After a winter of too much rain and long delays to boatbuilding it is strange to be welcoming the rain back. The sanding of the hull is taking a toll on my body and the rain forces me to stop the sanding and tackle some other tasks.
Since the last post there has been two sessions of rain. In the first session I finished filleting the frames to the skin forward of the mast step and installed the V berth bearers and wing panels. There are four panels to the V berth with the outer ones fixed to the hull and the middle ones hinged to access the sail storage under. The outer wings are fixed to the bunk bearers and the hull skin forming a formidable U section and all that remains is to paint the bare plywood and wait for the hull to be turned.
During the same wet spell I retreived the V berth locker shelves from storage and fitted them to the cleats on the bulkheads. I had taken the opportunity to trim the shelves to the skin position before skinning the hull so it was just a matter of some final trimming with a hand plane and they are all ready to go. So that I can get better access to fillet the shelves to the skin I will do these one at a time.
last Friday I cut out the front panels for the two lockers between the V Berth and the mast step bulkhead. These intersect the hull across a tangent stringer so there was a lot of trial fits and trims to get a snug fit against the hull. Fortunately one of the grandsons turned up late in the day and did the lifting and holding for me to finish the fit.
With the fine weather returning I recommenced sanding the epoxy prime coat.
Elaine volunteered to do a bit of torture boarding rather than go to the gym and Don, one of our crew, also made it a social morning on two days to keep me motivated.
This outer layer of epoxy primer is reinforced with a very light double bias to form a base for the epoxy paint. Of the six 1.3 metre wide panels applied four went very smoothly but still needed a lot of machine sanding for the final finish. The final two were applied on a hot day and it was difficult to keep ahead of the resin curing curve. I settled for mixing many small batches and finishing each section before mixing the next and while it needed a little more sanding than the first four panels it has sanded up well.
Due to the temperature of the day I left the laminating till after 5pm so it was a late finish to a hot day. Tuesday was equally hot but I had to sand the laminate before the epoxy cured rock hard and with a bit of perseverence managed to tidy up all the already applied epoxy and prepare the hull for the next four panels. That will get me past half way when we next have a cool dry spell.
The wet and windy weather of today was a relief. For the morning I set myself up in the sunroom with the plywood locker fronts on the glass table and set out the locker openings. Not wanting to make a mess of another room in the house I moved the panels to the carport to cut out the locker access holes. This was less civilised than the sun room but was nevertheless a pleasant work station.
That went well so I moved on to the settee backs which will have six locker access holes cut in each face. I used a cardboard template to establish the angled cuts on the two ends and first side fitted the second side exactly so I could cut a matching mirror image.
So that is where I am up to. If it is wet I will finish cutting out the holes in the setee back and if it is still wet I will move to the quarter berth locker fronts. This is my minimum internal fit out target before turning the hull.
If it turns fine and cool then I will get back to the thin laminate on the hull where there is at least two full weeks of work before the four coats of epoxy paint can start.