Hit the deck!

Sorry for the barage of posts---I've been trying to focus time on working on the boat rather than blogging about it. Unfair to my "devoted readers"? Sure. Send me a check and I'll be better about updating the blog.

This long holiday weekend was a tremendously productive one. Three solid days in "The Boatworks" show solid results. Saturday saw the side and forward decks getting glued down. In addition to gluing the deck edge, this required filleting and taping of the edges and bulkheads from the underside. Not the most pleasent work, but not unreasonable. I got about 80% of it done on Saturday by myself---I would have done more but ran short on biaxial tape. Decks are solid, though. Will get more biaxial tape this week week and finish 'er off.

I spent Sunday trimming the deck edges and giving them a nice round-over for hiking. The ½” radius ease to the deck edge looks really good. I first used a straight laminate cutter to trim up the deck edge even with the hull. Then ran my sander down the edge to make sure there weren’t any little epoxy bumps. Then used the ½” round over bit with my "custom" fence attached (below). I used the fence to prevent the router bit from taking too deep a “bite”, particularly in the aft sections of the hull. I ran the router over everything twice. I plan to smear some Microlight in a few spots and will finish with the longboard.



Today I spread a mess a of West System Microlight filler (No. 410) on the rail and cockpit floor. There were a few spots that needed a bit of "help". More sanding and filling tomorrow, but tonight we celebrate an actual boat! :)

Carbon Footprint

NOTE: This should have been posted on 5/15/09.

Yeah, my carbon footprint just got a bit bigger. And I couldn't be happier...

At long last, our carbon fiber rigs, booms, and spinnaker poles arrive from C-Tech, Ltd. in New Zealand. They are truly masterpieces. Kudos to Alex and coworkers at C-Tech. Below are a couple of samples of their caftsmanship.





Hot, right?

After recieving the carbon kit, the first order of business was getting the spinnaker pole receiver tube glassed in so I could get the deck put down. I calculated some rough numbers so that the pole would be centered when fully extended and then got to sawing. Sawing holes in a perfectly sound hull. Nice, eh?

Once I had rough-cut holes for the recieving tube in frame-018 and -110, I used a flashlight to project the profile of the required oblate hole onto the bow section.



After a bit of fine tuning of the bow hole, shocklingly, the math worked out and the pole was dead-center when fully extended!



On to the decking...

Companionway

NOTE: This should have been posted on 4/26/09.

Companionway turned out nice, I think. For the boating neophites, the "companionway" is the door to "downstairs". :) I used a length of aluminum U-channel from McMaster with a 1/4" internal width and depth. At that size, the piece I cut out for the companion way slides right into the two slots. I framed the inside of the companionway with my trusty poplar stock that I cut down a bit. Along the bottom, I laminated two 1"x2" pieces of poplar together and cut it on the table saw so that it would shed water. All told, I think it looks pretty good and should work well.

I also slotted the side decks for the chainplates. If you lay the side decks in place and scribe a pencil line from underneath, you can carefully use your circular saw to plunge cut the slot. A little triming at the ends will let the 1/8" stainless chainplates slide into place nicely.

With business travel and a short trip for Traci and I to London for 5 days for a wedding, the Boatworks will be quiet for a bit. Stay tuned!