Home Depot or Bust

Somehow I think it would have been easier to rent a floor sander from Home Depot!  :-)

Singin', Sandin' Fool

I think I'm loosin' it here! I can't get this tune out of my head!

    I'm sandin' in the rain
    Just sandin' in the rain
    What a glorious feelin'
    I'm hap hap happy again
    I'm laughing at clouds
    So dark up above
    The sun's in my heart
    And I'm ready for fairin' fun
    With a happy refrain
    I'm just sandin', sandin' in the rain

Oh God, someone help me please!

Successful failure

Ooops! Part 2 of the tear/peel test!

On the brighter side of things the second layer of 12 oz is well bonded to the hull so I'm going to go ahead and order some more 12 oz for the bottom. That'll likely be the last layer on the bottom.

Standby....

Screen Doors & The Whale

Been goofing off from boat building the last few days. The ole' screen door on the back of the house fell to pieces so I made a new one.

Being a lot poorer since I retired I picked through some of the scraps and offcuts from the boat project and cobbled up a screen door based on the old one. I knew it wasn't going to be a masterpiece, it just has to keep the cats in the house and the flies out (we're downwind from a cattle farm).

It turned out ok. Still needs a little trimming for a good fit and another coat of paint but being built with some high grade marine plywood it should last quite a long time.

I took some pics with my GoPro camera the other day. It's got a very wide angle lens so I was hoping to get a bigger picture of the boat (Whale) to illustrate it's size. Still, with the wide angle, I couldn't get it all in!

I'll likely video the results of the tear test this afternoon. I had a look at it yesterday and couldn't pull it off so I think its going to be a successful test. I'll probably have to hook up my 2500 lb electric winch to try and pull it off! Standby.

GoPro or Stay Home!

This is my first attempt at doing a video journal of my workin's in the Big Blue Boat Building Shed. It's also the first time I've taken my GoPro camera into the shed. For some reason the audio didn't record (Doh!) so I had to caption it after. It worked out ok.

I've done some videos before with my iPhone but it's clumsy and doesn't have a stand. I know this isn't very entertaining cinema but it was my first attempt.

A blessing and a curse

When we put the shed up we didn't have much storage space for some of the bigger items, seats, hot water heater etc. I put up a shelf along the south side of the shed to get some of these bigger items out of the basement.

You can see it on the upper left hand side of the picture above. All was well and fine till the boat started to shape up. I was left with about a foot of space between the hull and the shelf.

You can see the gap in the pic above. Not much room especially when you need to get the step ladder and my fat butt up there at this spot. Well as much as I need the shelf space it's got to come down.

So there you have it. Shelf-b-Gone! No more trying to squeeze my keg pack between the ladder and the shelf!  :-) That was it for this mornings workin's in the shed. Back to some sanding. Standby..

I've got RIPPLES!

I've got RIPPLES!

These showed up after I removed the peelply from the port side we did on Saturday. I've sanded the tops off of them, do I need to go deeper and totally get rid of them? I'm afraid of going too far and sanding away good fiberglass. It looks like the glass is deep and right against the ply from what I can tell. I did aft end on Sunday and when I removed that peelply there was no sign of any ripples. The main difference, other than Jim not being there is the temperature (abt. 5 degs warmer (low 70's)) and no rain so the shed was dryer. The only other thing I can think of is I didn't squeegee enough.

You can see them again on the right hand side of this pic.

I started going down the port side with the sander about 10:00 this morning. Didn't quit till 16:30. My hands were throbbing like crazy.

Nobody's going to do this for me so I had to stick to it. Mostly I was sanding the ripples and feathering the fabric edge along the bottom. Seeing as I ended up having to sand the whole freakin' hull anyways I think I'll forgo the peelply next time.

I got another question. My six inch air RO is my workhorse. I do have a 7" Simoniz variable speed car polisher. I've seen backing pads that'll fit the polisher to make it into a sander. It wouldn't be an RO but a 7 or 8" disc would help speed things along wouldn't it? I don't know if it's worthwhile. The polisher would likely be junk by the time I'm done using it as a sander.

Hey! Guess what? More sanding tomorrow!

Still making progress

Pulled the rest of the peelply off from Saturday's workin's.

The results are better than the other side I did myself. There's only a few minor bubbles to fix.

Still had a bit of a problem with the poxy trying to bleed out. This time it set before it got through the peelply but left some lumps that'll have to be sanded down. And, we all know, how much I luv spending quality time with my sanders! *sigh*

The hands are still sore and tingly. I took frequent breaks during yesterday's sanding sessions and that seemed to help. I'll go looking for wrist splints today. That should help at night when I'm sleeping. Seems worse when I get up so I must have them twisted up while I sleep. I've got so much sanding to do I really don't need this at all.

For the next little while I'll be prepping the bottom and keel for more glass. Have to go into savings mode before I can place another order for epoxy. This pig is sucking it up like a Barrington Street Hooker on a Saturday Night when the Fleet comes in! ;-) So far I'm into the outside of the hull for 20 gallons of goop. Most builders said they used 15 and I've still got multiple layers to go.

Getting caught up a bit

Got a little behind with my posts. Sorry. Saturday my buddy Jim came over to help out with the epoxy work on the stbd side. Jim's a great guy. He built himself a huge Bruce Roberts in steel about 20 years ago. Tide Rider!

Being an ex-school teacher he was fascinated with the entire fiberglass/epoxy process. He'd used a little on Tide Rider but this was on a scale he'd never seen before. I spent quite a bit of time explaining all the ins and outs of the process and he just went to it. About all I could was stand back and watch! :-)

Between tobacco offerings to the Great Peacemaker and lunch etc. we only managed to get about 2/3 rds of the way through the side panel. I laid on the peel ply and let it be. I'd pick it up the next day.

I had some great tips from some very experienced fiberglass guru's on the Interwebs and used their advice. The results are better for this side than the one I did myself. I'll still have a few very minor bubbles to fix and some sanding but I think it's going to be ok.

The whole week I've been having trouble with my hands. Tingling and numbness in my hands when I'm using the sander and when I was rolling out the epoxy. It got so bad it woke me up in the night a few times. Bit the bullet and saw the Quacker today. Sure 'nuff I've got carpal tunnel syndrome. This was confirmed with an electrical test. :-(  I don't know how I'm going to deal with this with the amount of sanding etc. I have left on the boat. I'll get some splints for my wrists but I don't know if I'll be able to work much with them on. If it's not one thing it's another. Dammit!

Well that was less than ideal

Went out to the shed to check the results of yesterdays workin's. I'd say it's a little disappointing.

The lighter spots are 'dry' (little or not 'nuff epoxy). I also noticed areas where the epoxy was bleeding through the peel ply.

I'm guessing that it was too cool in the shed yesterday and the epoxy had a chance to migrate (with the help of gravity) through the peel ply leaving the dry spots. There's more and larger dry spots up near the leading edge that are a bit of a concern. It was only about 60 Degs F in the shed and with the slow hardener I have the epoxy stayed soft a lot longer. Looks like I'll be spending some more quality time with my sander! *sigh*

The other side is on hold till it warms up just a little bit.

Standby.....

I don't know how I did it

but I managed to piss away almost an entire week of boatbuilding. The weather likely played a part in it and some indecision on helpers etc. So today I got off my arse and decided to tackle one side.

6. 1/2 hours
33'8" of 1808 biaxial fiberglass
3. 5 gallons of epoxy
36' of peel ply

Blood sugar down to 4.1 (skipped lunch)

and...........

One very pooped ole' fart!

Gotta do it all again on the other side tomorrow! Standby.