Hull panels done - some fisheye fun!

To finish off the hull panels, I taped the joints between the hull panels and bow/stern transoms, and trimmed the panels off flush with the ends of the boat, which looks nice.

Next I vacuumed out the hull and ran a tack cloth over it before coating the interior of the hull panels with their third and final coat of epoxy.  I had applied the first two quite a while ago when the panels were flat on the bench.  I used a roller, and then tipped out the bubbles with a foam brush.

Then I grabbed the fisheye lens for my camera to take these shots, which accentuate the nice curves on this boat!

After the epoxy cures I'll remove the gloss by hand sanding with a sanding sponge, then will apply two coats of white paint to finish off those interior areas.

Final hull panels installed!

It's been a productive weekend - I finished installing the final hull panels, and now this is really looking like a boat.  

These panels were the easiest of the bunch.  I fit the panels, then removed wires front and rear and loosend those attached to bulkheads 3 and 5, the hull panel lifted up and stayed in place leaving lots of room to apply thickened epoxy to the lap joint: 

After applying epoxy, I pivoted the panel down and reattached the wires.  I added a few through the lap joint to make sure I had good contact the length of the joint.  These ties I bent to the shape of a big staple, drilled two holes, inserted them from inside, and twisted on the outside.  Worked very nicely.

I let the expoy cure, then removed the wire ties that were no longer needed in the lap joint, and filleted and fiberglass taped the inside joint.  The fiberglass tape on this joint is not required per the manual, but it makes me feel better to have it, so I applied it.

Here's an inside view.  This was taken before I filleted and taped the starboard side.

And here's an outside view.  Looking like a boat!

More hull panels and a Whoops!

I have continued to install more hull panels, and it's been rewarding to start to get a more complete feel of what this boat will look like.  

After applying a panel I come back about a day later and hit the edges of the fiberglass tape with a scraper to smooth off the rough edge.  The tape has a little structure at the edge that sticks up and is rough, and one edge is worse than the other.  The scraper made quick work of it.

And after vacuuming up the shavings we see this.  I don't intend to attempt to further smooth this out.  It's inside the storage area, and all I care about is that there are no rough edges to snag anything I store in there.  the inside of the hull panel and fiberglass tape will get one more coat of epoxy to ensure all is sealed, and then two coats Rustoleum Gloss White to finish it off.

I found that the front of the garboard panel curved across the center line due to the keel from the bow transom down to the bottom of the hull having a slight curve.  

I used a plane to trim that panel back to the center line so that it would not interfere with the panel on the starboard side.

I then took a look at where the material was removed, and how much was taken, and got out the spokeshave to make the other side look the same

After installing the panel, the front edges meet up nicely. 

Moving on to panel number two, things got a little more difficult.  The bottom hull panel rested against the hull bottom, but panel 2 doesn't have that luxury.  I ended up suspending the panel with some thin nylon straps to get it roughly into position, and then wired it on in a few places.

I then took out some wires and loosened others.

This left the hull panel hanging loose enough so that I could get under there to apply thickened epoxy to the lap joint and then tighten things up again.

So, current status is four hull panels installed, filleted, and taped.

And it's looking like a boat!

But alas, all is not perfect.  I got so into getting hull panels installed that I forgot I needed to use the seats to align the bulkheads.  I've had some issues with this plywood in that the pieces tend to warp and twist somewhat.  Not sure why that is, but the net result in this case is that all the bulkheads no longer line up with the slots in the seats.  Whoops! 

This is the worst one.  Looks like I'll need to open up the slot on one side, and fill it in with epoxy (wood flour fillet mixture) on the other.  Should not be a big deal, and the hull panel shape looks good.

My wife consoled me, saying that no one would ever notice as long as I didn't blab it all over the internet or something :-)

First panel filleted and taped - home made pastry bag

Today I got the first hull panel filleted and taped.  I decided to push the wire ties down into the crease and run my fillets over the top.  After the epoxy has cured I will snip them flush on the outside and the remainder of the wire remains in the joint.  This speeds the process because I don't have to install 'tack' fillets and then take a second pass to pull the wires, complete the fillets and apply the fiberglass tape.

I decided to use the 2-inch wide tape that that spanned the joint just fine.  There are a couple different ways to handle the application of the tape - what I did was to cut it to length before starting any epoxy and set it aside.  After the filled was run I laid the tape on top dry and smoothed it out with my fingers.  It sticks to the fillet, so you need to get it in the right place the first time.  I then wet it out with unthickened epoxy using one of the little metal handled acid brushes pictured in a previous post.  That was a little slow but allowed for good control

And the end result is clean and neat -

Even in the hard to access forward-most joint -

To get the epoxy right down in the joint where it needs to be I use a home-made pastry type bag made from a gallon zip-loc.  I fold it as shown, and tape it across the middle and along the edge.

Then turn it partway inside out and put it in a container that holds it up for filling.

I mix up my fillet mixture (here 6 pumps of epoxy, 2 plastic spoons of silica thickener, and about 4 spoons of wood flour)

And put it in the bag.

Use some type of roller to smoosh it to the corner, zip the top closed, and snip off the corner with a scissors.  Don't cut too much of the tip off!

I can refill this several times before it's too messy and I switch to a new bag.  To refill, I open the top a bit, blow it up like a balloon to separate the sides, fold over the tip and hold it with a clothespin, and then put it in the container ready to refill.

First hull panel wired!

I think this is exciting - tonight I got the first hull panel wired on and ready to epoxy!

I used a few copper wire ties, one clamp, and some bracing on the forward end to hold in in place, and it fit very nicely.  

The front end of the panel took quite a bit of force to get into position.  In this photo you can see I've got two braces running up and left against the wall to keep the bow from being pushed off to the side.  The larger C-clamp and its partially hidden twin are holding a piece of 3/4" pine against the keel plywood to keep that from flexing.  

Barely visible running off to the lower right is the brace bearing against the hull panel.  Its lower end is kept from sliding out by being against a pipe clamp that runs back to the building jig base. 

A nice fair curve is what we're looking for here...

.

Here's a close up of one of the wire ties, secured through 1/16" holes and twisted with an aviation pliers, which is made for doing just this kind of thing.

I ran out of time before I could epoxy, so that's next.  I have two different widths of fiberglass tape on hand, 2" and 3", and I need to figure out which to use.  I believe the narrower is what is recommended, but it seems very narrow compared to my previous builds, which all used the 3" tape.  I just need to double check on that before going ahead, as this is applied over the fresh fillet and wet out, all in one session.

Almost hull panel time

I've now completed the second coat of paint on the interior spaces, and it looks great.  Two coats of Rustoleum Gloss White covers nicely.  Here you can see the shine.  That should go a long way towards brightening the storage areas, and it will be easy to see whether they are clean or not.

So I thought I was finally at the long-anticipated point of starting to put on the hull panels.  I grabbed the garboard panel on the port side and put it in place to check for fit and consider my strategy for keeping it on the boat.  

As of now, I plan to stitch the panel in place along the bottom seam with copper wire, and probably at each bulkhead, then fillet in place.  I haven't yet decided whether to push down the stitches and fillet over them, as I did on my kayaks, or to fillet between them, and remove the stitches before filleting those areas.

At any rate, I discovered I was a little premature with the hull panel, as I had neglected to epoxy seal the edges of the bottom of the hull.

Nothing for it but to take care of that now, so I went around the edge of the hull bottom and applied unthickened epoxy with a disposable brush.  I got a box of about 100 of these for not much money, and they are really handy for jobs like this.  I also did raw edges of the transom which needed coating since I had beveled them to accept the hull panels.

Graphite coating

Since last update it's been more sanding and epoxy work, and there are no compelling photos from that, but here's a shot showing the second coat on the interior surface of three of the hull panels.

I had a little epoxy left over, so I experimented with mixing graphite in, and applied another coat to the inside of the centerboard case side.  I found the mixture rolled on just fine, though I will need at least one more coat to finish filling the weave of the cloth.

I understand that the graphite/epoxy mixture cures to a very hard and abrasion resistant finish. And that's just what is needed on the inside of the centerboard case where the board swings up and may contact the sides of the case.  I'll use this same mixture on the other side of the centerboard case, as well as on the centerboard itself.

For this job I used some vintage graphite a neighbor gave me about 20 years ago.  The text on the container says this is grade 402A, which is 'ground to an impalpable fineness'.

Puzzle joint clean-up

Today I removed the clamps from the hull panel glue-up to reveal nice-looking joints.  

Here's the top one with the waxed paper still on it.  The waxed paper peeled off with no problems and didn't even appear to have been used.  So that worked great.

I found it worked well to take off most of the squeeze-out using a hand scraper.

And then the random-orbit sander cleaned things up nicely.  These joints  look like they don't fit especially close, but that's because I rounded the edges slightly before assembly so things would slip together more easily.

Later on I applied epoxy to the puzzle joints in the hull bottom.  I made an impromptu foam brush from part of a roller cover and stuck it in the slotted dowel that was originally the handle for a store-bought foam brush.  That worked much better than my technique yesterday of just using the stirring stick to apply the epoxy. 

This joint is a lot wider, so I clamped it up as shown below.  The 2x4 has a slight crown in the middle, so that when I apply clamp pressure on the ends I end up with pressure across the entire joint as the board straightens out..

Joining hull panels

This afternoon I glued up the puzzle joints in the six hull panels.  It was a tedious job spreading thickened epoxy on both sides of each joint, especially since I was out of little brushes, and had to just use the mixing stick.  By the time I got to the final joints I could tell the epoxy was starting the hardening process.

I clamped all six panels in one stack with waxed paper between the layers.  Tomorrow we'll see how it all worked out.