun and rain since I built it in October, so this allowed me to see how the wood was going to hold up and revealed a couple of bad planks that are wanting to check.  I'll replace those, but everything else looks great.

Here is the finish that will be applied to the deck:  Deks Olje D.1, as recommended by my friend David Halladay, of Boatsmith.  This is a saturating oil that is applied in multiple coats until the wood cannot soak up any more.  It will preserve the natural color of the cypress and help prevent checking and other problems, while still giving the footing advantages of a raw deck.

Other ongoing projects include finishing up the beams.  Since I added the forward deck, I had to make and install lashing pads on the mast and forward beams to support the longitudinal stringers under the center of the deck, and these have to be glass sheathed, faired and painted.  On the aft beam, I've added a ledger/rail on the aft side of the beam that will support the central boarding ladder and its rails and provide a place to drill lashing holes for the aft trampolines on either side of the ladder.  The rail is teak so that holes can be drilled without worry about rot.  The entire assembly is wrapped in glass and bonded to the beam fairing and bottom.

On the inboard sides of the hulls, I've glassed in 1-inch by 3/4-inch Doug fir stringers that will support the side flanges that will mate up to the cockpit edges at the level of the seats.  There are many different possibilities when it comes to how to join the cockpit sides to the hulls.  I had a long discussion with David about some ideas on this the other day.  An issue is that in rough conditions or at speed, water comes up through any gap in this transition, so the gap needs to be minimal, but tolerances cannot be so close that assembly and disassembly becomes too difficult.  Drainage for rain and spray running down the inboard sides of the cabins also has to be taken into consideration, especially if you intend the under seat lockers to be dry storage, as I do, rather than wet lockers with drains.  I have some ideas I'm still working out on this transition and the design of the locker lids/seats.  I'll make a final decision as soon as I can hang the cockpit back on the boat after I finish glassing the outside.  Here's a view of one of the inboard stringers:

Beam Sheathing is Finished

At last tedious work of wrapping all the beam parts in fiberglass is finished.  I'm now in the process of fairing and priming them:

Here are a few photos showing some of the steps in sheathing the webs, top plates and front fairings:

This photo shows the front beam to the left, with the custom anchor roller brackets I made, and the aft beam to the right.  In the middle is the much smaller aft netting beam.  The mast beam is holding the hulls together, so I have to swap them around and work on two at a time while one is on the boat.

Fairing all these surfaces is multi-step process of sanding and applying epoxy fairing compound.

At this point in the build, I've come to rely on these tools for just about all filleting and fairing:  They are all flexible blade drywall/putty knives of various sizes.  The round ended ones like the one shown here are made by shaping these cheap blades with a belt sander.  After using cardboard, wood, plastic and other filleting tools, I've discovered these work best and make the neatest fillets.  Best of all, they can be used indefinitely if you either wipe them clean when the epoxy is still uncured or sand it off afterward.

Right now, the partially-assembled cockpit box is serving as a work table and catch-all space for tools and supplies:

Here's a couple of shots of the aft netting beam, which still looks rough because it needs a lot of sanding:

I've added lashing cleats to the inboard sides of the hulls at the sheer stringer.  Since it is not part of the structure holding the hulls together, this beam will only get lashed on the inboard side.

Fiberglassing the Mast

It's been an unbelievably long time since I finished building the mast and last posted about it here in (October 2007). Things do get in the way, despite best intentions when undertaking a project like this! Anyway, the mast has been hanging from the rafters all this time, covered in the dust of building and fairing the hulls. I lowered it down last week and pulled it out enough to get to the masthead end and begin the tedious task of sheathing it in fiberglass:

Round objects are not the easiest things to fiberglass, but it's not as bad as it would seem if you plan in advance and use the masking tape method to avoid epoxy runs and ragged fiberglass cloth overlaps. As seen above, the masthead section has the additional complication of the shroud hounds to go around, as well as the mast cap and crane.

The other sections, as shown below, are simply round and are best done in by going around half of the circumference at time. After the epoxy cures, the tape is cut away, a weave-filling second coat is applied, and the mast is rotated 180 degrees to complete the other side. I'm working in 4-foot sections, as the roll of 6-oz. glass cloth I have on hand is 48 inches wide.

There are specially-made fiberglass sleeves that fit on like a sock that some people use for processes like sheathing round masts, but with the hounds and mast step protruding from each end of the spar, it seemed to me like this might be difficult to get on. In addition, these sleeves are much more expensive than ordinary glass cloth. At any rate, by using the taping method, this is a straightforward operation and will result in neatly-sheathed spar when it's all complete and the cloth has been filled, faired and sanded. The mast will be painted the same Off-White as the decks.

Below, the top 12 feet or so is now sheathed. The short PVC pipes protruding from the masthead are the wiring conduits, which will be cut shorter and capped off with PVC elbows to keep rain out once the wiring is run.

Fairing, Fiberglassing and Priming

I'm in the middle of a labor-intensive stage of boatbuilding at the moment - still working on all the details of fiberglassing, fairing, sanding and eventually priming and painting of the decks and cabin sides.

The cabin roofs have still not been installed, as I am waiting to finish up some more interior details before closing them in and making access more difficult. But in the meantime I am working to completely finish all other exterior glassing of the cabin trunks and details such as the hatches and lashing cleats so that the decks can be painted. This involves spreading lots of fairing compound (see below) and sanding it smooth so the glass can be laminated over it.

All the joints between the decks and cabin bulkheads get a strip of fiberglass tape to reinforce them in addition to the sheathing on the main surfaces.

The outer surfaces of the hatch coamings, being made of plywood, also have to be sheathed with fiberglass to protect them from checking in the sun and to bond them to the surrounding deck surfaces.

The twelve beam and four shroud lashing cleats are also made of plywood and are separately sheathed with the cloth wrapping around the radiused edges to prevent delamination.

These small details are time consuming but essential to the longevity of the boat.

All the corners of the cabin trunks are reinforced with a separate strip of fiberglass.

And then the main surfaces are sheathed, as you can see below in the example of the aft bulkhead of the starboard cabin.

Working from the bows back, I'm slowly getting the fairing finished and have began applying the undercoating primer, as seen here on the forward part of the foredecks, stems, and bow hatches.

Fairing and priming the decks and cabins is a much bigger job than the hulls, as there are so many surfaces to work around. After the final coats of primer are applied and sanded, the green topside paint will be cut in to the bottom of the sheer stringer. Everything from the sheer stringer up will be painted an Off-White, with symmetrical patches of non-skid on the decks.

Fiberglassing Outer Cabin Sides and Hatches

With the Lexan portlights cut out and ready to be installed, I realized I've got some catching up to to in preparing the cabin sides for the installation. Before the ports go in, I want the outer trim rings completely finished with glass sheathing, primer and paint - that way I won't have to risk damaging the ports working near them with sanders and other tools. So at this stage, I went ahead and applied the fiberglass sheathing to the outer cabin sides. I want to install the ports before the cabin tops go on, as it will be easier if I can reach inside from the top, and will eliminate needing a helper to do this.

Using my usual method of applying masking tape to define the perimeters first, the glass was epoxy saturated and then cut away on the inner sides of the tape.

Before doing this, I built up smooth fillets around the edges of the raised portlight trim rings, and sanded them to a nice transition into the surrounding cabin sides. There were no issues with getting the 6-ounce cloth to conform to the different levels with these fillets in place.

While in the fiberglassing mode, I also removed the front hatches and laminated a layer of 6-ounce on them.

While sanding the fillets on the outer cabin sides, my 5-inch random orbital sander gave up, so I had to make a quick trip to the local building supply and get a replacement. None of these sanders of this design hold up very long to the continued abuse of building a boat. But they are relatively inexpensive. I bought the same model that I purchased about this time last year. This one might see me through to the end of this project if I'm lucky, but keep in mind, I also use my tools for paying work on other people's projects as well.

I have larger sanders for the big jobs, but I find this 5-inch size indispensable for many of the tight spots on the boat. The semi-soft pad allows it to conform around fillets and smaller overall size gets it into many places that otherwise would have to be sanded by hand or my Fein Multimaster.