Changing things up a bit

I've decided to put the hull fairing on hold till the spring. I can see the benefits of getting a nice even layer of goop over the hull before sanding to make it fair. I've tried with a number of recipes and have settled on one that I like but the method I'm using doesn't seem to work all that well. I've had to result to multiple layers of good with lots and lots of sanding inbetween to get it even close to fair. No where good enough yet to even thing of priming this surface.

I stuck to a smaller area on the bulwarks to test out my recipes and techniques figuring if I really messed it up it wouldn't be that much of a boo boo to correct later. Well it's big enough and took quite a bit of sanding and three coats of goop to get it near fair. I started up the hull a bit and the larger surface area only compounded the problems I'm having getting a nice even layer of goop on with just a Bondo squeegee and a 10" drywall knife.

Today I mixed things up a bit. I'm thinking ahead of things that I can do or get done this winter. One thing on the checklist is having the rudder shaft modified. When we bought the kit it came with a rudder. I don't think it was actually made for this boat. The measurements don't seem to fit so I drilled yet another hole in a perfectly good hull! Zoinks!

In an attempt to get dimensions for the modifications I used a 2x3 as a stand in for the skeg. It worked ok. I used a Handyman level app on my iPhone to get this (at least this part) level.

I checked it with a small bubble level and it appears to be spot on. You can see in the first pic that there's a lot of the rudder shaft sticking up. This has to go. I'll need as much room between the top of the rudder blade and the hull for two flanges that have to be put on the shaft. These two flanges will allow the rudder and shaft to come out without having to dig a hole under the boat.

Here's the rudder as we got it.

Just above the rudder blad two stainless steel flanges will be welded on so the shaft can be separated. The bottom of the shaft has to be shortened 140 mm and the top of the shaft also has to be shortened.

The bright purple line represents the bottom of the sole in the cockpit. The shaft has to be shortened 105 mm. This end of the shaft will be squared off for an emergency tiller handle should the hydraulics fail. There'll be a small hatch in the sole to access the rudder shaft with a tiller handle.

I'm going to save up some money this winter to buy myself a 'Flexi-Cat' fairing tools. They're specifically made for doing the fairing work. They're a bit spendy but I think they'll be a good investment. If they can save me some time & materials the'll be worth it and I'll be able to sell them when I'm done to recover some of their cost.

http://www.flexicat-tools.com/en/index.php

That's all for now folks. Standby.....

Back to it!

Looks like my second career in the Coast Guard is now over. It was fun while it lasted. So it's back to the boat shed. :-)

This morning's session consisted of some Sandinsanity touching up some of the fairing I did two weeks ago.

Feathering out the edges.

Some touch around and inside the thruster tunnel. When I glassed over the tunnel epoxy pooled on the bottom and that had to come out by hand. The only sanding block I had that would do it is the tear drop shape Dura Block.

Once I got that done I mixed up some fairing compound from a recipe given me by a fellow boat builder on Cruisersforum.com.  Thanks Paul.

I had to cut his recipe to a third to try out. It consists of one 16 oz cup of cabosil, two 16 oz cups of microspheres and 1/2 litre of epoxy. My epoxy is a little stiffer than his so I had to add an extra 100 ml of epoxy to get it to a very nice smooth consistency.

This is the biggest batch of fairing compound I've ever mixed up. I didn't want to go to the full recipe in case it was too much to get on the boat before it started to kick. As it was, at 70 degs in the shed, I still had to work pretty quick.

The only tool I had to spred this goop out were the Bondo squeegees and the large drywall knife. I see now how a much larger fairing compound board would help. I might try to fashion one of those myself this week.

As it was it seemed to work out Ok. I'll hit it with the RO then go over it with the sanding block tomorrow. I think this will (supposed to) sand much easier than the recipe's I've tried so far. If that's true then this is pretty close to the mix I'll use for the rest of the hull.

I got paid a visit by the Project Director today. He's not usually in the shed when I'm working. His food dish must be empty again! *lol*

The Project Manager was lounging in his chair on the front porch all day! Ahhhhhh the retired life of an ole' Tom Cat!

Stay Tuned. More Sandinsanity tomorrow!  :-)

The Marine Installers Rant & A few other things

The Marine Installer's Rant is one of my favorite blogs to follow. It has a virtual treasure trove of knowledge buried in its pages on many things electrical and electronic on boats. It's author, Bill Bishop - Parmain , is a very experienced marine electronics installer who's taken it upon himself to share is experiences, good and bad. I asked him a week or so ago if he could put together a list of his top 10 tips or tricks that a boat builder could use to help make his (and others like him) life easier. Definitely a 'must read' for anyone building or refitting a boat. Here's what he's come up with:

http://themarineinstallersrant.blogspot.ca/2013/09/the-top-ten-things-that-make-my-life.html

A more modern rendition of an old Floyd tune, this one's for you Bill. Thanks.

The fall ritual begins. First the ole' Camaro got an oil change prior to being stored away for the winter then it was time to look over the boat shed for repairs. Just like other years there's a few issues to be dealt with.

You can see the rip just near the ridge. This one has opened up in the last few days. I think it's a case of the shrink wrap plastic breaking down from UV exposure. This side has been pretty good since it gets little direct sunlight. The plastic has been up there almost 4 years now so I guess it was due for a failure or two. Most of the other patches are just small holes.

I spent the rest of the afternoon sanding and testing out my fairing skills (which I obviously don't have). I find it hard to get consistent results with the materials I'm using. I think I'll have to invest in more Quickfair.

The hardest part to fair right now is the ridge left from all the overlapping fiberglass on the chine (where the bottom panels meet the side panels). By my count there's 4 layers of tape and 6 layers of fiberglass cloth all overlapped there. I'd say at the deepest there's a 1/8" gap to be filled and faired.

The side of the boat I last fiberglassed got a light sanding today in prep for fairing. Using a lighter grit (80) sandpaper made pretty light work of it. About an hour and a half and I was done the entire side. I was so happy I decided to do another home movie for your watching pleasure!  ;-)

My buddy Andrew came over this morning and helped fix up a few holes in the shed. I'm glad I got a buddy who's part monkey!  ;-)  Thank you Andrew!

Sunday Sandinsanity

Today was a sanding test of the test patches I put on the hull yesterday. I put it all together in a video for your watching enjoyment!  :-)

I learned a few things too. If you have extra goop, don't just slather it on somewhere random. You're just gonna have to sand most of it off! Doh! I think fairing the entire hull is going to be a big job, much bigger than I thought. But that's nothing new with this project.

The Quickfair is specifically made for this process and is the easiest to work with. It's a bit spendy but so is using epoxy and your own fillers. I'll do as much as I can with what I have then buy some more Quickfair for the final fairing before primer.

That's about it till next weekend. Back to work tomorrow. Standby...

I'm absolutely sure

I know nothing about fairing a boat hull. So with that in mind I tried a few fairing recipes with the materials I have on hand. The first one I tried is called 'blended filler' from Bateau.com. This is a lightweight filler sold by the designer specifically for this purpose. I had a small sample I got with a test kit many moons ago.

This section of the hull is very fair already so a skim coat should give me some idea of what it's like to work with and sand.

The second I tried is a combination of microspheres (tiny glass bubbles) and cabosil (colloidal silica). It makes a very light weight filler and should be easier to sand.

The third fairing compound I tried is a readily available filler called "Quickfair" from System 3. It comes as a two part product you mix just like bondo. It's easy to work with and I've dabbled with it before. Very nice to work with.

You can see from the picture it's a bit thicker than the others. Certainly overkill for this section of the hull. I used what was left over around the bow thruster hole.

There's one particular section of the hull where the sides join the bottom where there's a pretty significant gap that needs to be faired. This was caused by the multiple layers of fiberglass all overlapping at this point. There's 4 layers of tape and six layers of fiberglass all overlapped there. At the worst I'd say there's about a 1/16" gap.

I mixed up a much heavier filler for this area. A combination of microspheres, cabosil and wood flower for bulk. Even mixing it rather soupy it's hard to spread out evenly. I used a large drywall knife and followed the curve of the chine as a guide. It'll be a bit harder to sand simply because of the bulk of it. It looks messy and it is!  :-)  That's part of the fun of building a boat I guess!

Tomorrow I should be able to block sand the test patches and see how they turned out. Standby....