TADAAAAA

Last night we could finally begin flipping the stations over. What a great day! Marks the halfway point in the hull construction process.

The process was a bit slow as some epoxy had dripped on the table, and we definately had to remove the high spots to position the stations correctly. Not long now until we can join some halves and look at something resembling a complete hull. Installing bulkheads, beam seats etc should be a breeze after all the strip planking.

Next week I hope to have some pics of the beam mould and the setup there. Just need to source 20 hose clamps of 100mm diam at a reasonable cost and some other stuff needed.

Here is a pic of Frode, enjoying flipping stations over and removing epoxy drips from the screwheads. Note to self, tape over the screwheads this time. Aligning the stations precisely is very important so we spend some time on each station to make sure it is flipped right.

And to top it off, here is a bonus pic of Frode:
(he have begun to complain over being the favourite motive on the blog but since he dont take pictures and dont upload/maintain the blog he dont get to choose which pictures are put up here :-D )
The experienced photographer will notice the height difference between motive and photographer. He really is that tall.

Inside of #6 glassed.

An easy two hour session saw panel #6 glassed on the inside. Omar mixing epoxy while Frode and I laminate. This time we had no pre-coat so we had to use 6 (or was it 7, Omar lost count somewhere) batches a 132grams of epoxy. With a pre-coat on we need barely 5 batches.

Now the stations in the mould have to be flipped over so we can begin to build the other side of the hulls. Imagine that we have done no less than six strip plank panels!

We also had some discussions tonight on progress towards summer. Looks like we are going to try working on the boats two nights a week for a while. We can split the work now between building hulls and all the other bits and parts like beams, foils (Hmmm, still no plugs for the foils in the mail.. Need to check on my kind source), rudder system, spi poles and other bits and ends.

Frode have been shopping carnuba wax for the beam mould! Now we can begin giving it the neccesary layers of wax before building test tubes. The staff at the car equipment shop had no idea what carnuba wax was.. Bloody expensive stuff also!

Another hour..

Another hour spent sanding the inside of #6. The tally is up to two hours by now, and I still have to shape the gunwhale to blend in with the fillet to go there (for the glass). It is 90% done though!

If Frode brings his angle grinder tomorrow night, I'll make short work of the gunwhale shaping. This is time well spent. Just 6 more panels to go (*groan*)

Sanding the inside of #6

I had one hour available today, so I jogged down to the workshop to start sanding the inside of #6. When my hour was up, I was about halfway down the length of the panel. 40grit sure makes progress. Just wish my angle grinder was not busted, then I could have been done with the whole panel.

We do produce some dust with all the sanding we do! Here is a pic from the bow section after todays session.

Progress on #6

Last wednesday we glassed panel #6 on the outside. Here is a pic of the finished result before the epoxy kicked.Spent 2 hours from start to end of the whole operation. We are definately getting better at this.
Tonight I was down in the workshop again to pull the panel off the mould and put it into the female mould/crib for glassing on the inside. Since the angle grinder is bust I spent the rest of the nigth filling any gaps on the inside. There are always some at the bottom of the boat no matter how careful I am with the plane. Sunday I might be able to sand down the inside and pre-coat for glassing the coming week. Who knows :-)
Anyway, we are near the point where we can flip the stations over and begin building the other halves of the hulls. That makes us this happy:
We have also progressed on the mould for the beams. The mould is in the workshop, alu tube split on a large CNC mill. Really nice split! Here is Omar holding the cast end-plugs
Last, I could not help myself but put up a picture of a sunrise as seen from my office window. It was on the phone with the building photos so..

#6 is pre-coated

After some snafu with sanding pads having the wrong side of the velcro glued to them (we dont mention names, do we Frode?) and other fun mishaps, #6 is now ready for glassing. Tonight I put on a layer of epoxy as a pre-coat before glassing. About 60 grams of epoxy was neccesary to cover the whole hull with a thin layer.

I also cast the first end-plug for the beam mould. 260grams of epoxy mixed at 50% with chopped glass should do the trick at 2 bar.