We've been framed...

We’ve had another busy week in the shop and have managed to get the frames installed, filets applied and taped in place. The first frame we installed was the forward most or frame “F” and then worked our way aft so that we would not have to crawl through the cabin frames as we went.

I found it easer to screw in some wood blocks laid on the lines we had drawn for each frame location and screw it in place from the back of each frame. These screws are then removed after the filets are applied to the opposite side and the holes filled with thickened epoxy. Another issue when building on the frames as molds and then flipping the hulls is hull shape is hard to hold so when we began to install the frames we needed to pull the hull back into shape. Not only did it need to come together at the shear clamps but at frame “E” it also needed the upper chine pulled up. So the frame would fit under the shear clamps. Again using the block method solved this problem and once that frame was set the rest went easily.

We then put a 3” piece of plywood across the shear clamps. This helps hold the frames in place and takes out any bow that had set in while they were out of the hull during the glassing period. Then using the level we could line the sides plumb and screw them in place. This helped pull the sides of the hull back up tight to the frames. There are also small wood blocks on each side also screwed to the frame and the hull to hold those areas in place while filets are installed. It is important that the hull is lying level on its building lines or the frames will not be correct.

Next up is applying the filets. These are simple thickened epoxy welds that fill any gaps and make a rounded transition for the tape to lie in. They are also considered a structural element. We use wood flour to thicken the epoxy for these. Using small batches of epoxy, about 3-4 oz, we add enough of the wood flour to get a consistency of peanut butter. The easiest method of getting this mixture in place is similar to a pastry bag, we use disposable bags instead of real pastry bags.

After the mixture is applied use a tongue depressor to smooth the filet. We cut one end off these so that it also serves as a scrapper to remove the excess filler as you go. The filets were left to cure overnight before removing the screws from the block and the other side then filled. After letting the second side cure for about 2-3 hours I could begin lying in the bi-axel tape to finish the seams.

The mast step was installed between frames “D” and “E” with thickened epoxy (temporary screws to be removed). All surfaces will now get 2 coats of epoxy to seal the bare wood.

This whole procedure seemed to go quickly until I added up the hours. Stephanie was only available a short time during this step but when she mixed epoxy and I laid in the filets it went much faster.

Time:Setup and plumb frames (this was done one at a time but each took about the same amount of time) 1 hour 30 min

Filet first side of frames 1 hour 30 min

Filet second side of frames 1 hour 30 min

Lay in bi-axel tape 4 hours

Total this segment: 8 hours 30 min

Total Project Hours To Date: 84 ½ hours

Moving right along

Things are going well in the shop and I am happy to report there has been little excitement the past two weeks. We completed the inner taping, fabric lay-up and epoxy and have begun to install the bulkheads.

After I ran filets along the chines to smooth the transition between panels, sanded all the little drips from installing the shear clamps, we were ready to put in the 12 oz. bi-axel fabric. During this process Stephanie mixed epoxy while I wet out of the fabric and by using this two-person method it went fairly smooth with only minor irritation on my end. Working from the bow back and doing the chine taping one row at a time the only aggravation was picking up the threads used to hold the bi-axel tape together on the brush or roller. We did the port and starboard upper chines in the same day and waited for them to cure overnight before doing the lower chines simultaneously. The fabric was next and it went on well again letting the first side cure over night before doing the next. During the second side of the lay-up I managed to get a good bit of epoxy on myself by resting my knee in an area I had wet out while trying to reach an area I wasn’t happy with. Stephanie pointed out that she could have easily reached it from outside the hull where she was standing. I now have some very strong-kneed jeans.

As we were doing a test fit and getting ready to set the bulkheads in place something just looked wrong with bulkhead A when it was placed in the hull with the others. In double-checking the layout we found an error on my part in a measurement on that bulkhead at the cockpit floor line were we were off by 1”. This can be easily corrected and will have no effect on the structural part of the boat. We set up the final bulkhead locations by setting up a long level board and by pulling the measurements from the transom and plumbing them down were able to accurately get marks inside the hull.

Starting with bulkhead F, the forward most one, I set the part in place and notice a slight bow in it. Using a straight piece of ¾” plywood about 3” wide laid on the shear clamps I screwed the bulkhead to it and had a not only a way of taking out the bow but also a good way to hold the part in place while filet and taping took place. We used wood flour for the filets mixed to the consistency of peanut butter. I didn’t take a measurement on the mix ratio. You just have to mix a small amount of the flour at a time to get the right consistency. I let this cure overnight before taping both sides of the bulkhead to the hull with 6” bi-axel fabric.

Epoxy used to laminate port bi-axel cloth: 106 5/8 oz or approximately .6 gallons
Epoxy used to laminate starboard bi-axel cloth: 112 1/8 oz or approximately .7gallons
Total for laminations both inside and out is approximately 2.8 gallons

Time:
Cleanup drips and sand inner hull to prep for laminating 2 hours
Filet inner chines 1 hour
Tape inner chines 2 hours
Lay up fabric port 1 hour 20 min
Lay up fabric starboard 1 hour 10 min
Layout bulkhead locations 30 min
Install bulkhead F 10 min
Filet Bulkhead F 20 min
Tape bulkhead F both sides 1 hour
Total this segment: 9 hours 30 min
Total Project Hours To Date: 76 hours

I turned to another for help…

Well, I had this great plan you see. After rolling the boat and building frame out the door I would disassemble the base leaving only the uprights on the frames then attaching the female molds I had made, roll the whole thing over, remove the upright supports and be done. Right?

Not so simple you say? Your right.

What really happened was I had removed the screws from the bulkheads a few weeks ago so when I took the base away there was nothing to keep the upright supports, which are screwed to the bulkheads, upright and the hull came down. The good thing is I saw what was about to take place just in time and I went to ask Stephanie if she could come down and help. I think it went something like this. “Stephanie can you come help me the boat is about to fall”. (Turn and run back out the door). Ah the boats still up. As I’m waiting for her I of course think “I’ll just take out one more screw while she’s coming down to help”. It was a controlled decent landing a little more than softly but less than hard. Maybe I should have waited that extra minute or two. Stephanie says there were some people walking by that stopped to watch the episode take place. I didn’t see them and I hope they understand this is not standard boat turning procedure. I most likely blamed Stephanie for being to slow to get down to help even though I should have just waited.

Some other good points. I had removed bulkhead “C” the largest one from the hull already so it was not damaged, as it surly would have been. Because of the way the boat fell all the other frames just sort of laid down and they received no damage.We were able to get the molds on but it took a little more effort. With a little work though we soon had the molds in place and simply turned it on its side with just a little effort. This seamed like a good photo op so Stephanie snapped the pictures below for your viewing pleasure.

The boat is back in the garage and we are adding filets and prepping the hull for the inner fiberglass work this week.

Time:

Disassemble building frame 30 min
Drop boat on ground 1-2 min

Pick boat up so that we could set the cradle in place 10 min
Place molds and bracing 1 hour

Turn Hull 10 min

Total this segment 2 hours

Total Project Hours To Date: 66 ½

Familiar ground…

I felt a bit of déjà vu as I began to work on the female molds in preparation of turning the hull this weekend. The molds will act as wheels with the boat as the hub and allow the whole thing to be turned quite easily. I laid out lines on frames “A” and “D” so that I could make the molds to hold the boat during turning and as a cradle afterwards. I wanted to be able to work around the molds so the “D” mold was made to come apart just above the lower chine after turning. These were both made from ½” OSB or chipboard as some people call it. I doubled the edges where necessary and rounded the corners to roll easily when the time came.

I had originally thought of turning the boat using a lift built from 4x4 post and some pulleys but saw an article on the subject and with the weight of this boat being so light I think this method will be easier. We’ll see soon enough.

We had previously installed some casters on the building frame so the boat could be rolled outside, as the garage ceiling is not tall enough to turn the boat inside.

Time:
Install casters on building frame 30 min
Layout and cut molds 2 hours
Total this segment 2 hours 30 min

Total Project Hours To Date: 64 ½

Back on track...

It feels good to be back to work on our SB18 project. This past weekend we got the bare outer hull coated with epoxy and glassed the bottom. Since the hull had been setting for a week or more with nothing going on we first sanded and wiped everything down for the epoxy and then were able to keep a fairly steady pace to work wet on wet for the rest of the process. We first laid out the fiberglass cloth rolled it back up and then applied the 2 coats of epoxy. After an initial cure we laid the starboard side fiberglass back in place and wet it out. It took about 45 minutes to get all the epoxy on using a 9” adhesive roller. Then we began going over the entire surface with the squeegee and the 6” resin roller working the air out and smoothing the fiberglass. This is one of those nerve-racking events during the project because you only have so long to work the epoxy before it goes into the curing or gel stage and is no longer workable. The surface must be well coated but not to heavily. You need to use just enough epoxy to turn the fiberglass transparent and adhere it to the core. White areas indicate either epoxy-starved areas or air under the fiberglass. I took a look back later that night and found a few areas I wish were a little better. They look kind of puckered where the fiberglass separated from the core. These will need attention to correct.

When we did the port side I had in my mind that we had used 90 oz of resin on the starboard side. As we approached that same weight on the port side I began to get concerned because it looked like we had a lot of dry areas to cover. Not wanting to cover the fiberglass with to much epoxy (known as a resin rich lay-up) I reluctantly had Stephanie mix up a little more. We got it all looking good and whatever it took was now irrelevant. I looked at the totals on the starboard side afterward and saw we had used 116 oz. We used a total of 114 oz on the port side.


An interesting note here, I read the building notes just as my fellow builder Marcelo (see http://forums.bateau2.com/viewtopic.php?t=17039 or his blog at http://sb18coral.zip.net/ ) did and applied 2 coats of epoxy to the entire outer hull. Evan Gatehouse, one of the co-designers of the SB 18 at Bateau, posted on Marcelo’s thread that the notes should call for 1 coat on entire hull and 2 coats on panels that will not receive any fiberglass. I had rather error on the side of to much than not enough within reason so I’ll just look at it as lost time and not resin waste. You may have seen another post of mine on the subject of glass weight. I was unable to get the 12 oz biaxial cloth locally called out in the scantlings but was able to get 17 oz. After Evan gave the go ahead that’s what we used in order to save another week waiting for material. I calculated the difference of the cloths weight to be about 4 lbs so not a big issue. I will use the 12 oz on the interior of the boat.

For the record books we used a total of 230 oz by weight of epoxy or 14.3 lbs or about 1.8 gallons. I think we were a little resin rich though and could have cut back just a bit. I hope Marcelo kept track of his epoxy use so I’ll know the full weight cost of the 17 oz fabric. In the future I vow to order materials ahead of schedule so that I don’t substitute for convince. Plus the fact that the Boatbuilders Central prices are hard to beat even after paying the shipping with gas prices so high.



Time:
Prep boat for fiberglass 1 hour 30 min
2 x Epoxy pre-coats 30min each 1 hour total
2 x Lay out and wet fiberglass 1 hour each 2 hours total
Total this segment 3 hours 30 min

This week I will bring the boatlift (read 4x4 post and some bolts) around to the front of the garage and roll the hull out to flip her over. It will be nice to see her upright. Until then…

Total Project Hours To Date: 62

They sent me back to finish the boat...

Well as you may very well know I had been anticipating the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic Connecticut this past weekend. I am happy to report that I thoroughly enjoyed the event and came home with a renewed enthusiasm for boat building and some pretty good ideas as well. I made a quick go round on Saturday morning to see as much as quickly as possible and snap a few pictures, then I would be able to make my way back round and concentrate on what I was most interested in. Well I ended the first go round with some 220 plus photos of which more than half are worth keeping. You may view most of them in no particular order at http://picasaweb.google.com/sngatlanta also note these are unedited and not cropped. I can’t even begin to name the number of designs that were represented. Of most importance to me however was the presence of the multihulls at the show. Perhaps they are at last being accepted as equal in complexity and style to the monohulls. I spent the day talking with builders mostly, I’m not one to talk with suppliers much, and most everyone was genuinely excited to talk about their boat
.

One of the boats we have considered was to be presented at the show. The Tiki 30 a James Wharram design and built by David Halladay of Boatsmith of Jupiter FL. Their web address is http://tiki30.blogspot.com/ if you would like to know more about them. The boat was extremely well finished and they had made a few minor modifications from the plans that seem to work well. First and most noticeable when you walk up is the teak foredeck that replaces the net or trampoline found on most forward areas of multihulls. Another change was the widening of both seats that run down each side of the cockpit area providing what should make for a very comfy place to not only sit but take afternoon naps as well.

They also moved the outboard motor-well forward by a few feet allowing better movement around the cockpit and making the motor covering into a usable workspace or table. Seeing this boat has made me rethink some things about what we may want on our own catamaran. More on that another time.

Later that day on a little ½ hour ride around the harbor aboard the Sabino a 1908 coal-fired steamboat I met a older gentleman from Austin and as a fellow, although displaced, Texan I listen as he told me about his own boat building experiences which culminated with a couple of river boats of quite some size. I believe his last name was Fowler; he said he “was no gentleman though he was a damn attorney”.

All of this was enough for a day at a boat show but it got better. I had decided early on to attend the Tribute to Multihull Pioneers Banquet Saturday evening and was killing a little time before the event. Being at the show by myself I sat down at a table where I thought I would be able to see and here well enough but off to the side as not to get in the middle of strangers. As I sat for a moment a gentleman came and sat at the next table over and pulled out some papers from his jacket. It was James Wharram looking just a little nervous reviewing his notes for the presentation. I watched the people come and go drinks in hand mingling. Hanneke Boone, James associate came over and as well as a few others and “Trimaran” Jim Brown sat down with them. The couple across from me noticed they were beginning to serve dinner and I joined them in line to get a plate. Jim Brown has lost a good deal of eyesight and was asking for help when someone stepped in to fill his plate as I left the line and returned to my table. A voice from over my shoulder asked if the seat next to me was taken. I said no please fell free without turning around to see whom it might be. In a soft but firm voice the gentleman said “I’m Dick Newick”. I said, “I’ve heard of you”. He asked what my association with the tribute was and I explained that I had just recently become interested in multihulls and the opportunity to here the designers and pioneers speak was my only reason for attending. We talked about my interest and he pled his case as to the benefits if a tri vs. catamaran. He was attending with the owners of one of his designs and they also showed great interest in by project both present and future. Regrettably I have forgotten their names. Dick left me with the impression that these designers are regular guys with a passion to better the boating community by providing designs to fit the needs of an individual rather than everyone past and future that will sail a boat. He asked that I contact him before we begin to build our multihull and I most certainly will. I regret that I was unable to meet up with him the next morning as he requested to review some ideas but my flight did not allow the time.



I could make a short article of the event but should spend more time getting the SB 18 project back on track. We hope to get the hull completely glassed on the underside this weekend while we have a few extra days.