If you can't stand the heat

get out of the kitchen! That's exactly what happened today. I started out around my normal 9'ish and it was a comfy 70 F in the shed. Laid out the 10" tape on the seams.

Tape laid out on seams to be epoxied.

And all the way up to the bow including the stem.

Stem taped & ready for epoxy.

I knew this would be pretty ambitious for me, stamina's just not like it was but I gave it my best shot.

Aft end taped & epoxied.

And I was going full throttle and when I looked at the clock it was well after lunch (12:58). Noticed it was really warming up in the shed. Checked the thermometer and it was hovering around the 80 F mark.

Ooops! No sense over spilled epoxy!

By about 14:00 it was well above 90 F in the boat. I had fans going and it was still stifling hot. I could feel the epoxy kicking off in the Dixie Cup and the hot dog roller getting hard. I was feeling the heat a lil' bit too. Went to shift position and knocked over about 6 oz of epoxy. Doh! So called it quits for the day.

So close but yet so far.

I'll have to split the tape and overlap it on the sections already epoxied. Not an ideal situation when you're trying to keep the tape continuous but I really had no choice at this point. It shouldn't affect the structure at all, just another PITA.

Standby.....

Today's Mission

was to tape the remaining seams in the stern of the boat.

6" biax tape over remaining seams

I approached it a little differently this time. I laid down a bead of epoxy glue over the old fillets. Next I laid in the tape. Once that was done I went over the seams with the billiard ball which created a nice smooth fillet. This was allowed to stand for awhile to stiffen up.

After a good soaking in epoxy the seams were finished.

Taped and wetted out seams

The small section in the center of the picture above is my last piece of Saertex (biaxial carbon fiber). I put it there to reinforce the area where the rudder post will exit the hull. The white material on top is peel ply. I didn't have enough gumption in me this morning to peel ply all the seams. They'll get a light sanding day after tomorrow then I'll recover all the seams with 10" 17 oz tape. That'll be the last of the easy stuff.

The box keel is the next step after that. Standby...

Rumours of my demise

have been slightly exaggerated! ;-)  I'm still kicking. Today was just a clean up day in advance of tomorrow's fiberglass taping schedule. Had to move a bunch of stuff that had accumulated in the stern of the boat and then vacuum it all out.

Looking aft into the stern of the boat

Had to remove a clamping strip of plywood I had put on last year to hold a second layer of ply over the keel back end. Somehow I didn't think 1/2" would be enough in that part of the keel.

Back end of the keel

It's going to be tough working back in there. It's right at the limit of my reach!

That's about it. Nothing else exciting to report. Standby....

Boat Shed Crime Scene

Headline! Security cameras catch moment of Boat Builders death.

Seen here on security camera knocked unconscious is our intrepid boat builder. Forces unknown (but likely the air hose) have apparently knocked him out.

This next frame shows him regaining consciousness and fighting for his life against the evil air hose! It looks to have been a tremendous battle.

Four days later, when he didn't come in for lunch the Admiral entered the Big Blue Boat Shed and found our trusty boat builders body bloated & stinking to high heaven!  :-(

Authorities are awaiting the coroner's report on actual cause of death. From these pictures you can likely tell it was a possessed air hose that did the dirty deed! All indications are the sander had no involvement in the crime.

Note: This is a work of fiction. No air hoses were harmed or convicted of any crime in the making of this blog entry.

PS: It is highly recommended that the boat builder lay off the cheezeburgers and stick to the salads instead.

*sigh*

Ordinary Day

Nothing out of the ordinary to report. Just some taping & sanding.

This area below had cracked when the forward panels were developed into the bow. The kerfs that were cut into the panel to relieve some of the stress on the panel were cut on the wrong side. I addressed the hump it caused on the outside and added a couple extra layers of tape on the inside.

This area will get three layers of glass over top of that so I'm sure it'll be plenty strong enough.

Rest of the time I've been puttering away at fillets & tapes.

Port Side

Starboard Side

I'll be moving into the stern tomorrow to fix some fillets and get it ready so I can tape the entire stern section in one session. It should be a little easier to do it back there were it's 'almost' flat! ;-) 

Standby....

New member of the family

I've been eyeballin' this thing for awhile. Guy across the street is moving and has had this in his yard sale for 3 weeks now. Finally get up the nerve to go have a close look.

Came with the work stand and at $100 (abt. half of retail) I thought it was a bargain. Don't really need it now but will eventually.

I tried to get some more seams taped this morning before the heat drove me out of the shed.

Thought I'd try something easy, yeah right. Working in the bow really sucks. No traction and gravity pulling me into the bilge! ;-)  I managed to get about 15' of 6" tape on the side/bottom seam. Plan was to put a layer of the 10" tape over top right away but it got too hot.

The epoxy was kicking off in the bucket before I could get it all rolled out. I'd like to use a paint tray to help keep the epoxy cooler but there's nowhere flat to lay it down. Anyhow, it'll just mean some quick sanding before the next layer goes on.

I'd like to get all the seams taped by the end of this week including the box keel (which will be a challenge) then lay out the big fabrics for the sides and bottom.

Standby....

Major case of Lazy Ass

I don't quite know how to explain it but I've got a considerable case of 'Lazy Ass' and almost total disinterest in working on the boat. I think some of it is memory of last years sanding marathon that left me hurting. I know working on the inside of the boat is a big job but nowhere near as complicated as the outside. You don't much have to worry about looks on the inside. Most of it will be covered and no one will see it. Still I've got 'nuff of a perfectionist in me to want to make it near perfect.

Anywho, I dragged my ass out to the shed this morning. The plan was to tape the stem that I sanded yesterday.

All sanded. Getting in and around the thruster tube was a PITA but the little detail sander takes a lot of the pain out of the process. You have to go carefully or it'll spit off the belt.

I wanted to put down a fresh layer of goop over the stuff I jammed in there last fall. The fresh goop will hold the tape in place till I can get it epoxied.

Using the 'piping bag' technique it's easy to lay down a consistent bead of goop prior to radiusing it out with the ole' billiard ball tool mentioned earlier.

Here you can see the billiard ball doing it's thing. It gave a nice even radius to the fillet.

Once the glue was laid down I put the tape on. Just a wipe cleaned up the billiard ball and I then used it to lay the tape into the stem.

Billiard ball does a nice job of laying the tape into the radius fillet.

The bow is a bitch of a place to work in. The slope of the bottom panels make it near impossible to stand there for any length of time. I kept sliding back down into the keel! Luckily I had the thruster tube to stand on for a portion of the job. It also got a few layers of tape to keep it in place.

This will end up getting sanded and at least one more layer of tape before we move onto the side/bottom seams. I made a horrible mess.

You can see my little 'third hand' basket I made the other day. It's super handy for having a place to put tools & epoxy pail while trying to hold onto the boat with one hand and roll out epoxy with the other!

That's it for today. I'll be back at it again tomorrow.

Standby....

There is no excuse

If 'LazyAssedNess' were a medical condition then I guess I could use that as an excuse to be absent from the boat shed but it isn't and therefore I have no excuse.  :-(

Yesterday and today was cleanup day in the shed & boat hull. I couldn't find anything on my work bench so that was task #1 and cleaning up the dead soldiers from last fall's 'Sandinsanity with Peter' was Task #2.

Task #1 - Clean this mess up.

Task #2 - Clean up the boat hull

Let's all take a moment, bow our heads and remember those who have given the ultimate sacrifice in the name of boat building.  :-)

Above is the refuse I pulled from the box keel this morning. Peter has got  be one of the most prodigious consumers of 'Sanding Discs' on the planet! :-)  Note: There is one bottle cap missing from the above picture.

The year old epoxy in the Sticky Stuff dispenser has gone cloudy on me. The fix is to warm it up till the cloudiness goes away. I'll be filleting the hull side to bulkhead join and taping some more joints soon.

Standby...