Sunday, March 28, 2010

More cockpit

Three more panels fitted today.  Cut outs and fillings for the bilge pump on the front port panel. This is quite time consuming work, but I think it should be possible to start fitting the second floor layer tomorrow.  I have considered painting the inside of the under seat compartments before fitting the tops, but if I'm able to tape in there I will be able to paint as well.  Just a fast fairing before closing off I guess.

Aft view


And the area for the flush mounted bilge pump.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Cockpit

I finally got a few panels glued in the week before last.  Since then I've spent a week at Voss, attending a seminar and skiing.  I was hoping to get more done the last week end but I caught a nasty virus and was forced in bed.  I'm writing this from my hotel room in Kiel, Germany, but I'm going home this week end and who knows, may be a bit of more work will be done?  Silas has had trouble programming the rudder mould file for the CNC router, but he might get it sorted out soon as well.

The panels lined up for pre fitting:



Detail of the athwartship sub bulkhead and external safety compartment opening:


Four panels glued in, taped on the inside only.  Seen across the cockpit from port side:

Monday, March 08, 2010

Making parts for the cockpit

My experiment on the doorway groove turned out to be a success, at least until I get the Lexan and are able to try if it actually works.  Close up of the groove, cockpit to the left and doorway flange to the right:


 The perimeter of the door opening:


And I got mail!  A roll of stitched 45/45 200gsm T700 from Formax destined to be the skin of the foils.  Beautiful fibres;-).  And Silas is working hard to get the rudder mould ready.


The cockpit is a lot of work.  I've spent three evenings now and still don't have anything to show. And I haven't even started thinking of the coamings.... What takes time is the fine trimming of the panels, making drain holes, making more panels after first making cardboard patterns (Ian Farrier's full size patterns provided with the plans are really great, these panels are not standard hence no patterns provided), back filling all open edges, making safety compartment etc. I filled the join area and laminated the inside of the safety compartment hatch recess:


 This picture shows from top left: 6 HP Selva two stroke for the mini tonner we (some friends in Levanger with different kind of sailing interests and experience, from kite sailing to circumnavigation) bought last fall, and the sails for the same boat, The aft cockpit seat fronts with drain holes added and back filled, a panel for the safety compartment with hole for the hatch back filled and finally under building vacuum the two under seat bulkheads for dividing the space in inside and outside storage.

Tuesday, March 02, 2010

Doorway

The brief intermission finally came to and end and I could start the doorway flange lamination. Mould is in place, imperfections filled and I have started laying carbon.


Menno was kind to share the difficulties he experienced at this stage, and I had exactly the same problems but thanks to the warning I had the necessary remedies in hand to overcome the problem.  Now curing. 


The cured first part of the flange:


And a detail from inside, not yet trimmed:


Then, rather than finishing the inside layers of tape, I moved on to finish the outside.  The F-22 comes with a lot of nice features like integrated chainplates and rudder gudgeons which I really like, and I would like to do as much as possible that way.  Hence, I make the groove for the lexan doorway panels an integrated part of the construction.  I started out making a mould to sit in place for the lexan.


It was temporarily fixed to the opening from the inside:


Then I made a flange outside of this mould.  It will be trimmed back to make a 1 cm deep groove around the opening to receive the doorway panels.  I will drill drain holes in the bottom part.

 

Detail of the flange/groove.  Seen from top, up is the doorway flange, aft is the cockpit side.  The bottom of the groove is epoxy filler and several layers of carbon 'A' equivalent is making up the flange.  I first tried to make it using some heavier carbon I had lying, but I have never used this fabric without vacuum before and that also proved impossible as the fabric was just too stiff to make it follow the curves.  So I spent some time making this and I really hope it will work.  If it does, several loose parts (wood/plastic and aluminium parts screwed to the hull) are eliminated.