Sunday, October 18, 2015

White Stuff from the Sky

Well the first white stuff (in this case hail) has fallen from the sky. The high temp for yesterday was about 4 C. I've pretty much given up on doing any more work on the boat this year. Pulled the epoxy in from the shed about a week ago.

I got done pretty much what I wanted to get done this year. There's some structure in the boat. Getting more done would have been nice. It's only when you do something like this photo below that you realize how big/long a commitment a project like this is:
I lost a good portion of one building season to the fall down the stairs that messed up my knee and back but as you can see we're no less than 5 seasons into this project with at least 2 or 3 to go.

Anyhow, that's it for this year. See you all in the spring.

Stand down.

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Glassing bulkhead panels

I'm alive and well. Lori didn't kill me for using her mixer. That's a $1 yard sale mixer she picked up a few years ago. We've burnt out a couple of them so far mixing glue.

Been down for the count for the better part of 3 days with an ear infection. Right ear deaf as a post & ringing constantly. :-(  Self medicating with Mexican Antibiotics so should be cleared up soon.

Anywho, managed to haul my butt out to the shed this morning. Lil' stiff getting going these cold mornings. I didn't much feel like crawling around in the bottom of the boat so decided to glass the two aft bulkhead panels.
Glass laid out on two bulkheads
This glass is offcuts from other parts of the boat hull. I had planned to use them up for just this purpose. These panels don't have to be totally fiberglassed but I have the stuff and it won't add much extra weight.
Neat coat of epoxy prior to laying the glass
I gooped & peel plied the two panels. First a neat coat of epoxy over the bare wood. When I finished they looked a little dry but they're not. I lifted the ply and the glass underneath is fully wetted out.
Wetted out and peel plied
I'll have to keep my eye on them for awhile. I did roll on extra epoxy and squeegeed them well. I think it's the cheap peel ply doing it. I'll be glad when it's gone but I have a full roll still in the box. Maybe I'll sell it on Kijiji or something.

Tomorrow I'll flip these panels over and do the other side.

Standby....

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Bedding, filleting, taping stringers

Haven't been totally slacking off. The weather's changed and it's very nice for working in the boat shed. This morning it was a lil' chilly at 12 C but warmed up nicely by noon to a comfortable 16C.

Got to work with some sanding and then time to mix goop. Now mixing up epoxy glue is pretty hard on my hands. It didn't take long before they were screaming at me to stop! So had to fall back on the old way we mixed up epoxy glue. Went into the kitchen and rifled through some of the ole' Lady's kitchen gadgets till I found her hand mixer!
Mixing epoxy glue with hand mixer
Now this is the way to do it boys! Couple minutes with the mixer and you've got a nice peanut butter consistency goop!
All mixed ready to go!
I don't have a proper mixing bowl and this ice cream bucket has some pretty sharp corners so you have to take a minute and scrape out and mix up the stuff from the corners. Once you get this done you load it into a plastic freezer bag and use that like a cake piping bag.

Stringers bedded & fillets done
Takes awhile to get the goop under the stringers. I just kept squeezing till it came out the other side. There's a 2 popsicle stick height of the stringers off the bottom. This all gets filled with the goop.
Pretty nice fillets!
I laid down some pretty nice fillets if I don't say so myself! *Pat on the back*  Maybe I'm finally getting the hang of this stuff.
Stringers taped
Once the fillets set up a bit I taped them into place. Normally I would have done at least 3 layers of tape but my hands were absolutely killing me by now.

More tomorrow.

Standby.....