Get On the Good Foot

More sailmaking

2011-11-11T11:48:00.001-08:00

Corner patches

2011-11-11T09:31:00.001-08:00

The trusty Pfaff.

Building sails

2011-11-11T08:57:00.001-08:00

I bought a Sailrite kit. Today, we build

Paint

2011-10-13T16:18:00.001-07:00

Starting to get some paint on the bottom. I thought about having it sprayed by a pro, but instead I'm rolling on an oil-based porch paint. Still have a couple coats to go in these pics.

Miscellaneous bits

2011-10-06T14:24:00.001-07:00

Here are a few shots of some recent work. Before painting, I had to install the keel. It is a full-length keel that is about 1 1/2 inches deep at the aft end and tapers to nothing near the curve of the bow.
Also, I had to cut the opening for the Anderson bailer. I have also been building the masts which are each made of three sections of T6061 aluminum tubing sleeved together with epoxy and fiberglass bushings.

Fairing

2011-08-08T14:38:00.001-07:00

Fairing sucks.

It’s nasty, dusty work and it takes quite a bit longer than you think it should. And trying to fair on hundred degree days makes it much, much worse. However... it is a cool thing to see the hull go from rough plywood to a smooth surface ready for paint. And as much as I’m disinclined to hard labor, I do find that working the fairing board over the hull induces a bit of a zen-like state (but with sweat and profanity).

At first, I was planning to just fair the fiberglass seams enough to get them to blend into the sides and bottom a bit and call it good. But the more I thought about it I knew that every time I saw all those inevitable bumps and valleys, and every time another boat was just that tiny bit faster than Goodfoot, I would curse myself for not spending the extra time to get it right. Or at least as right as I’m able.

So, while claiming no expertise in the matter of fairing, here’s what I did:

First, I went after the fiberglass tape seams. The tape that I use has a fairly pronounced stitched edge that stands up quite a bit higher that the surrounding hull. (Once I figured out that these were going to be problem areas for fairing, I took to cutting this ridge away with a utility knife as soon as the epoxy set up enough to resist any movement but before it cured so much that the knife wouldn’t get through it.) To feather these seams I used the random orbital sander with 60 grit and stuck to just smoothing out the outside quarter inch or so of the tape. (This was done before applying the fiberglass cloth over the entire bottom (see previous post).

Then I gave the entire hull one coat of filler made of epoxy and phenolic microballoons.

Handy epoxy ratio scale make measuring out the correct ratio of epoxy to hardener easy.

Mixing epoxy on hot days requires an ice bath to keep things from kicking off too quickly.

Fairing mixture

Since the bottom is covered with fiberglass cloth, the goal of this layer was to fill any texture of the cloth weave and add just a tiny bit more thickness to allow for sanding.

Then I built some fairing boards in various lengths and flexibilities. The first boards I made were actually for fairing the centerboard. These were made of 1/8” birch plywood. They were fairly flexible and were quite good for working the curved sections at the bow. But for the flatter sections further aft, I wanted something heavier and stiffer. While pondering what to fabricate this board from, I was spending a few days helping my father-in-law install laminate flooring. I got to looking at the flooring planks, and it dawned on me that this was perfect fairing-board material. I fabricated handles to attached to a piece of the stuff cut large enough to fit a belt-sander belt (50 grit), and then glued a second layer of the flooring to the first. This produced a thick, straight, and barely flexible board that was perfect for the flat, aft sections of the hull.

Laminate flooring fairing board.

These shots show the first layer of fairing compound before and after the first sanding with the rough fairing board.

I used these boards to just knock off high spots in the fairing and then looked for any obvious low spots which I then filled. After this cured I went at it again with the rough fairing board a bit more aggressively, then vacuumed and wiped the hull down with damp rag. This got me to a mostly even hull with a few problem areas that were easily identifiable as small shiny spots. I kept repeating this process filling low spots, scratches, and any hollows at tape seams. After each sanding and cleaning, there were fewer shiny bits showing up. So I kept repeating this until I couldn’t find any problem spots.

Obvious low spots after the first, rough sanding. It took several bouts of filling and sanding to finally fair the areas adjacent to the fiberglass tape seams.

Sometimes it helped to circle the problem spots with a Sharpie so they would be easier to identify quickly when applying the filler.

Fewer problem spots after a two rounds of filling and sanding.

The end is in sight!

I then sanded the entire hull with random orbital starting with 80 grit and progressing to 200 grit. I could try to go smoother than 200, but since I’m planning to roll-and-tip an oil-based porch paint, I figure any more sanding would be overkill. Originally I thought I would spray on a polyurethane paint, but I figure the porch paint will make the inevitable repairs and touch-up much easier.

So now I’m pondering my next step. If go straight to painting from here I’ve read of problems with pinholes and “fish-eyes” developing in the curing paint. I assume this is from out-gassing from the fairing material. So I’m considering one layer of epoxy as a “sealer “ coat before rolling on the paint. If I do this I will likely mix in just enough colloidal silica into the epoxy to begin resisting sag and apply it as thinly as possible with a rubber squeegee, pressing it into the faired surface as much as possible. I did something like this when sealing the raw plywood surface inside the seat tanks. Doing it this way left an almost glassy-smooth surface with no epoxy drips to clean up later.

Like I said, I claim no expertise in this process so if anyone out there reading this has any input of what I’ve done so far, or how to porceed from here, I’d love to hear from you.

Next post should be painting. Also coming up is assembly of the aluminum masts.

Cheers

Glassing the bottom

2011-07-01T10:21:00.000-07:00

So a spring full of sailing has slowed the progress on the boat. Once we flipped the hull, it mostly sat there few a few weeks while I took full advantage of an unusually windy beginning to the summer. I crew on a J29, J24, and a Vanguard 15, and this May brought multiple regattas including the National J24 championships, which was a great time. But now the full heat has returned and the winds are starting to moderate, so I am, bit by bit, getting back to working on the boat.

A few weeks ago, a few friends came by to help glass the bottom. It went pretty smoothly. The only minor issue was that the epoxy was ready to kick off pretty quickly even though I'm using the "very slow" hardener. Next time I need to work with large amounts of epoxy in this kind of heat, I will first chill the jugs of epoxy for a few hours in an ice bath. That should slow things down enough to make the process a bit less frantic.

Anyway, here are a few pics of the process under way. It looks a bit haphazard at this point cause we were in such a rush to get the epoxy into the weave of the glass before it kicked.

The glass fabric was just wide enough to span the bottom and wrap the chine about 2 inches at the point of widest beam. So at the transom and bow there was plenty of extra fabric. I just cut the excess off and will fair the edge of the glass into the sides.

There was no way the folds of the fabric at the transom corner were going to behave. Instead of trying to cut and fold things neatly together, I just left them alone and ground off the loose fabric once the epoxy cured. The corners already have three layers of glass tape inside and out, so any more is not really necessary.

The biggest challenge was getting the epoxy to fully saturate the cloth without allowing too much excess that would pool up under the glass and allow it to float up off the wood. This took some practice with the right amount of pressure with rubber squeegees to get it just right.

Once we got the technique dialed-in, the result was a well saturated glass that still had some of the weave of the fabric showing on the surface.

Right now I'm starting the process of fairing, which is a long, nasty project. I'll try to get some pics of that up soon.

Boat Flip

2011-04-03T18:31:00.000-07:00

Today is boat-flipping day.

I've lined up about 6-8 strong guys and bought a few cases of beer. This is probably more than enough (people, not beer). The plan is pretty straight forward: (1) lift the boat off the hull-shaped cradle,

(2) disassemble cradle and get it out of the way, (3) get boat into the yard, (4) replace cradle with new supports that support the inwales. Then (5) roll boat the boat over and (6) place on the new supports. Finally (7 and 8) drink beer/eat pizza.

Anything that seems so simple makes me suspicious. I think probably the biggest lesson I've taken from sailing over the years is that it's a good habit to always keep in mind the worst-case scenario. Not in a paranoid, tinfoil-cap-wearing kind of way, but rather cultivating a heightened sense of impending doom. Then, when things start to go south, you have half a chance at being prepared and perhaps even a step or two on the way to recovery. And, when things do go according to plan, it seems much more like an actual victory. Much more pleasant this way.

So in this tradition, I've spent some time mentally walking through the rollover. Here's how that has gone:

1) We lift the boat off the cradle then promptly trip over all the scrap lumber stored under the cradle. I've now relocated all the scraps.

2) Lift the boat off the cradle, trip over the dog. He likes to help whenever there's a big project like this. Can't help it, he's part cattle dog. Apparently, the cat is looking for ways to help as well, mostly by taking a nap in the seat tanks. Here's the evidence.

Tell-tale paw prints

3) Lift boat, start moving it when someone discovers one of those nasty, sharp epoxy drips, cuts their hand and drops the boat. I've now given the hull another once-over with a chisel and some sandpaper, plus bought a few extra pairs of gloves.

I quickly realized I could imagine about a million ways to screw this up. So rather than worry too much about it, better to just get on with it.

For the most part, the hull is pretty strong at this point. The only potential weak spot is at the top of the sides at the widest part of the beam. This is because the decks, which will be fiberglassed at a right angle to the sides, are not installed yet. So the problem is that when rolling the boat, this is the part that will naturally want to rest on the ground, potentially bending it to the point of cracking the inwale. My solution was to add lateral braces that screwed into the inwale as well as braces at the forward bulkhead and near the bow.

The bow is an especially tricky part when flipping, because there aren't any good places to get a grip. So I constructed this little block shaped to fit under the inwale and bolted it to a two-by-six to use as a lifting bar. Like so,

The brace at the forward bulkhead was screwed to the forward beam, but rather than let all the weight fall on these screws, I added cargo straps that went around the hull to help carry the load.

All of these braces were allowed to stick out beyond the edge of the sides so that when rolling, the braces, rather than the sides, would meet the ground. This distributed the weight of the hull nicely to the strong bulkheads and made the flip go very smoothly.

Here's a quick view of the whole process.

A few strong guys, a plan, and Bob's your uncle.

Now with the boat inverted, it's on to taping the outer seams, fiberglassing the bottom, cutting the centerboard slot, installing the keel, and installing an Anderson bailer. Then fairing, sanding, fairing, sanding, fairing, sanding...then painting.

With any luck, this will be the only time Goodfoot will be upside-down.

Thanks to everyone who helped out (Bob, Bob, Maureen, Nathan, Jay, Andrew, Tom, Marie and Penelope and Woody). You guys are the best.

Prep for Seat Install

2011-03-22T21:12:00.001-07:00

With the seat tops cut to shape and joined into two panels, it's time to epoxy coat the seat tanks that will be enclosed as well as paint the area that will be tough to access under the front seat.

Here are the seat top panels joined together.

Epoxy coating the side tanks...

...and the painted forward section

I decided to go with a cockpit color a bit toned down from plain white, which would probably give a lot of glare. We looked at a couple off-whites and tried out some samples.

The one on the left was the winner.

Here it is in the cockpit.

The seat tops went on today, but we didn't get a chance to take pictures. I'll post those in the next day or two.

Cockpit hatches and other stuff

2011-03-12T07:52:00.000-08:00

On of the places I'm deviating from the plans is on the access to the side seats compartments. Most builders use top-access seat hatches which require additional framing and leave a seam right in the middle of the most used sitting space. Like this:

Rough opening for seat hatch.

Framing and gutters to drain water into cockpit.

Seat with gutter molded around framing.

From a storage standpoind, they are nice because they give quick access to the large side tanks that make an ideal storage place for fenders, PFDs, and long items like fishing rods or umbrellas. So there's a trade-off in not going with these hatches. Instead, I'm using eight inch quarter-turn inspection ports located on the seat sides.

Cutting the openings.

Fine-tuning with a Dremel.

They fit!

These ports will be much more watertight in a knock down. Plus the size of the opening still fits medium-sized objects like fenders. PFDs will not fit, but the front and rear compartments have plenty of room for that kind of stuff. By placing the openings about three feet from the side bulkhead, I can reach almost all of the compartment with an extended arm.

It may turn out that items roll to the ends of the compartments out of reach. If so, I may have to add additional port at the other ends. But for now I'm going with four ports, one for each side tank.

The quarter-turn hatches are from Duckworks. I've heard that they tend to be a bit more reliable (leak-proof) that the screw-in models. Once they are fully tightened you can feel them click. At this point they are pretty well sealed. However, they are also a bit difficult to re-open. They may loosen up over time, but for now it seems like a good idea to have a tool to help lever them open when needed. This hatch wrench is made of a few plywood scraps and a sturdy piece of pine for a handle.

Once I cut the opening for the hatches, I decided to bulk up the frame of the opening a bit with some 3/8" plywood backers. This will stiffen the area substantially and give the screws for the hatch frames more material to bite into.

Since I'm not using the seat-top hatches I added a few extra pieces of framing for the seat tops to rest on. This might be unnecessary, but the added weight is small and it is going right to the place where people are most likely to be sitting as well as stepping on and off the boat.

Once the hatch openings were cut it was time for a nap.

I'm stretched out on the cockpit floor behind where the thwart will be located. There is easily enough room to sleep between the seats. My plan is to have floor boards that can be raised to the same height as the seat tops, making a single platform of the rear half of the cockpit. With these in place, the beam of the boat is enough for someone my height to lay sideways. Two people sleeping on the boat should not be a problem at all.

This is the backer block for the bow eye. It's made from a solid chunk of cedar which is light, rot resistant and has a high compression strength. It will be epoxied and glassed in place soon.

Pretty soon I will be ready to put the seat tops on. But first the side compartments must by sanded smooth and epoxy coated to keep moisture out. The first couple times I tried to coat vertical areas I always had problems with drips. This was true no matter how thinly I tried to apply the epoxy. So now I have a different approach. I mix the epoxy wit just enough silica thickener to create a mixture that will resist running. It doesn't have to be as thich a a fillet mixture because it will be going on in such a thin layer. I go with a mixture about the thickness of Ranch dressing. Instead of applying it with a brush, I use a squeegee. It goes on in a thin and consistent layer that does not run and requires very little if any sanding once it has cured. I can't be sure, but I think it actually spreads a bit further then an un-thickened batch of the same volume.

Centerboard trunk is going in today. Will post more soon.

Centerboard progress

2011-03-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

The centerboard and rudder are nearing completion. This has been one of the more labor-intensive projects so far. The plans give general instructions on shaping the profile of the blades, but I decided to try to get something close to a NACA section for (hopefully) a bit of improved performance. The link is to a Duckworks article by Warren Messer on a method for producing blades with this profile. I didn't go crazy here. I just plugged in some numbers for my blade dimensions to get a profile which I used to "eyeball" my blade as I was shaping it. I'm sure it's far from perfect, but I think it will be an improvement over what I would have produced with the the stock plans.

Here is the rough blank with the control appendage. It had been rough-shaped at this point.

After comparing the rough shaping with the NACA dimensions, I needed to do some fairing. This was done with an epoxy and phenolic micro-balloons mixture mixed to a fairly thick, non-sagging consistency. After curing for a couple days, I hit it with a fairing board while frequently checking against the NACA profile.

After several iterations of compound and fairing board I had a shape I could live with. Like I said, not perfect, but pretty good. Then I "rattle-bombed" it with a can of white appliance epoxy. This stuff goes on thin and dries very hard. I will probably give it two or three more coats of the stuff before I call it done. Here is how it looks now.

Thwart and Mast Step

2011-02-20T16:37:00.000-08:00

My friend Kevin was visiting for the weekend so of course I made him work for room and board. Reaching into the bow section to install the forward mast step is tough for a someone with stumpy little arms like mine. Fortunately, Kevin has freaky orangutan arms, so no problem.

He does nice work. But there is always a chance he installed a small charge under the mast step that he can set off remotely the first time we race. We are a bit competitive about the racing.

This is his boat. Skate is a schooner-rigged proa. Very fast.

Meanwhile, I was working on the centerboard trunk and thwart. I managed to find a very nice piece of 12" wide African mahogany for the thwart. It was a rusty red color in the rough-cut blank. But once I planed and sanded it a bit, it lightened up to look almost like a cedar. I'll be curious to see what it looks like with the final finish.

I built the centerboard trunk to be a tiny bit taller then the final designed height. The contraption below is for scribing a line along the top of the trunk to exactly match the height of the seat tops. This way if I decide to make removable bunk slats to cover the footwell space, they will make a perfectly flat surface all the way across the cockpit.

Centerboard Trunk

2011-02-15T12:40:00.000-08:00

Most of my time lately has been spent in the shop shaping foils and glassing the centerboard trunk. It's been too cold outside to do any work on the cockpit. Even with a heater running full bore in the shop it has been pretty cold. But now it is in the 60s and 70s and I can start fitting the centerboard trunk in place. Here it is dry fit together with the partially faired centerboard installed.

Dry Fitting the Seats

2011-01-04T12:41:00.000-08:00

I've been spending most of my boat time cutting the seat sides and tops to shape. It's a fun process but it involves a bunch of climbing in and out with a thick pencil for scribing the hull shape to the roughly shapes seat panels. Then lots of time with the power plane and low angle planes fine tuning the curves to make for a snug fit. Now that all these panels are shaped I can dry fit everything in place. It's cool to see the interior goes from a raw hull to the general finished layout of the cockpit so quickly. Here's a quick slide show to show the transformation. Of course everything is just clamped or taped in place for the moment and will all come back out so I can epoxy coat the seat tanks. Then I'll begin installing everything.

The centerboard trunk is supported at the aft end by a temporary thwart just to hold it in the correct position. The actual thwart will cover the back foot or so of the centerboard trunk.

Aft Hatch Framing

2010-11-19T17:27:00.000-08:00

I managed to carve out a few hours to finish epoxy coating the aft hatch area and add the framing for the rear deck. Some of the framing is left a bit high at this point so I can plane it down later to match the curve of the transom.

The offset framing on the starboard side defines where the rear hatch is located. At first I wasn't crazy about the asymmetric look of this hatch location. But after thinking about it for a bit I decided that the ability to access that hatch while sailing (since it is not under the tiller) is quite practical, which makes it look much nicer.

The hatch opening is just large enough for one of those large, 5 gallon buckets to fit easily through. I've heard from several people that these make for excellent watertight storage on extended camping trips. There is enough room in the rear compartment to hold 8 of these buckets with room left over for loose stuff like sleeping bags, tents, etc.

I'm leaving the rear hatch unpainted to make it easier to inspect the wood over time.

Next up is scribing and cutting the remainder of the seat sides and epoxy coating the side compartments. More soon hopefully.

Slow progress

2010-11-16T14:13:00.000-08:00

I haven't been able to work on the boat much lately. But there has been some minor progress. There are a series of hull-stiffening stringers both fore and aft of the main bulkhead. They are epoxied in place to help stiffen the hull right where there is most likely to be occasional bumps while beaching or retrieving the boat to a trailer. The aft stringers run parallel to the centerline while those in the front compartment are on a diagonal that matches the straight line in the developed curve of the bow.

The front compartment also houses the forward mast step which can be seen here. It is not installed yes, but just taped in placed to fine-tune the location. I'll be glassing it in place soon.

I have also installed the side bulkheads and added the framing for the side seats. It's not a ton of progress, but with this done it's easier to picture how the cockpit will be laid out and how much room there will be to move around.

Keel Batten Installed

2010-09-03T17:43:00.000-07:00

Keel batten went in this weekend, with the help of my friend Guy. It was a fairly straightforward process. I had previously beveled the keel batten for it's entire length to match the shape of the cockpit sole. After dry-fitting it, I drilled a few screw holes to make aligning it for installation a bit easier. Then we mixed up a bunch of epoxy thickened with silica, dumped it in the seam and set the batten in and screwed it in just snug enough to get some squeeze out along the edge of the batten. In a few places there wasn't any squeeze out so we mixed up a bit more epoxy which we left a bit thinner than the first batch. We poured this into the starved areas and let gravity do the rest. It was a bit messy, but that keel batten is IN. Now it is much easier to get inside the hull and work on stuff up close rather than having to reach in from a step ladder.

Since then I have also added the aft bulkhead which creates the rear storage area. Before framing the top of the rear deck area I need to consider whether I want to make any modifications to the stock plans in this compartment. One thing I am considering is whether I will want to have battery-operated lighting. If so this would be the logical place to put a battery box for a small gel cell. If I do go this route I will probably get some simple LED navigation lights and perhaps one or two LED cockpit/chart lights on a separate switch for night navigation and camping. The problem is, I know next to nothing about 12volt electrical systems. Any experts out there with an opinion?

Next up will probably be framing for the cockpit seats.

August 12: Hot

2010-08-12T12:43:00.000-07:00

It's been bloody hot lately. "What is hot," you ask? The heat index was up over 110 this week. In short, it's too damn hot to spend much time outside working on the boat. Work has been chewing up all my free time lately which is just as well. I'm good for maybe an hour or two in the evening when its down in the 90s. But even then, I'm pretty sure I'm not doing my finest thinking while my brain is slowly stewing in my skull. On the bright side, the slowdown has made me take stock of a few things that I wouldn't have otherwise.

For one thing, I decided to re-cut the forward bulkhead. It was not fitting too well as a result of the stiffer plywood I'm using for the hull bottom. I was able to fill the gap where the fit wasn't so good with an extra piece of plywood epoxied to the bulkhead. It worked fine, but didn't look so good. So after staring at that jury-rigged solution for a week or so, I decided I had better redo it or it would bug me forever. I cut out the original with its added pieces, and used that as a template for a new bulkhead which fit nicely with a bit of scribing and other tweaks. The whole thing took about an hour or so which is a good thing, cause ya know, it's really hot out there. It is now epoxy-tabbed in place awaiting fiberglass.

New bulkhead in place. Notice the absence of a large gap along the bottom edge. Much better.

The next big project is installing the keel batten. This is basically an interior keel strip intended to stiffen the hull for trailering and beaching and such. It has to be beveled along its length to match the angle of the hull bottom from the transom to the forward bulkhead. The angle is slight at the transom, but becomes much sharper toward the front. I took several measurements with a bevel gauge along the bottom of the hull and transferred these to the keel batten stock. This gave me a general idea how much material to remove to get a decent fit. Ten minutes with the power planer had the rough shaping done. This was followed by a cold beer. Did I mention how hot it is out there? I can't remember. Instead of trying to get a perfect fit, the idea is to get it close and bed it in a layer of thickened epoxy deep enough to fill any gaps. So that is ready to go.

There's only one problem. Mixing enough epoxy to fill for the project it difficult in this heat. Normally, the slow hardener that I use would give me ample time to get enough mixed and in place to set the batten. But at these temperatures, the mixture starts catalyzing so quickly it's hard to get enough prepared in one shot. So it looks like I'm going to have to put together some kind of ice bath to keep the mixture cool. I'm still mulling that one over.

Here are a few pics of where things stand right now. More soon (hopefully)

Epoxy Fillets and Taping Seams.

2010-06-27T19:58:00.000-07:00

Dry-fitting one of the deck beams. This will not be installed till after all the seams have been glassed.

I'm getting to the stage where it's tempting to start doing things out of order like starting the interior framing. But first, it's important to get all the seams fully joined by gluing them together with a mixture of thickened epoxy and fiberglass tape. This can be really nasty work, and it's important to take some time to set up a good work space and have everything you will need in place before mixing any epoxy.

The basic plan is to wet out the seams with unthickened epoxy to let it penetrate the wood, then adding the thickened mixture on top to create the fillet. Some people like to do the fillet and glassing all at the same time right on top of the wire stitches. Instead of doing everything at once, I'm laying down a thin fillet first and letting it set up enough that I can remove the wires, clean up the seam a bit more easily, then add the fiberglass tape. Doing it this way also lets the seam get strong enough that I can get in the boat and do the final glassing up close. I hoping this will make for a cleaner seam.

At first, I was just applying the thickened epoxy with a small drywall tape knife and then smoothing it with a rubber squeegee cut to the right shape. But that didn't work too well and eventually I ended up putting the thickened epoxy in a small baggie with a corner cut out and squeezed it into the corners. It's kinda like piping icing onto a cake. That worked and only required a tiny bit of work with the squeegee to get a nice rounded fillet.

I did have some trouble with always getting the same consistency of thickness in the epoxy mixture. Even though it looks plenty thick in the mixing cup, it's important to lift a gob of the stuff out of your mixing cup and make sure it does not run at all. Otherwise you end up with a fillet that sags when you aren't looking.

Damned saggy fillets....

After the fillet has set, the stitches can be removed by applying a bit of heat to the wire long enough for it to soften the epoxy enough to pull the wire out. I have found that nippers are the perfect tool for this, but vice grips work pretty well too. I think I get a better finished seam this way, but it takes a bit longer. I've been waiting for the fillets to set up but not fully cure (18-24 hours or so) to remove the wires. Most of them just pulled out easily with some pressure from the nippers, but a few were a bit more stubborn. For these I pulled out the soldering iron and let them warm up for a minute or so, then they slide out no problem. Of course I hear that there is a much faster way to do this. Where the soldering iron takes 30 second to a minute, the quick way is to get a car battery and some jumper cables. Okay, at this point I'm thinking some gloves and eye protection might be a good idea too. Then, just hook the negative to one end of the wire and touch the positive to the other side and voila, instantly hot wire. Leave it there a bit longer and it might look like this.

This is Andrew Linn's Laguna Sinko after this year's Texas 200. The boat was built on the beach just hours before launching and was always intended to be sailed for one event and then used for a bonfire. Some Say Andrew is crazy, but not me. Not out loud....

I'm not sure who took the picture, but it's reported from the Duckworks Texas 200 Special Report page.

Once I got all the wires out I added a bit more thickened epoxy to the seam and laid on a couple layers of 10 oz. fiberglass tape. The key here is getting the tape fully saturated before applying it to the seam. I just set up a wide flat board with some freezer paper on it to lay out the glass tape. I then pour some epoxy on top and squeegee it around till all the weave is saturated. Then I add the next layer right on top and wet it out as well. Then I take the pre-soaked tape and gently lay it into to the filleted seam and use the squeegee to slowly work any bubbles of air out the side of the seam. If I need to, I will add a bit more unthickened epoxy to the tape to make sure none of the weave is left dry.

Most of the seams I'm working on right now will be hidden in the closed section of the boat so I'm not getting too concerned about them looking perfect. Hopefully I'll have my technique dialed in by the time I get to the seams that will show in the completed boat. One thing I'm considering is laying down some of the plastic coated freezer paper as a release film on top of the final layer of glass and squeegeeing on top of that to give a smooth finish without having to add an extra layer of fairing mixture.

It's hard to get pictures when your hands are in surgical gloves covered with epoxy. Marie will be taking more pictures as I'm at it tomorrow and I'll add them here soon.

Inwales

2010-06-17T09:13:00.001-07:00

My first attempt at installing the inwales ended with a loud "crack" as the Douglas fir I had chosen gave up the ghost to a hidden knot. Upon further inspection, there were lots of little flaws in the wood that were bound to give me problems. So I went down to my local mega building-supply store and started picking through the lumber stacks. I decided to go with the Southern Yellow Pine that Graham had suggested in the first place (when in doubt, do not question the designer). I managed to find two very nice pieces with no visible knots or warping. I did notice right away that this stuff was much stiffer and heavier than the Douglas fir. I probably could have just forced the inwales into place, but after one round of cracked wood, I decided to play it safe and steam them first to help them ease into place. Plus, ya know, fire, steam, and lots of down time to drink beer? Sounds like my kind of project.

So first thing is to set up some kind of steaming box.

The observant among you may have noticed that my steam box is actually just a piece of PVC pipe. And you may also be asking yourself, "Hey, isn't that stuff gonna melt with all that heat?" Well, sure it is, but not before it does its job, right? Well, not exactly...

The pipe itself is easily up to the job of steaming for and hour or two, but it will get soft during that time. My tactical error was to only support the pipe in the middle, giving it plenty of leverage to bend down on the ends when we pulled out the first inwale. So the second inwale was a bit tough to jam in there, but we got it eventually. When it was all done, the PVC was pretty soft. I guess all it's good for now is cutting up for cheap clamps.

(It happens to every PVC pipe once in a while...)

So after steaming, the inwales bent into place without a peep. Then we clamped everything into place to let it cool and dry overnight.

It's true what all the pro boatbuilders say. You cannot have too many clamps. And those cheap PVC clamps are great for clamping over large areas. I use vice grips, hand clamps and C-clamps at all the critical spots, then use the PVC clamps in between those for even pressure. There are lots of other important tools required on inwale day. Can you spot the most important one?

Here, let me help you.

So the inwales rested overnight and by morning had taken on enough of the bend that it was quite easy to pull them out, lay down thickened epoxy, and set them back in place single-handed. They are setting-up now.

Next up, installing the transom and filleting and taping all the seams.

Thanks once again to Guy for all the help wrestling everything into place, and to Marie and Tracey for all the great pics.

More soon.

Yves' Sportboat 18

2010-06-13T12:30:00.000-07:00

Our next stop on the Houston Boatbuilding Tour was over to Yves' garage to see his Sport Boat 18. This is a kit boat from the Bateau company. There is a whole new generation of high-performance boats designed for easy home builder construction. That is not to say that Yves needs an easy-to-build boat. He had previously built a beautiful little Selway Fischer design that he sailed in the 2009 Texas 200 and made a great job of it. Here is a picture of it stored beside the new project.

These sport boat designs represent a significant step up from what most people think of when picturing home-built boats. The combination of computer-aided design, CNC routing of kits and advances in materials and construction techniques has put truly performance boats well within reach of even moderately skilled home builders. One of the first of this generation of boats was the i550 class epitomized by Tokyo Trash Baby.

Here is a nice account of her construction and some great vids of her in action.

So Yves is well along the way to having the hull assembled and ready to flip.

He is making one very interesting modification to the stock design. The original plan calls for either a bulb keel or a weighted centerboard. But Yves' is building it to have both. I'm quite curious to see how how works this out and once he is a bit further along, I plan to head over there to take a bunch more pictures. Here are a few shots of the progress on the centerboard and keel.

That last shot is of the foam positive for the mold for the keel bulb. Yves plans to have the bulb cast by a professional. When I picture vats of hot, molten lead cooking in the back yard, I think that's a wise choice.

When done, he should have a boat that is capable of racing quite well against other keelboats as well as the ability to camp-cruise along the shallow Texas bays. Sounds like the perfect boat to me. Yves, if you ever need crew, just gimme a call!

Next up in the tour is John Goodman's Goat Island Skiff. I hope to have that up in a day or two. Next on my project is installing inwales and transom and epoxying and glassing the inner seams. Unfortunately, business has kept me pretty busy since 3-D day but I'm hoping to carve out some time soon.

Cheers,
Pete

3-D Day!

2010-06-09T13:49:00.001-07:00

It’s a strange moment when you get to the “stitch” part of the stitch and glue process. The next step in the process is to drill a bunch of holes in the bottom of the boat… wait, what!?!? Holes in boats are bad, right? Well, there ya go, it has to be done.

So you may ask, “what is the most helpful thing to have on hand when you take a boat 3-D?” Answer: Lots of great friends who are willing to sacrifice their weekends to labor in 100 degree heat for you.

With all this help, the boat goes from being a stack of panels like this,

to something like and actual boat like this in about five minutes.

Then it’s time to start tightening all the wire stitching. The wire is 16 gauge steel wire cut into 3-5 inch lengths. As you might imagine, tightening all those stitches with a regular pair of pliers gets a bit rough on the hands. After several hours of this I decided to invest in a nice pair of vice-grip pliers with padded handles. They make a world of difference.

It’s helpful at this point to have a building cradle to support the hull with enough height that you can fit underneath to tighten the stitches along the centerline.

This is also the time to wire in some of the bulkheads and a temporary center frame to help pull the panels into the correct shape.

The forward bulkhead was a bit stubborn, and after several attempts to pull the hull into the correct shape by tightening stitches, and adding some weight inside the hull to coax some bend into the panels, we decided the leave it alone overnight to see if the plywood would “relax” into the correct shape over time.

When this turned out to not make a difference, I made a call to Graham, the designer (one of the reasons I chose his design was his reputation for always being available to answer questions) and he told me that each variety of plywood has slightly different bending characteristics. That being the case, the best solution was to scribe the existing bulkhead to the actual shape the panels were making rather than try to force them into a shape they were trying to resist. We are not talking about a huge difference here, but my boat will have the sharp bow shape extend several inches further back than the stock plans indicate. I don’t expect this to have a significant impact of the hull’s performance (fingers crossed).

By this time, it was HOT. The more sensible of us decided to find some shade…

But the rest of us kept pressing on tightening stitches and drilling holes into our clothing.

Since the hull shape was now not matching up with the original bulkhead shape, we decided to shave down the building cradle to better match the actual shape.

Some of the stitches were difficult to get at, and it was helpful to have one person press the panels together while the other takes up the slack in the stitches. In tight place like under the hull, this was a job for people who like working closely with others. “Honey, come here, I have a job for you…”

How many guys can say they have a wife who will bleed for their boat project? I’m one lucky dude.

(Thanks to Tracey for taking over camera duties while Marie was under the boat)

So we ended up the day continuing to tighten stitches and watching the hull slowly tighten up. Pretty cool process. I kinda wish I had a stationary camera take time-lapse shots to show the whole process flip-book style. Next time I guess.

It was a long day and I have been allowing my knees a day or two to heal up before I start climbing around under the boat again. It's also (hopefully) going to cool off a bit by this weekend. That will be a nice change to the scorcher we had this week. Thanks again to Guy, Tracey, Tim, Mary, Tom, Nina, Scott and Marie. Without you guys, I would still just have a stack of lumber.

Y'all are the best.

Great Houston Boat Tour, pt. 2

2010-06-08T19:34:00.001-07:00

Next stop in the boat tour was Laurent’s house. His white proa is an impressive sight. Laurent is a very precise boatbuilder and his hulls look like they came from and aerospace manufacturer. Very nice stuff. He is also a tenacious sailor. For those who were at the 2009 Texas 200, Laurent is the guy who lost his rig halfway through the first day. His mast came out of the step in some chop in the Lower Laguna Madre and he had to let the boat drift to the shore, where miraculously, he re-raised the mast on the beach by himself. This is a 30 foot A Cat rig. I’m still not quite sure how he did it, but he assures me there was lots of yelling and cursing involved. Here is his boat in its current trailering configuration.

But it wasn’t always so. Previously, the boat has several feet more beam, making it too wide to legally trailer. And if it were turned on its side, it would be too tall as well. So Laurent came up with an interesting solution; split the difference!

Yep, that’s the proa turned to 45 degrees for trailering. I've always had visions of Laurent on the side of the highway trying to explain to the Texas State Trooper, in his thick French accent, how this technically complies with state law. (We had a special bail fund set up for him.) But alas, he had reduced the beam and now can trailer it just like a “normal” multihull.

Here is one of the nifty reversible rudders. I won’t try to explain the complexities of rudders on proas here, but I will say this solution, I believe invented by Kevin O’Neill, is pretty damned ingenious.

Even as I write this, Laurent and Kevin have sailed their proas over to Army Hole on Matagorda Island for a couple days of sailing and camping. I got this picture from Kevin last night.

And here is a short video of Laurent and his daughter ghosting along in light winds in Espiritu Santo Bay.

Next up was a trip over to Yves house to see his SportBoat 18. More on that soon.

Also, Goodfoot went 3D this Sunday. I have tons of pictures and am in the process of writing up a post on how the day proceeded. Stay tuned for more. If enough people click the “Follow” button, I will probably feel more pressure to get these posts up quickly. And comments are always welcome.

Great Houston Boat Tour, pt. 1

2010-06-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago, I had to make a run to get more marine plywood for the boat. Unfortunately for me, that means a 200 mile drive from Denton to Houston. Does that seem odd? Yeah, I think so too, but it turns out that NOT ONE lumberyard in the entire Metroplex carries any form of marine-grade plywood with the exception of one or two that occasionally carry marine fir, which is pretty much useless unless one plans to fiberglass every bit of exposed plywood. This is because the fir panels check badly even when coated with multiple layers of epoxy coating. The only way to stop it is to encase it in fiberglass which makes it unnecessarily heavy and negates any cost savings you might have gained by buying cheaper plywood.

So, off to Houston I went. Sure I could have had a load of wood shipped to me for about the same amount I was about to spend on gas, but there was more to this trip than just shopping. There were boat projects to see. There are several people in the Houston area who have recently built boats and my plan was to see them all. So I made my way to Houston Hardwoods to pick up my plywood, then continued down the highway to Lake Jackson to see my friends Kevin and Joy. Kevin is one of the founding members of the Texas Proa Mafia. For some reason, the Texas gulf coast has become a bit of a hotbed for proa design and sailing. If you are not familiar with the concept of a proa, I won’t go into it here. Instead, Kevin’s Wikiproa webpage is probably the most complete web resource on the subject. You can find it here.

So, boat number one in the Great Houston Boat Tour was Kevin’s lime green schooner rigged proa, Skate. This boat has been through a number of modifications and rig changes over the years, all of which I have seen up close. In fact, I like to claim some design consultation credit for a few of the mods. And for as much crap as I give him about the odd design, I will be the first to admit, he has got that sucker worked out nicely. It’s fast, easily handled in a wide range of conditions and just plain fun to sail. But that color...

Next, we went a few miles from Kevin's to see the Laguna built by Gordo. The Laguna is a Jim Michalak design of 23 feet with a narrow beam of about 4 feet. It was commissioned by Chuck Leinweiber of Duckworks as a special desing for the Texas 200. It has a flat bottomed hull and carries two masts but can be sailed with just one of them stepped in a center position. But the really cool thing about Gordo’s boat came from his storage requirements. He needed to be able to store the boat on a trailer in an apartment storage shed which to my eye looked to be about 18 feet deep. So, how do you make this happen? Well, by building the boat with detachable sections. Several feet at the bow and stern are built as self-contained sections fully bulkheaded with fittings that allow them to mount onto the central hull section. So for storage, each of these sections are detached and simply lifted into the main hull for storage. Pretty cool, huh?

Gordo also did something on his build that I greatly admire. He built it quickly and then went sailing. I seem to be incapable of doing this myself. I have a tendency to agonize over small details, and I’m sure I’ll be happy with my boat when I’m done. But while I’m fretting, Gordo is sailing, a lot. He built the boat several months ago and I guarantee has already sailed it more than most people sail their boats in ten years. Hats off to ya, Gordo.

Our next stop was back into Houston to see Laurent Coquilleau’s white proa. The trip from Lake Jackson takes you up highway 288 past the statue of Stephen F. Austin and his giant, uhhh, scroll.

I won’t go into this in any more detail other than to say that I can never drive this stretch of highway without giggling like a fourth grader. I like to think the sculptor knew exactly what he was doing when he placed the statue that way.

More boat tour stuff soon…

A Good Idea

2010-06-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

When I first got the plans from Graham and gave them a first read I made special note of the instruction that read something along the lines “read these instructions carefully and make sure you understand everything before you proceed.” That seemed like superb advice and it is at this point that I made what I consider my best choice so far in this project. I took the plans sheets to the office supply store and had them duplicated. I then had the duplicates laminated in heavy plastic covers which basically turned them into giant placemats impervious to tearing, spills and stains. I then made sure to keep them handy so whenever I had some free time at lunch I could whip them out and just spend some time thinking about them. If, like me, you have never taken on a project of this scope, you’ll be surprised at how many of the construction details don’t really click on the first reading. But just having the plans always available makes the process of digesting the instructions go much more smoothly. My local Office Max copied and laminated all the pertinent sheets in my plan set for about 20 bucks, which was money well spent as far as I’m concerned.

butterfly joints

2010-06-03T11:56:00.001-07:00

Today I glassed the butterfly joints that join the first 12” of the side to the bottom panel. This seam is what allows the boat when unfolded to retain that nice, smooth bow section that one doesn’t usually see on home-built boats. The thing I found tricky about this job was that it is necessary to glass both sides of the panels at the same time. If you try to glass just one side and then flip the panels to glass the other side, there is not enough strength in the seam and it will most likely crack. So I had to figure out a way to glass the underside of the seam. What I came up with was wetting out the glass tape on a piece of plastic coated freezer paper several inches larger than the seam. I made sure to get plenty of extra epoxy on the glass and also generously wetted out the under side of the panels. Then I just slid the freezer paper with wetted glass under the panels and lowered them unto the glass. Then I just glassed the upper half of the seam as normal, covered it with more freezer paper and added some weight to press it all together, hoping I didn’t get any unexpected folds in the bottom glass layer.

After it has cured overnight, all looks okay.

Random tidbits

2010-06-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

Here are some random shots of the progress and other stuff.

If you’re going to build a boat, it’s nice to have enough space to do it. My shop, in the background wasn’t big enough to fit the CS20 and still have room to get around. Fortunately, our backyard had an 18’x22’ concrete slab that had been poured by previous owners. I never understood what the purpose of that monstrosity was. It was just a flat spot in the middle of the yard right in the direct afternoon sun. Crazy. So I decided to cover it. Note the birdhouse. It made from scrap lumber in the style of a hollow birdsmouth mast. The sparrows love it. We get 3-4 batches of baby birds each year.

This is lofting the hull shapes onto the scarfed hull panels. It’s basically connecting the dots from the plans measurements with a long, flexible batten to get smooth, continuous curves. This was a bit trickier than I had expected since different thicknesses of battens give drastically different curves. So there’s a fair amount of just “eyeballing it” till the curve looks consistent.

Of course as soon as I had some bulkheads cut, I had to clamp them upright to start getting an idea of the general shape of the hull. The closer panel is the forward bulkhead. The bow extends about four feet further forward. The rear panel is the transom. The area a couple feet in from of it is enclosed by another bulkhead which forms the aft storage area.

Making a boat mean making lots of sawdust and wood shavings. Even an old beat-up looking plane can make a whole crapload of shavings if it’s sharp and tuned.

I scored this compass plane at an estate sale in Florida. The thin sole can be adjusted to plane a convex or concave curve with the twist of a knob. I was very proud to actually get to use it to fair out some curves on bulkheads and pieces of curved framing. Other than boatbuilding, I can’t imagine what else I would ever use it for.

As with the bulkheads, once the sides were cut to shape I had to set them upright and get a look at the basic profile. Of course the bow with be turned in to meet the bottom in a smooth curve, but you get the general idea.

Stitch and Glue Boatbuilding

2010-06-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

The Core Sound boats are built with the "stitch and glue" method. Basically, this method involves joining sections of hull panels together with wire stitching and then epoxying and fiberglassing the seams. This makes the basic hull structure to which bulkheads and interior framing is added. It's really much more like welding than traditional woodworking.

So the first step for a boat of any length is to create long, continuous sheets of plywood from which the hull panels with be cut.

To this end, I first made a 20' long temporary workbench. I then set up my 3/8" plywood to be joined into one long panel. this involves what is called "scarfing." Scarfing consists of cutting a fine angle into the end of two sheets of plywood which can then be overlapped along this cut and glued together. The longer the scarf cut, the more surface area and the stronger the joint. My plans call for a 12 to one bevel.

Just about every online discussion about scarf joint eventually terminates with a various schemes to construct some sort of jig or cutting contraption to make the job easier. Now anyone who knows me will tell you I'm a fiend for doing things the absolute hardest way, but this seems a bit of overkill even for me.

I'll admit it was a bit tempting to cobble together some massive, medieval-looking device with big timbers, pulleys, and clanky ratcheting mechanisms to dangle a sheet of plywood just so over my table saw. But lacking a Quasimodo henchman, this did not seem the proper path. I digress...

Instead, I spent some time sharpening my planes.

And let me tell you, that was time well spent. Anyone who has spent any time using a plane knows what a big difference sharpness makes. Consider that in order to plane down plywood you will be spending half of your time (every other ply) cutting across the grain. If your plane is not very sharp you will be in for a VERY bad time. Seriously.

By way of illustration, think back to when you were a kid. Remember your first skateboard. No, not the bad-ass one with the pimped-out clear polyeurethane wheels. I’m talking about the one before that. The one with the cheap-ass metal wheels (or, God help you, the clay ones). Now remember what happened when you were trucking along down the road, perhaps getting towed by one of your friends behind his BMX bike. Yeah, you remember. You hit a damned pebble the size of a pinhead and it stopped those cheap ass wheels LIKE THAT. That’s why you have that scar on your chin, right?

Well that is pretty much what’s gonna happen to your plane if your blade isn’t sharp. Nuff said?

For me, the best way to get and keep them sharp is with the Scary Sharp method, which involves various grits of abrasive papers bonded to a sheet of glass. The planes blades are secured to a wheeled honing guide than is then rolled over the abrasive at a consistent angle. I use a General no. 809 guide.

I've heard of people building their own out of children's wooden car toys and the like. The General is adjustable which is nice for changing between the glass sheet and wet stones which stand taller, requiring a different angle. I keep this near the workbench and use it frequently.

So, after cutting a couple of these scarfs entirely by hand, it occurred to me that for some years now I have been the proud owner of a Ryobi hand power plane. It took care of the first 95% of the scarf cutting in about 5 minutes versus the hour or so I spent on them previously. I still did the final fine-tuning of the scarfs with the hand planes. But damn, I feel stupid.

Once the scarfs are cut, it’s time to join the panels which involves epoxying the two halves together with a mixture of thickened epoxy. The epoxy is thickened with either fumed / colloidal silica or wood flour which is added until the mixture reaches the consistency of peanut butter. Now I’ve read these same instructions from many sources and this “peanut butter” consistency has always struck me as a bit nebulous. So let me try to be more precise. We are not talking about that runny-ass hippy peanut butter that you have to stir for half a damn hour so it won’t make a greasy mess out of a slice of Wonderbread. No sir, we are talking good old Jiff. And not that crunchy stuff either.

Now one point needs to made absolutely clear. Even this thick mixture is going to run all over the place. It’s going to get on you. It’s going to get on your tools. It’s going to get on the cat. It’s going to get on just about anything you don’t want it to get on unless you take some time to set up properly first. This means covering everything in the area that you don’t want permanently bonded to your boat with plastic or the like before you even think about mixing up your epoxy. After trying various thicknesses of plastic wrap and wax paper I’ve have finally decided that the perfect film for this is plastic coated freezer paper.

So, if all goes well, the final scarf should look something like this.

Next up, lofting the shape of the hull panels onto these long sheets. More to post soon...

Building Goodfoot

2010-06-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

So I decided to build a boat.

Really, I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. After a number of years harassing my friend Kevin about his eternal boat projects, I decided fair is fair. I’ll start building a boat so he could exact a bit of revenge. I figured I would be in the shop for six months, during which he could amuse himself with the occasional phone call asking "So, how’s that boat coming along?" Six months is a fairly small penance for all the abuse I’ve dished out over the years, right?

That was six years ago. I now have a stack of plywood with some interesting curves cut into it. Well crap.

To be fair, before starting a boat project, there is a bit of research that must be undertaken. Uhhh, okay lots of research, followed by a heroic measure of procrastination. But it wasn’t all wasted time. I did have to settle on a design and the best way to figure that out is to sail on a bunch of different boats and figure out what you like. So after a few seasons of paying close attention to what I like and dislike in particular boats, I came up with a list of criteria for my ideal boat.

First, it had to be easily trailerable. I'm a big believer in the maxim "the bigger the boat , the less often one uses it." Which leads to the second requirement; it must be easy to set up and sail single-handed. I'd also prefer a boat that doesn't require a motor to maneuver around docks or cover distance when the winds turns off. So my ideal boat would be light enough to either row or scull in flat conditions.

As a dinghy sailor, I prefer boat s that have nimble handling and require only a light touch on the tiller. There are a number of small sailboats out there that are really just scaled down versions of larger keel boats (yeah, West Wight Potter, I'm talking to you). To me, that is a "worst of both worlds" compromise. If a boat is small enough to row, it should also be shallow and agile enough to sail around in knee-deep water.

But even though I like the small boat feel, my ideal boat would be big enough for 3-4 people and their camping gear. As much as I like to sail alone, it's also nice to spend a relaxing couple days with friends out in the middle of nowhere without having to strap 50 pounds of crap to my back and humping down a trail.

Finally, I know that any boat I sail is eventually gonna end up in a race. It's just how I am. If I see another sailboat, I'm gonna sail over to her and see who's faster. It's an illness. So that being the case, I want a boat that can make a decent showing against other boats of similar size. So here's the boat I decided to build.

It's a Core Sound 20 by B&B Yacht Designs. Graham Byrnes is the designer (and also a hell of a sailor and really nice guy). The hull is best described as a Carolina-style sharpie hull. It's quite similar to a Lightning hull with a fairly sharp entry at the bow and a hard chine that runs into a wide, flat aft section. This type of hull is very easy to get up on plane which make it quite fast (I like fast) and the hard chines make a pretty stable.

The rig is a cat-ketch which is a bit unusual to anyone who is used to racing sloops. Graham has a nice description of the advantages of a cat-ketch at his website.

So there it is. I decided on this boat some time ago, and am now actually making some progress building it. So I will be posting my progress as well as any other sailing-related tidbits here, hopefully with some regularity. Check back and let me know if you have any feedback. Also, I'm happy to take pictures of any particular details of the construction process. Just let me know what you want and I'll try to get a good shot.

Oh yeah, her name is/will be "Goodfoot." There's a bit of a story there, but I save that for a later post.