Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Chain plate etc

The chain plates turned out as good as I hoped for after the tape cure:

Then I bedded it in high density putty and pressed it against the pad with a 4" plank. Filled up with putty around and smoothed the surface with some peel ply:

Before the putty was fully cured (which allows for a good bond to the next layer) I removed the plank and the peel ply, making ready for more putty (with balloons as well this time for lower density) and the C fabric:
I choosed to add an extra layer of carbon due to sceptizism on the glass/carbon weight/strength calculations this time to make sure it is strong enough, then vacuum bagging th half cured putty and the wet lay up fabric for a best possible bond:
In between these steps I managed to laminate 10 layers of UD carbon to the bobstay bow eye,assemble the last parts of the trike seatand started to do the final fitting of the first float half to the fourth. The fit was almost perfect, a bit surprised as I expected the first float half would have a less perfect fit but this prooved not to be the case.
Today another 12,5 kg of hand laminating epoxy arrived (SP System Ampreg 20) but the infusion epoxy I ordered will most likely not arrive until primo May along with the long awaited carbon from Korea, more RDM etc. I will have time for final internal lamination, fairing, building the mold for the daggerboard etc while waiting

Monday, March 26, 2007

Started building again after overflow

After the flooding last week-end I have made some improvements in the workshop. I got the vacuum film up on the wall today:
Then I laminated the final layer on the chain plates. I am anxious to see the result, I wrapped the cloth in peel ply and then taped it all tight. I hope this will result in a tight fit.
I also made the first layer of "glass" on the bobstay bow eye:And worked on with the trike seat. I am not sure the epoxy will bond very well to the white plastic, but if I can make it all stick together I will wrap it all in one layer carbon/kevlar and let cure under vacuum, that will do and the bike-season can start.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

It's been a busy week

With 90 hours spent at work it has not been much time for boat building. However, last Saturday I was in the workshop and found it flooded with 5 cm of water. Spring was here for a couple of days (fell a lot of snow the next few days), and the water intruded the aproximately 300 square metres room in which my workshop is in the (obviously) lower corner. Evacuateted most of the water with a vacuum cleaner and removed everything from the floor:Then I built a water-defence in concrete on the outside:

Guttorm then flushed the drains outside the building and everything seems to be under control.

On Monday night I went to Trondheim to the Norwegian University of Science and Technology where the northern fraction of the Norwegian multihull associaton arranged a meeting where Trygve Rushfeldt told the story about his building of the Norwegian designed TRT 12oo catamaran, sailing it from Levanger to Easter Island where the mast broke, selling it and returning to Levanger to build another one (ref story in Multihull Magazine). The latter is almost finished. After the meeting I was invited to see his 1000 m^2 workshop where the building of a 63' carbon wing-mast was nearing completion. Impressing.

Ordered epoxy, foam, carbon (yes, it seems I eventually will get my carbon!!), RDM, microballoons etc this week. The infusion epoxy will be shipped from England on April 24. so I will not be making any big parts until medio May as it seems. I will be finishing the 2nd joining and the reinforcements and do some fairing in the mean time, I guess..

I also registered "Frimann" (see introduction) and myself for the IMM 2007

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Short visit in the workshop today

I just made a short visit in the workshop today. First, I demounted the seat of my son's trike in order to prepare it for lamination.

Then I inspected the tape over the aluminum tapping plate for the bow deck eyes for the bow pole side braces
Then put the float over on the side
And made the hole in the deck flange for the carbon chain plate
Finally I glued on the last foam pieces to the bow caps and placed them under pressure again.
I am out of epoxy, foam, RDM, microballoons etc, so I will have to make a phone call to DIAB tomorrow. It's time to spend some more money....

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Starting with the "damage reduction zone" in bow

I started to glue up the foam for the massive foam part in the float bow today:
I use PU-glue and let it cure under pressure. This way the finished part is easier to sand than if using epoxy.
The only internal work on the port half remaining is the chain plate mounting. I may also make some tubes along the inner side to set up a net to make a dry(er) storage in the floats. I have not decided yet.

Making the last float half

I just finished the last float half, this will be the outer half of starboard float. Almost a shame I am finished with the float halves as I now starts to get a good technique on this float building. The first half took 5 months, this was made in a week. Now I have started to figure out how I will infuse the outside in one shot...

Fourth float half

Joining port float

It was a big moment when I finally had a boat in the workshop. Still some work to do on the inside reinforcements. Weighed in just under 18kg at this stage.
Joining port float

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Making decks part 1

While waiting for the bog to cure on the third float half I started with the decks. I decided to make them in two pieces, starting with the front end. I just put the pictures with some explanations in an album:

Decks part 1

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Third float hull half

Back to start. Picture showing strongback and to the right using Newton's discovery to keep the Peel Ply tight over the newly laminated chain plate (red is lead).

Due to the relatively long (5 months) building period for my first hull half it felt very good to pick down the form frames and move on to the next stage. It all went quite fast; taking apart, setting up again and start planking the next half in one evening. I have made an album from the building of the third hull half. New this time was the way I made the deck flange (worked out well this time - finally), the introduction of the backing for the chain plate in the infusion and a new way to set up the deck flange mold so it could easily be removed after curing prior to hull joining. Click on the picture below to see the album

Third float half

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Second hull half

On the second hull half I tried to find out how fast it was possible to make an air tight foam hull. This prooved to take a lot of time due to leaks. I also tried to add the deck flange as a part of the air tight form for infusion:


This also prooved difficult due to small leaks in the laminate despite thoroughly hand wet out. Another observation in favour of the infusion method, I think...

After a few hours with the bog I made another shot.

It ended up well at last:



I then stored both the hulls under the ceiling while turning all the form frames around.

Making the first float half

I made a PDF-file after I finished the first float hull half. It is published on Farrier's page .

Edit march 13th: One issue not addressed in this file is the search for the right screws to fix the thin (10 mm) and light (Divinycell H60) foam to the battens. I ended up using German screws; Assy 5 x 30 mm with a washer from the company Würth. These screws have assymetrical treads as the name imply and have a much better holding force than any other screw I tried. Switched to 5 x 25 mm on the fourth float half as will be published later.

Introduction

Be aware! English is not my mother's tongue!

It is now about a year since I ordered the F-22 plans from Ian Farrier. I was very enthusiastic about his designs from the first time I saw his boats on the internet some 7 -8 years ago (the first time I actually saw an F-boat was however this summer, Steinar Indergaard's F-82, and it probably had the best finish in the marina). At the time I was rebuilding a Telstar 26 "Frimann" and I have had lots of fun with that boat, but she is on the heavy side, only trailerable in theory, and she is now soon 35 years of age and delaminating (even more places).

I also spent some time designing and making an r/c scale model of a 5m demountable trimaran, but then Mr Farrier published his news on the soon-to-come F-22 when I was in this process. At last all the necessary factors such as funding, place to build and an agreement with my wonderful wife was in place and I found it insane to use my own plans instead of Mr Farriers proven competence and I have not and I'm sure will not regret.

The F-22 was chosen because I sail mostly singlehanded, I would like to trailer it to distant places (Lofoten, Adriatic, Geiranger etc) and the Norwegian roads are not always as wide as 5m (16' 5") and low weight and low drag is an important factor. Also, this is his latest design on the evolutionary ladder. Furthermore, my time is limited and I'd like to finish building in this century, while, on the other hand, time of completion is not as important to me as the finished product.

In the planning process I stumbled over Henny van Oortmarssen's web page and I could not resist to explore the world of resin infusion. And I really liked what came out of the process. Farrier does not (for good reasons, I would know) recommend this method for 'one off' boats unless you really want to spend extra money and extra time to work clean and with a very good result. Knowing myself from different projects over the years, this is exactly what I really want.

Then I had a chat with my friend 'Skipper' about matherials for the boat. We agreed quite soon that I would probbly always regret if I didn't make all possible effort to lower weight. The decision was an all carbon boat. Unfortunately , some airplane manufacturers did the same decision quite recently and it has proven impossible to get hold of any light carbon fibre fabric until this day (except 1mx1m pieces to 'unchristian' prices just for the reinforcements). I have been told that maybe there will come a couple of rolls in the end of this month from Korea. In the mean time I have used a hybrid of carbon and aramid (Kevlar), which is a good solution for the outer skin because of armid's good impact resistance but not as good as pure carbon for the inner skin due to aramid's poor compression qualities.

I have taken a lot of pictures of the buiding so far. I have also made experiences that I would like to share with other builders that might be interested. I have no html knowledge and I have not understood this blog-thing until recently. But I take the chance and throw myself out in the blog-world from this moment. I hope my postings can be of some use to some of you.