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