Close, but no cigar...

Ok. I have to admit that I'm not in a good mood right now. I've been busting my arse almost constantly in the hopes of getting the boat in the water this year before the flakes start flying. The good weather window is closing fast and I keep running into road blocks.

When the sails arrived I discovered that 2 grommets were missing. That dampened my enthusiasm a bit. The issue has been corrected now and I'm good to go sailing but it was a blow to the momentum. And momentum is everything some times.

Next on the hit parade was the keel. We drove the boat down to Montrose harbor to use the lifts there to lift the boat onto the keel yesterday afternoon. It was a gorgeous 60 degree day with a light breeze. Would have been perfect for a shakedown sail. But I get ahead of myself. We aren't there yet.
As with everything on this boat. I seem to be doing everything for the first time. Yesterday we had the following firsts. Hitched up the new trailer and towed the boat. That went pretty well, especially after I swung up the jack. Once we got there, a new lifting harness had to be adjusted to hold the boat level. For the record, you can use the chain plates and some fixed point aft of 169 to lift the boat. I've got pad eyes installed for my mainsheet bridle 1' forward of the transom and they worked just fine. I was surprised at how much I had to shorten the rear ropes to hold the boat level. The balance point on my boat seems to be right over the keel slot which will work perfect. So now we have the boat in the air and the lift we are using isn't tall enough to get the keel inserted. So we have to drop back onto the trailer (another first) and roll it down to the next lift. We also discovered that you have to be careful with weight distribution on the trailer. 185 pound keel, me and my little helper all aft of the axle equals bow in the air. Sure am glad I put the non-skid on already.

Finally we are all set to drop the boat on the keel and the SUCKER WON'T FIT. The real cause is that it's just been too tight all along and I was in denial. I made the sleeve after initial glassing and fairing. But there was significant fairing after that. I tested it before priming and paint the keel and it was snug but fit. I pushed forward instead of dealing with this. The sleeve basically has to be cut out. I'm thinking just a millimeter all the way around is all I need. So we are back in the garage with the keel in the cockpit and the keel box in need of some work. My plan is to get my favorite tool (the dremel) out and start cutting and sanding the sleeve out. Once it's removed I'll carefully sand the top plate and hull panel to give me extra clearance. and hit it with a couple coats of neat epoxy. Then we should be back in business. I'm thinking I'll use HDPE tape to snug up the fit of the keel to the new larger keel box. What's that saying about the best laid plans of mice and men?

In other news...

KiwiGrip is pretty great stuff. I had good luck applying it and the grip is just great. One thing I did was apply it differently to the cockpit sole than the deck. The deck I used an old 3/8" nap roller to apply and then the texture roller to make it grippy. It was a really thin coat of material so it's not too aggressive so it shouldn't eat everyones clothing. However, it doesn't hide everything underneath because it's so thin in the low spots. For the cockpit I layed the stuff on thick. I basically just globbed it on and started with the texture roller. I just worked it until I had an even coat and went on to the next section. You can use a notched spreader to start, but I found it just as easy to work it with just the roller. It was cool (about 60) when I applied it so it took a while to really dry. I bought a gallon and ended up with about 1/2 left. Not sure if I could have gotten away with 2 quarts. A gallon is cheaper than 3 quarts so it's a toss up.

Perfection in white just doesn't cover. At least not for me. I put 3 coats of white on the cabin and cockpit (everywhere I wasn't non-skiding) and I can still see through in spots. I don't know why the white doesn't cover or what I should have done differently. I didn't even thin the last coat. Maybe I'll be ready to patch up the deck and re-paint at the end of next summer. Until then, it is what it is.

I also mounted all the hardware on Sunday. I used 3m 4000 marine sealant/adhesive. It was pretty easy to work with. I found it much easier to tape off the area around the fitting than to clean off any excess after the fact. One issue I ran into is that the metal tube ruptured about 1/2 way through and that made things extra messy.

Cheers for now. Kevin.

Getting somewhere...

Or at least I'll be able to get somewhere. The foils are coming along and actually look like they should. The fairing and painting of foils can be a real pain. I here by send a big dose of persistence to all of you making your own foils. I think mine only need one more coat of paint and a little wet sanding to make them extra fast :-)

On other fronts, I also finished painting the deck and cockpit. I only painted where I'm not putting non-skid. So that's the cabin roof, the cockpit sides, the gunwales and wherever hardware goes. The white perfection certainly didn't cover as well as the blue. I was vexed by show crappy looking results. It just didn't want to hide anything. It's officially done for now. Perfect isn't worth it considering I'm just going to bang it up, scratch it up and drill holes all over as I move hardward to find the perfect setup. I'm glad to be done with the painting. It's certainly a pain and the perfection adds a level or two to normal pain and suffering. Remember you must use an organic respirator with the 2333n thinner that you use with perfection.

I've also been working on rigging stuff in my spare time. My current project is the spin sheets. I'm using some Yale conception line that I got from my brother. I thought I would be clever and add some amsteel blue tails with nice splices to connect to the spin. The trick isn't getting the 3mm amsteel into the 3/8" conception. That's the easy part. A nice long bury seems to be locking nicely so I think it will work great. The issue is tapering the conception so I can bury it into the amsteel. It's proving to be a little big at the moment. But I've got a crazy plan and that's part of the fun isn't it.

The mast is rigged and the boom is well on it's way so we'll be ready to rock and roll once the non-skid is down and dry. I'm thinking I'll be feel not so great at least one afternoon this week. Maybe two, we'll see.

Cheers, Kevin.

No more fairing...

Well, That's the dream anyway. I've been working along on the little stuff needed to get a boat finished. Let me tell you, there are lots of details and they all need attention.

I laid up my tiller to rudder connection, patched up the rudder and added more compound to the keel bulb at the bolt holes. Hopefully I won't have to mix another round of epoxy, but I know that's just a dream. There always seems to be something that needs more epoxy. But the fun now is I'm mixing a single shot and then splitting to do 3-4 things. This is much better than the 8 shot batches of fairing compound that was more the norm in the past.

I've also been doing some rigging work preparing the halyards and sheets so we can go sailing when the time comes.

I'm in "do what I can when I can" mode. Looking forward to being in sailing mode.

Cheers for now, Kevin

2nd coat looks better...

Just had to post a picture of the cockpit after the 2nd coat of primer. It just looks so much better!
By the way, you know you are using nasty stuff (primarily it's the Interlux 2333n thinner/solvent) when the mosqitoes drop dead all over the place. I guess that's another reason to paint early in the day for the finish coats because they won't be out yet. Of course I mixed too much paint for the 2nd coat. That's how it usually goes. Oh, well.

Happy building to everyone over the weekend. I look foreward to lots of blog updates next week.

Cheers, Kevin.

Got some primer on!

First, I must congradulate Ron on the launching of the first US i550, Lunatic Fringe. What a happy day for Ron.

My progress continues to march along. I finally finished all that silly filling and sanding and put some primer on the deck, cabin and cockpit. I have to say, it now looks completely different now. You get used to seeing all that wood and the primer just covers it all up.

There were a few lessons learned. First, the top half of the boat is probably bigger than you think. I thought I had mixed way to much paint but had to mix more to finish. And then what I had mix in round 2 was barely enough. I also went through 2 rollers as the solvents took their toll. That's what the 2nd coat is for though, to cover all the misses of the first coat.

I'm hoping to squeeze in another coat late tonight. I've got a 48 hour window on overcoating without needing to sand. We'll see if there is any gas left in the tank by then.

Cheers, Kevin.

Sunshine, on my carbon...

Way corney on the musical reference.

But it works...
I put the final coat of clearcoat on the carbon spars and they look pretty awesome. I used interlux perfection varnish and the stuff is a very easy to work with as long as you don't mind the organic respirator. When it's layed down right the results look really good and seem to be really tough.



The carbon spreader bracket is just too cool. The layup work is top notch. I'm really looking forward to setting sail.



On other fronts this weekend...
+ we have faired the cockpit and decks. A final sanding of some touch up spots and we are ready for primer.
+ we fitted the rudder and it's ready for paint.
+ we joined the keel foil and the keel bulb and can now call it the keel (period).
+ we made a carbon tiller. That was a fun little project that had it's own ups and downs. It turned out ok. Certainly will get the job done.
+ tested the bow prod rigging.

Wow, that sure seems like a lot. No wonder I'm do tired. I've got a scout trip this coming weekend so I might not get the final coats of paint on until the middle of next week. We'll just have to see how it goes. Hoping to prime tomorrow afternoon.

Cheers, Kevin.

Just keep on trucking...

Sanders are a boat builders best friend. At least it feels that way right now. I've been sanding and preparing the decks, cabin and cockpit for painting and I'm almost there. At least I really want to be that close. I'll have another look when I go out today. I was at the end of my rope when I called it a night last night.

On the good news front I've got fewer nagging problems to be dealt with. The keel now fits in the keel box. That was a big deal because the hole point of this deal is to have a bulb that will right the boat after I pooch it. Also, the bottom of the bulb is now fair. Time to flip that over and fit the keel strut. Then I can finish that fairing so the keel can get primed along with everything else.

I also have the rudder ready to prime. So that's pretty good news.

If the work plan goes well, I'll be painting by the end of the weekend. Wish me luck.

Kevin.

Booms away...

So this weekend was a mixed bag of tinckering, fixing, sanding and fairing. All the things you come to love as a boat builder but will really not miss once you get to be a sailor again.

The fun project was attaching all my carbon rigging parts to the boom. It's now ready for clear coating! The mainsheet blocks are held in place using little padeyes. I made them by laying out a couple layers of carbon cloth (on top of wax paper over the boom) and then added a little eye made of G-10. I then did a fillet and tape job to make that nice and strong. As you can see from the pic, the force on the eye will be along the boom since the block is lashed around the boom and through the eye. I had to buy new line to lash around the boom because I need 5+ feet and the ti-lite only comes with 4 feet. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. The fitting is attached to the boom with G-flex adhesive too. I figured the elastic quality of the g-flex would be a good idea considering the shock loads that a flogging sail can create on everything. It also gives the illusion of the fitting being glued on and possibly removed. I would not bet on the easy removal though.

You can also see the outhaul fitting made from g-10 mounted on the tail end of the boom. You can see the bail I added to ensure the line to the mainsail clew stays on the sheave. It is also mounted with g-flex adhesive. This gives a 2:1 primary outhaul purchase. There will be a 2:1 secondary inside the boom with a cleat on the bottom side of the boom. We'll see how that goes.

BTW, the c-tech boom is a wicked cool piece of carbon. It's lighter than the bow prod even though it's 2 feet longer. I marvel at it every time I pick it up. Cheers to Alex at C-tech.

In other news... The bow prod was sanded so it would fit through my sleeve. An extra wrap of carbon seems to be the culprit as Jeff's didn't need any sanding to fit and work smoothly. The mast and spreaders were prepared for clear coating too. I even installed the sheave for the jib halyard. The foredeck and cabin have been sanded and faired where needed. I'm not over doing the fairing where I'm going to put down non-skid, that seem a bit excessive. I started fairing the keel bulb. And lastly, the tiller is just about ready for some skin.

Should be painting next weekend with sails completed by September 10th and then a Big Splash!!!

I hope everyone else had a productive weekend.

Cheers, Kevin.

Spar me!

This was a few weeks ago, but I figured I should post the pictures of assembling the mast. It turned out to be very straight forward. I had 3 points of support that I could use to hold the spar straight. I roughed up the outside of the spar where the spreaders are mounted and I wiped the joint areas down with alcohol to make it nice and clean.

To assemble I used G-Flex 655 thickened epoxy adhesive. It's from West Systems and has an elastic property that is well suited to the use and abuse a mast goes through. Anyway the stuff is yellowish, very smooth and has a long working time of more than an hour. This gave me lots of time to get things together, align them and then re-check them about a hundred times. With joints that fit as tightly as these it didn't take much adhesive.

One trick I figured out was to tape the spar to the supports as I got the alignment right. I also had to tape the spreaders in place. At first I had used string to tie the spreaders in the right place to a saw horse. But I found that they would move very slowly by the light tension on the string. So I put tape running the long ways on them and we were finally staying in place. By the way, the spreaders are centered over the joint between the bottom and middle section (exactly 3300mm from the planned bottom point of the mast).

This was one of those enjoyable 1 hour projects that didn't require any further effort when you were done. I really like those kind of projects on the boat. They are very few however.

To complete the rigging you have to install the top t-ball backing plates because they are in the joint between the middle and top section. My spar came without jib halyard sheave. The area is reinforced with carbon cloth. It's just a matter of cutting the opening and pop-riveting it in place. This is a place for the dremel with the cutting wheel. I'm going with a Harken 1.5" wire thru-deck block because it's all stainless frame and casing. Lots of sheave boxes are available but are Aluminum. You want to avoid AL to Carbon contact which means you basically have to glass the back of the fittings. Doesn't that sound like fun. At the mast head there is a 1.5" sheave for the main halyard. The Spin halyard uses an external block lashed to a 1/4" pin. And that's about it.

On other fronts, I'm off to re-drill the last of my hardware mounting points. Once that's done it's off to the races with the sander. I'll do some fairing where I'm not putting non-skid. That is one of those internal head debates that I need to stop having. We'll see how that goes. I've got a rudder and a keel bulb to finish too. Wish me luck because I need some seriously positive vibes.

Cheers. Kevin.

Let me in? or Out?

Build progress has been good and hectic. I'm basically trying to finish everything ASAP which doesn't leave much time for anything else. Special thanks goes out to my lovely wife who is putting up with all of this crazy obsession.

Hardware mounts were the first order of the day. To protect the wood core of the boat, each hole you drill has to be drilled over-sized. Filled with silica putty. And then re-drilled to the proper size. All of the holes I think I need are now drilled and filled. Most have already been re-drilled too. The occasional miss (new hole not in the silica putty) have also been fixed. I need all the holes drilled so that when I paint I can find them. Losing a hole after this headache is no fun at all.

I've been able to work on other things while the filled holes dry. I got the rudder cleaned up and placed some blocks on it to hold the mounts (grudeon and pintle). I also molded the tiller head to the rudder so I'll have a way to control this boat soon. While that dried I needed another project...

So I dropped the mast down from the ceiling and popped in the upper shroud backing plates (learned how to pop-rivet too). That wasn't too bad. You just have to be careful and use a wire through the fitting and 2 holes while you rivet in the 3rd. Once that was done I needed another project (This is where the endless list of 2 hour projects comes in handy)...

So I jumped into the companion way hatches. For the vertical boards I used this really nice grained piece of plywood (that was supposed to be the foredeck but turned out to be too small (see the duck bill deck post). Anyway, this cool grain pattern will still get some good use. I'll leave these bright. There are strips on the aft side of the top 2 to keep the rain out. This is not a water proof hatch in way shape or form. BTW, the vertical hatches are in a aluminium C channel that is filletted onto the forward side of frame 110. I did that just like Jeff did on Alchemy and he has good pics of his setup. It was nice to cut wood again, but it sure does make a mess.


For the roof hatch I used the cut-out section I saved from the companionway roof to make the hatch. I trimmed it up some so it fit around stuff added around the opening. Then I added a 1 1/2" strip of wood ply around the edge so that the hatch will rest on the cabin roof. I'll also add some pieces on the forward bottom edge of the hatch to hold the forward edge down. Then all I need is a haspe to hold the aft side of the roof down and in we should be all set. The roof hatch comes down over the vertical hatch so one lock should secure it.

Should be ready to stop playing with little projects and get on to fairing and painting the decks this week. Hoping to splash very soon. It's a race between me and the sailmaker now.

Cheers, Kevin.