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.

Good Weather for Fairing

We finally had some fine weather here this past week, after a prolonged cold spell.  I took the opportunity to get back to the filling and fairing process on the cabin tops.  If you recall from my last post way back when, all fiberglass sheathing has been done on the cabin tops and sides, and except for making the companionway hatches, all that remains is to fair, prime and paint.

I use a combination of wide drywall blades to spread the epoxy fairing compound, working off of a piece of scrap plywood for a palette. 

Here, the big fillet fairing in the coamings for the Bomar ventilation hatches is touched up with another pass of the filleting tool. 

The joint between the laminated plywood companionway coamings and the surrounding cabin roof gets a small fillet.  The coamings will also be sheathed in fiberglass to prevent checking and water penetration. 

Here, you can see large areas of fresh fairing compound spread on the aft cabin bulkhead and aft part of the roof.

Work on the boat has been sporadic and at a minimum over the last three months.  The primary reason has not been the cold, but rather the huge amount of work I've had to do to complete my latest book in time for the contract deadline.  That writing has been completed.  The manuscript was finished by January 1st and as of last night I just finished the revisions and final additions.  My publisher is rushing to get this book into print by the scheduled publication date of May 1.

Readers who have been following this blog from the beginning will realize that it was exactly three years ago today that I first posted here with photos of the first load of plywood and first parts cut out for the boat.  Three years would have seemed like a long time if I had thought it would take that long or longer when I started building.  But looking back on it, the time has passed so quickly that I don't know where it went.  The bottom line is that it really doesn't matter.  A project like this takes both time and money, and life is full of other commitments and distractions.  The important thing it that I'm still enjoying every hour I get to work on the boat, and I'm closer than ever to sailing it.  I'm expecting to get the final push to completion into high gear soon.

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.

Decking the Sterns

The stern decks are now installed and I am in the process of fairing and filling them in preparation for fiberglass sheathing.

Before they could be permanently glued in place, I first completed the painting in the stern buoyancy compartments and the varnishing in the aft bunk sections. The inspection plates were installed in bulkhead No. 1 in each hull, as well as the thru-bolts that reinforce the aft beam lashing pads.

As in the bow buoyancy compartments, I painted the sealed stern compartments gloss white to make it easier to inspect the interiors with a flashlight. The natural finish in the aft bunk areas is actually a satin finish polyurethane with U.V. inhibitors. I think the satin finish will be nice in all the main cabin areas.

The decks were glued down using thickened epoxy on the deckbeams and along the sheer stringers. Temporary screws were used to hold them in place until the epoxy cured.

Once the epoxy was cured and all screws removed, I began the process of filling the screw holes and sealing the deck to hull joint with thickened epoxy. After this cured, I sanded the excess epoxy away and then used a small router with a 1/2-inch round-over bit to put a radius on the deck edges. This will make it easier to wrap the 6-oz. fiberglass sheathing over the sheer stringer to overlap the hull-side sheathing.

The decks were shaped and filled around the stern posts. After this initial filling is cured it will be sanded and more fairing compound applied to smooth it out.

Here are the stern decks where I left them at the end of the day today - mostly filled and faired, sanded, and coated with a first sealing coat of epoxy prior to fiberglassing.

I've also been doing some final fairing and sanding of the bow decks, getting them ready to fiberglass as well. This should begin tomorrow if all goes as planned.

Bottom Jobs

After laminating the 1708 biaxial tape onto the keel of the starboard hull, as described in my last post, I turned port hull upside down as well to give it the same treatment. I decided at this point to go ahead complete all the work on the bottoms of both hulls, all the way through painting the anti-fouling below the waterline. That way I won't have to turn them back upside down when the decks and cabins are completed and the hulls are much heavier.

Below you can see the fairing process of building up thickened epoxy to smooth the transition between the heavy 1708 tape and the rest of the hull surfaces.

In addition to the bottom of the keels, I also laminated the 1708 tape around the leading edges of the skegs and around the stems all the way from the keel to the stem heads above the deck. This will provide a degree of protection if I should hit some floating object in the water, or bump the bows against a concrete dock as I did once with my Tiki 21.

This heavy biaxial tape conforms easily around a tight radius like the stem edges, but requires a lot of filling and fairing to blend in the transitions.

Here you can see the tape with the first fill layer of epoxy mixed with phenolic microballoons and silica. This thickened layer was brushed on to fill the weave completely. The subsequent fairing layers were applied with drywall finishing knives.

In the photo below you can see that most of the transition has been faired. There is still some minor filling and more sanding to be done, but once it is complete the biaxial tape will be indistinguishable from the rest of the hull sheathing.

I'm closing in on the fairing, as shown below, but there is still more minor filling and lots more sanding to do to get the hulls ready to paint.

It's summertime in Mississippi now and at least 90 degrees in the shade every day. Sanding and fairing the hulls is hot, dusty, and monotonous work. This part of the project is probably the least fun aspect of building a boat, but I'll soon have it behind me and will be moving on to more interesting phases like completing the decks and cabins.