Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Inner skin finished, bulkheads started

After removing the consumables (seems like a good result again) I started preparing for the front beam bulkhead reinforcements while the seasons first snow were falling outside (the snow is not visible in the picture):


Here one of the layers is being test fitted:

And all of a sudden it is all contained in a bag, just after full vacuum is achieved. Actually, it is not at all so sudden, the resin has started to get quite sticky already:

2,5 hours later it is clearly visible, even with a blurry picture, that excessive resin has been soaked up in the bleeder fabric:

Then I put together these remedies to obtain the alignment points in order to make a correct placement of the aft beam bulkhead. This bulkhead is angled slightly relative to the form frames, and an exactly placement is crucial in order to achieve correct folding system alignment.
A plumb bob, a couple of levellers and half a dozen of clamps are nice tools in this regard.

Here it is, all taped in, in different views:

The lateral parts (below the white lines in this picture) of the bulkhead will later be removed and replaced by carbon fibre beam mounts made by Farrier Marine in NZ:

Vacuum bagging not advisable when building singlehanded

Got the rest of the inner skin laminated today(-night), didn't finish until 3:40am. Definitely need an extra pair of hands for the job on the other half. This is maybe the most important difference from resin infusion as the work has to be finished in one session.

Test fitting pre cut fabric.

Fibers wetted out, now working on the peel ply:


Peel ply, release film, bleeder and vacuum bag finally in place, leaks detected and fixed, time to turn up the heat and get some sleep....

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Aft cabin deck laminated

Home from an excellent one week holiday in Ravenna, Italy with the family, where we among other things met Biol and his really friendly family. One day Biol took us to meet Luigi in Reggio Emilia and we visited of course Luigi's rapidly progressing build in his huge workshop. Luigi is in the big final fairing mode, and hopes to be launching in about half a year. His beams are somewhere out in the ocean at the moment. It was great to see the boat, and to be inside it etc. I really look forward to be able to sail one of these pretty things...



Here at 63° N it is back to work, not so much on the boat unfortunately due to the other one (that pays for all the fun stuff). But I managed to get all the HD inserts in, and hopefully enough bog to seal all foam junctions, during the week. Here the aft cockpit deck.


And the HD inserts for winch, sheet track, mast base and self tacking jib track.


I finally had a day off and thus made some real progress again today. Here is the finished cut fabric, peel ply and bleeder (I cut the release film as well, just doesn't show on this picture) for the aft cabin deck and cockpit coaming.


Obviously no pictures during the wet lay up and the vacuum bag installation, here the pump is working again. I did not dare to make the whole deck in one piece singlehanded, and it turned ot this was an excellent size lamination for one person.


Pulling out air and compressing the fabric towards the foam while excessive resin is being pushed out in the bleeder, making a superior quality laminate.

Then I finally got the UD carbon along the keel in. I did a mistake and forgot to get it in the big bag when we laminated the lower hull.


I didn't bother to bag it, just peel plyed it and it seemed to be working well. Less chance of bubbles when laminating over another layer of laminate as you don't have the air in the surface of the foam to struggle with.

I am currently preparing the rest of the deck lamination, ie fairing bog joins. It is a bit complicated by the less than utimate access as you have to either hang in from the outside or slide down along the gunwhale on the inside, and then crawl back up for a new slide....


Then I had problems with the heater that would not start for a while, but after adding some of dr Alrons additive it seemed to be back on the track. Hope this works, because the climatic conditions here are not very epoxy laminating friendly at the moment.... I will spend the week end at work, but hopefully more progress next week.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Almost ready for further lamination

It has been a bit frustrating not being able to spend more time building. I really want to sail an F-boat! However, it is now almost ready for further lamination, most of the HD is in place and only some fairing and probably one round of bogging before I can start attaching the vacuum tape.....

I am planning to make an integrated sheet track for a self tacking jib on the front deck, and the HD for this is the last piece missing now. One piece already in place, being held by a clamp.


I will be "out of office" next week, but I hope to be able to inspect the building projects of Biol and Luigi in Italy.

Also, all carbon beam mounts are now ordered, I guess I better turn up the pace when home in order to have a boat to mount them in soon....

Monday, October 06, 2008

Foam planking, HD inserts

Finished foam planking the hull half today. Still some bogging left to do.

The last HD inserts curing (two layers of 10mm H200 glued together to form the inserts) in front of the heater, which is really needed now, the summer has definately left for now..

Sunday, October 05, 2008

Slow planking

Due to very little time available for boat building for a while the progress has been rather slow and people start mailing me and calling me to tell me so. So to avoid people pouring salt in my wounds here is a lot of pictures of very little progress. I guess I've spent somewhere between 2 and 4 hours a week building after the lamination. And I find it really time consuming to plank all the corners and junctions, and I try to plank as fair as possible to avoid excessive use of fairing compound at a later stage....


Just a little bit of planking left now, and a few high density inserts. I plan to rig the boat with a self tacking jib, and I don't think I will make inserts for the jib sheet tracks. Some of the inserts may be made by routing out the foam and fill with high density filler before outer skin lamination. Time will show.