Fiberglass Frustration and Other General Construction

I've decided to do away with even trying to count days/weeks at this point because, to be honest, I'm not very punctual about updating so it kind of loses its point.

So after finishing up all the exterior seams, it was time to set sail on my first "adventure" with fiberglass.  If I had stuck to the directions on this, it would've been a fairly painless procedure, but because both Gorman and I are perfectionists, I ended up with a mess.  According to the manual, only the bottom panel of the boat needs to be fiberglassed on the exterior, but as Gorman pointed out, because there is some overhang of the two bottom strakes over the bottom panel, it seemed that it would be a good idea to fiberglass the two bottom strakes as well... or would it??

 

The fiberglassed bottom panel.  Pretty good so far...

 

To answer the question, yes, it was a good idea, but my execution of the idea could've been better.  Fiberglass is not very flexible (at least compared to other woven fabrics), and because of this it does not handle sharp edges very well (like seams between strakes for example...).  Unfortunately, I thought that once the cloth was saturated with epoxy, it would mold up and around the seams between the bottom panel and the two bottom strakes.  Well, it didn't, and I ended up with larger gaps of air in between the fiberglass and the wood along the seams, which is not okay at all.

 

After the strakes were fiberglassed as well.  You can see the line of air bubbles along the seams. GRRR

 

For those who want to know, what should have been done was to fiberglass the bottom panel, cut off the excess fiberglass, and then fiberglass the two strakes with separate pieces of fiberglass once the bottom panel dried.  Oops.

Luckily, anything in boatbuilding is more or less repairable... it just requires a little extra elbow grease.  After examining the situation, Gorman and I have come to the conclusion that it would be best for me to sand off the areas where the fiberglass has separated from the wood, and then smooth everything out with a couple coats of epoxy.  Because I was a bit put off with the fiberglass (and because I ran out of sandpaper), that has yet to be done, but it's the next thing on my list.

Instead of handling the issue at hand, I opted to divert my attention to a more enjoyable endeavor: building the center set assembly and a pair of 8' oars.  The center seat of the boat has a double purpose; it is both a seat and the daggerboard trunk.  The daggerboard/keel is the part of a sailboat that sticks deep into the water and looks like a large ventral fin.  All sailboats require one is some form or another because they balance out the leward force of the wind.  Without one, a sailboat would only be able to move in the same direction as the wind, irrespective of the direction the boat is pointed.  In smaller boats like mine (up to about 20') it is common for the keel to be a simple daggerboard that can be pulled in and out of a hole cut into the center of the boat.  That being said, it is very important that the trunk is perfectly aligned with the centerline of the boat.  If it isn't, the boat's performance will suffer, and it will not sail straight.

The center seat is made up of 3 components: the daggerboard trunk, the center bulkhead, and the center seat proper.  All three pieces should come together at 90 degree angles and be plumb with one another.  It took a little trimming and sanding, but eventually everything fit together quite well, and I glued it together with epoxy fillets.

 

The finished center seat.  Eventually, there will be a hole made in the center of the seat for the daggerboard.

Also, in the last week or so, Gorman found some free plans online for making a pair of oars.  Every sailboat needs to have a paddle in the unfortunate case the the wind dies altogether, and you have to row yourself home.  Because my boat is supposed to be a pretty good rowboat as well, I decided I wanted to get a pair of 8' oars to go with the oarlocks that came with the boat kit.  Although after looking around, a decent pair of oars cost about $200.  Ouch!  Luckily, Gorman's inventive mind rescued me from the money pit again, and with a couple dowel rods from Home Depot, some scrap pieces of wood, and a little epoxy, I was on my way to making a pair of oars that would more than serve my purpose for under $40.   

One of the oars in its present state.

So far, the oar blades have been cut and blued to the dowel rods.  All that is left from here is to grind down the blades of the oar to a flat surface and cover them in a couple coats of epoxy.

That's all for now.  And for your personal enjoyment, I have a picture of the day.  I like to call it...

"The Thinker or Stinker Pose?" 

Week 2: It's ALIVE!!!!

Okay, so after finally getting out of the 100-grit desert, things have finally gotten interesting!  Once all the strakes and transoms were coated and sanded, it was finally time to start piecing things together.

The name for this style of boatbuilding (stitch-and-glue) is quite apropos.  In this case, the "stitching" is done using MANY pieces of copper wire to stitch the strakes in place.

The lowest strakes stiched onto the bottom panel

 Stitching the third panels on.

 Tightening a few loose stitches

 

A rather impressive row of stitches if I don't say so myself!

As one can imagine, this takes a fair amount of time because the stitches (about 250 in all) are prone to breaking.  It is vital to make sure that the hull is stitched exactly in its proper shape because one the hull is glued together, there is no going back.  Once the first couple rows of strakes were stitched on, I used the center bulkhead (which I just eyeballed the placement of) to help shape the strakes as I stitched them on.

Once the strakes were stitched on, it was time to to attach the fore and aft transoms.  

 Stitching the stern transom in place.

After being stitched on, the transoms were then permanently glued into place.  To do this, an epoxy fillet (pronounced fill-it) had to be made.  To do this, the epoxy had to be thickened with wood flour to a peanut butter consistency, which was then applied to the seam by squirting the thickened epoxy out of a hole cut into a zip-lock bag.  The line of epoxy was then smoothed out by using a "filleting tool": Basically, it's just a big, homemade Popsicle stick.  And for the record, the peanut butter epoxy was nasty stuff!

 Did I poop in a bag?  Nope, that would simply be an over-thickened hunk of epoxy that nearly burnt my hand!

 The hull with the transoms glued on permanently and the bulkheads stitched in place.

The next big step after the transoms are glued in place is to glue up the seams of the strakes, but first, a couple smaller tasks. 

First, a discussion on how to remove the stitches once the pieces are epoxied in place.  While ideally one can simply snip the stitch and pull it out, it is nearly impossible not to glue some of the stitches in place as well, so how do you get a glued stitch out?  Luckily, the epoxy can soften when its heated, and since the metal stitch conducts heat, you can simply heat up the tip of the stitch and then pull it out.  I was a bit leery at first, but sure enough, seemingly immovable stitches slip right off when a little heat is applied!

Second, before we glue the strakes together forever, we want to make darn sure the hull is in its proper shape.  The way to ensure this is to stitch the bulkheads into place, which is what I did.  Once that's done, it's time to flip her over!

 Belly up!

Once she's on her back, it was finally time to stiffen her up for good by filling all the seams with epoxy.  The trick to getting it right is the consistency of the epoxy.  If the epoxy is too stiff, it will not fill up the seam.  If it is too runny, it will just seep straight through the seams and make a mess on the inside of the boat.  As it was with affixing the transoms, the first gluing was more of a "tack-weld" around the stitches so that the stitches could be removed.

A tack-welded seam.  Notice how there is no epoxy under the stitches.

The tack-welds are more than strong enough to replace the stitches, but on their own they are neither all that aesthetically pleasing or, more importantly, watertight.  Therefore, after the welds dried, I removed the stitches and filled in all the holes in the seams as well as all the drill holes for the stitches, which was a fairly tedious process.

Also, I decided that I would build all the sailing components from scratch instead of buying the kit.  After crunching some numbers with Gorman, we realized I could probably save about $300 if I built the parts myself and made the sails, which doesn't bother me as it would be exciting to learn how to make my own sails!  To do this, I had to buy the full boat plans that include full sized cutouts for every part of the boat, which is kind of neat in case I ever wanted to build another boat or if anyone I know wants to in the future!  

Nautical Phrase of the Day: Boxing the Compass

Although this isn't really a common phrase used today, it's a fun sailing phrase so that's good enough for me.  Basically, it refers to a constantly shifting wind, which can be a bit of a pain to navigate under sail.  I don't know, it tickled my fancy so I thought I'd share.