i550class.org

I know I should put this on my blog where it belongs, but I still don't have a camera yet... Here's where I'm at. I'm squaring everything up prior to smearing peanut butter on all the seams. I finally got some epoxy and tape (aeromarine products here in S.D.) and I'm going to be taping the crap out of her seams in the next couple of weeks. I did like chad and put my bulkheads and stringers in place before putting on the sides, it really helped smooth out any warping in the ply.

Lessons learned:

Measure and mark the bulkhead locations on the bottom of the hull before putting on the sides!
level the build jig before levelling the bulkheads!
Square up everything and check often!

p.s. My wife is encouraging me to get it done asap; Seems she's tired of a bunch of plywood in her living room!

No pics then? Guess it didn't really happen. Just a bunch of hearsay. Nothing here to see, move along folks.


Good to hear your progress Rocky!
Not happy about the lack of pics though!

If you build the way I did, cut a bunch of sticks and clamp/hot melt glue/double-side tape them to the unsupported frame edges and tops. They get a bit wavy over the time it takes to tape all the bottom seams, and I could have been a little more careful with that in my build. No adverse effects noticed, just one of those "could be better" hindsights.

Great to hear about your progress, sounds like with your wifes help you'll be making short work of it. Build on Rocky!

Keep on trucking Rocky. And remind your wife that she is lucky you are not laminating parts in the kitchen and curing them in the oven like Chad did.



K.

Hey now, I didn't laminate in the kitchen. Just cured the part in the oven for a while. Needed the plastic mandrel to expand, to make release happen easier. I'd use a heating blanket if I did it again...

Usually the worst my wife has to put up with is me parading through the house in sweaty skivvies, having shed the boatwork clothes at the back door. I know, just the picture you all needed to think about, just before bedtime!

Thanks for the visual. k.

AAAAHHHHHHHH! I'm blind!!!!!

Yeah Chad, scary thought !

And Rocky, GO FOR İT dude !

Actually the scary thought probably isn't Chad. Especially considering that he dropped 10 pounds while fairing his deck. I on the other hand did not shed any weight due to beer consumption probably and still check in at 220lb which has become a rather annoying number. I long for 21? on the scale.

Cheers...

5 of the 10 is back now that I finished sanding the deck a few weeks ago. First hull sanding session today, and I can barely lift my arms to type.

Bogging down in the bog now, had some problems with that "twist thang" at the bow. It seems like frame 18 just doesn't want to square up. I may just ignore it for now, I've got the bow in line and square with the rest of the boat, So maybe I have a wrong cut on 18 or something. I can see already that I'm going to be doing a lot of fairing, it's what i get for taking too long to use the ply. But I'm building! Wheeee!!!!!

good t'hear you're at it Rocky!

I'd triple check the frame before I started sweating it. Is the stem already glued in? Frames 53 and back are in and look good? If yes, then you are fighting a warp in the ply or you have something wrong on the frame. I installed my stem after frame 18 was in place and frames so I shaped the stem some to fit the angles that the panels were actually meeting at the stem. Not the 20 degrees that the plans specify. Not sure what others experienced with that angle but my panels had a flatter angle than that.
Good luck figuring it out, and congrats on making progress to a boat shaped thing in the work shop versus a pile of wood.
Kevin.

seems like Kevin's suggetion is a great one. İ followed the plans and, for sure , ended up twisting the ply in such way that my bow panels assumed different shapes on both sides (concave and convex). That was corrected with a lot of work, sweat, foam and fairing putty.

I was off with my centerline mark on frame 18, don't know how it happened. Made the correction and everything looks good now. Tried to upload pictures but don't know how. Posted them on my blog, check it out!

Looking good Rocky, great to see all your progress.

Go Rocky! 'Bout time we saw some pics! Nice progress.


(pics here: choose, upload, place is the three step sequence, once you figure out how to reduce them to less than 250k...)

So it does really exist. Excellent work!!!

I highly recommend that you consider trying peel ply when you tape your joints. I think it will be a huge time saver for you and really move your build along. Having used peel ply this winter on parts that I've laid up in my basement, it is just awesome!!! Here's how I'd tape a seam...
- get some light weight nylon cloth from the fabric store. 60" widths are usually findable.
- cut strips 2" wider than your glass tape (strips of cloth, biaxial, what ever you are using - don't use "saline tape" it won't fit to the curve of the boat, it wants to be straight, I'd use the lightest biaxial tape you can find or cut strips of 6 oz cloth on the bias and be careful to not stretch them).
- fillet you joint as normal after removing those globs with that magic sander of yours. Make the fillet healthy in size so the arch radius isn't too small which the tape could pull away from (trust me, it sucks).
- while the fillet is still fresh, less than 4 hours old, tape the seam so you don't have to go back and sand the fillet before taping ( a real pain when it happens).
- wet out the cloth tape on top of the peel ply (nylon). Yes it will soak through the nylon, but that's totally ok.
- lay the tape on the joint and smooth it out with a plastic spreader.
- let it setup.
- pull off the nylon the next day and voila your joint is done and ready for a final internal coat of epoxy when you get to that point.

I spent weeks and weeks fixing a rushed taping job and it was the single largest pain in my arse and a huge waste of time. If I could have been done with the joints in 1 shot, no second coat, no mass sanding It would have shortened my build by months.

Cheers and keep up the good work. Kevin.

Oh, and Rocky I'm liking your full-length side and shear stringers! I think I would do the same for the hull bottom if I did it again.

I thought about it, but filleting and taping would have been harder, so I went the easy way. But it would have expedited the alignment of the panels.

Considering the work I put into my stringers after the fact, and my shear clamp for that matter, I agree. Not exactly sure how it would work, but having the frames positioned correctly when you can easily get in there and measure sounds like a good idea to me.

I'm ready to glass the bottom of my boat, and after going through some fairing, I wonder if it would have been easier to build the boat upside-down, clamping the frames onto the cradle. This approach would work especially well if the drawings and patterns for the frames came with the curved sides that almost everyone had to build into the boat on in an ad-hock fashion.

Of course one of the benefits of stitching the panels together first is that you get a boat-looking object very quickly and I have to say that there was a lot of motivation in that.

From what I understand, the new "digital" plan set includes all the info a builder needs to create a strong back and build the boat updside down. I think there are every 1 ft' frames which I would make one every 2 feet personally.
Anyway, Love to see your progress too. Looks pretty great and it's fun to wet out all that glass and get it done. I remember that work day fondly.

Kevin.

The updated Watershed plans don't have plans for upside down building, just lots more cradle stations for rightside up building. They also include some frame curvature to allow the sides to lay fair without the buckling and bulges that earlier builders fought with.

In lieu of cutting a bunch more cradle frames, a more elegant solution is to use lengthwise stringers/battens/ribbands either in the cradle or against the inside face of the hull panel. I did this (cradle stringers) for the longer spans aft between 124 & 169 & 216, and it worked well. I should have continued the cradle stringers further forward, all the way to 18, or 53 at least. Just to true up the little wavies that happen, especially at the panel edges, especially when the panels sit (outdoors) for a long build. I have some minor cradle and trailer bunk dents as well, from being in the cradle too long, and transporting the boat with the ply nearly raw and still pretty soft without any sheathing.

So my chines get a little extra fairing, nothing too bad and I hope to be glassing by the end of the week. Catching up, Phil!

I'm very happy with how the bottom of my boat looks after doing the epoxy last night. Here's a question however: Is there any reason to add additional layers of cloth to the bottom? I have several yards of 11 oz carbon fiber twill left over. Would it be worth adding an additional layer on the bottom maybe up to the water-line? If it's not necessary, I can always use the CF on other projects.

Kevin said (above) that he remembers fondly the day that he wet-out the glass on his boat. I may in retrospect, but today I'm getting by on Advil.

Phil