Yet Another Project

I get side tracked very easily, but hey, there are so many projects that need to be completed what's wrong with jumping from one to another, then another, than back to the first?

Remember a month or so I glassed the edge of the deck?  I've now started sanding the deck.  All of the original non-skid, molded right into the gelcoat, has to be removed before painting.  I've been working on fairing between the deck and the glassed over edge.  The brown at the deck edge is mix of fairing resin.  (polyester resin, milled glass, phenolic micro-ballons, fumed silica)

Sanding is very dusty and take a long time but in the end it will be worth it.

I have to finish the deck before I can install the deck level safety stantion bases.

Stbd Side Settee

This last week I've been cutting and fitting the support / dividers for the port side settee.  It well serve as a place to sit while at sea, and a berth when in port.  Above and outboard will be a permanent berth.  Also, behind the ladder, which are really the original stairs just turned around, I fitted in the aft, port berth bulkhead, which also serves to prevent water from splashing into the aft berth area.  I'll have a similar half  bulkhead on the stbd side to protect the navigation station from water.
Today I glassed them in place.

 

The aft compartment, with the board in it will be the stbd side water tank.

 

 

 

For the last two years I had the stairs as stairs, then I got he idea to have a ladder.  I posted on Cruisers forum the pos and cons between the two.  Got lots of good interaction.  In the mean time I had the ladder against the hatch.  Recently I turned it to port.  Also, today I built the engine cowl, which will make give me an 11 inch platform at the base of the ladder.  I like it.  It takes up much less cabin space than a stair way.  Besides, I'm a submariner ... they have ladders and it works just fine.  End of discussion.

No More Leaky Toe Rail

I've mentioned several times both in this blog and on Cruisers Forum that I'm getting rid of the original toe rail system.
I'm an avid reader of Hal Roth and a lot of his books I treat as tech books on how to build boats.  Shortly after he took custody of his Spencer 35 he noticed small leaks in the hull cabinets.  When he got into heavy seas the leaks got much worse.  He discovered that the water was coming in through all the bolt holes holding down the toe rail.  Imagine this ... you hand lay a hull, set and glass the deck in place before you pull it out of the mold to keep it all true and straight.  Then, after you have it on the work shop floor you proceed to drill 100 holes down each side to fasten the toe rail.  Are you kidding ????? 200 holes in a brand new boat?  What kind of a morron does this.  So ... just like Hal Roth I taper drilled all the holes and filled them with resin saturated with milled glass.

My project for March is to re-finish the hull / deck joint all the way around the boat.  I started by running a 1" round over bit all the way around the boat.  Remember the horse trading I did in January and got the scaffold?  Well, this is what it's for.  I glassed all 90 feet or so of edge with 5 layers of glass and cloth.  That should take care of those pesky water leaks.  I also glassed over the original fuel fill hole which was right at the deck edge .... really????

 



Starting on the starboard side. That's where I set up the scaffold when I bought it in January. I ground off the gelcoat on both the hull and deck. Then layed down 5 layers of glass. 1-1/2 mat, 6 oz cloth, 1-1/2 mat, 7 oz cloth, 2 oz mat on top of it all. I staggared the the ends so no joints are on top of the previous layer.

Violet climbs the ladder and likes helping me on all my projects

 

 







I had to get really creative with some of the scaffold to reach over the corner of my workshop area.

 







Starboard side finished and the Port side is half finished.  Looks good if I do say so myself.

 
A few weeks earlier, and no, I didn't take any pictures, I moved the mast from back side of the boat and workshop to the front side so I could polish off 25 years of corrosion.  More on that story later.
I took me 5 hours and lots ingenuity.  One foot at a time I moved the mast 40 feet, then with a sissor lift I lifted the mast up and over the line of motorhomes in storage here at the yard.  Then, with a Kabota mini-excavator I took the mast off the top of the sissor lift and moved it back down beside the boat.

 








See ... I told you that my new patio made a great place to cut fiberglass.

Finally, 90 feet of toe rail glassed and finished.
I'm leaving the scaffold at the stern for painting on the boat's name.

Chasing Summer

New Patio

In Febuary my land lord figured I needed a bigger place to lay out sails and fiberglass for cutting.
You like my new patio?

 

They sure are working hard.  They poured 7 trucks of cement, finished, and brushed it and were out of there by 2:30pm.  They must do this for a living.

 

Actually, they are serious basket ball guys and this will be a full size high school court.

 

 

Ain't it perrrdy !!!!

Easily Side Tracked

Like I said earlier, I get easily side tracked.  Toward the end of the month I made the spinaker crane, which will be at the top of the mast.  It was a fun little project to weld, grind, weld, grind, and  polish.

Jan 2013

I spent much of January cutting, drilling, and welding another set of safety rail stantion bases.  This set will all be welded at 5 degrees to accomidate the curve of the hull.  As with all my projects I get easily sidetracked.  I've got one polished but don't have the re-inforcement loop welded on yet.

 Cutting the blanks is very time consuming.  I cut them on my radial arm saw using a metal cuting blade.  I cut them in the push direction so I could better control the cut.

 The next process was drilling the holes for the stantion tube.  I set up the drill press for 15 degrees and clamped on a hardwood jig.

After de-burring and making sure all the holes would accept the tubes at the proper angle I again put each piece in a jig and made the bottom weld, which will be ground smooth.

Horse Trading

My landlord build rat rods for a hobby.  What's a rat rod you ask.  Well, I had the same question.  Here's a link to images of rat rods.  Rat Rods  You take an old junker car ... or truck or bus or anything else that looks like pure junk, cut it apart and strip it down, then make another something that also looks like junk and not paint it.  Now you have a rat rod.  Anyway, he brought over a bunch of scrap metal from the projects they've been working on and enstead of just tossing it in the dumpster gave it to me to sell for scrap.  What a nice landlord.  It layed around for a couple weeks.
I'd been looking for scafold so I could work on the upper parts of the boat instead of working from the top of a ladder.  You can find some on craigslist but it's mostly to short for what I needed.
The guy next door started working a scrap metal business and had some used racks like you might see at Home Depot or Lowes for lumber.  Some one had scrapped one section ... so ... I traded him my scrap for his scrap.  Now I have a 10 ft section I can move all around the boat to work up high.

Last post of 2012

Well, another year has come and gone ... I've gotten a lot of work accomplished on her this years.
Currently I'm back to making saftey rail stantion bases.  I'm making 24 of them for the deck.  Don't need that many but since I have the steel and I'm doing it anyway I thought I'd make some extra.
I've also getting my spare engine and transmission ready to sell.
It doesn't stay warm for many hours during the day so I don't get a lot of work done in the winter months.
See you all next year.

Nav center bulkhead

Today I glassed in the last remaining bulkhead.  It separates the navigation center and the aft/stbd quarter, which instead of a berth I've designated my workshop.  I widened the nav center to chart width, which reduced the berth area.  Also, I don't plan on carrying that many crew and I'd rather have a workshop than a spare berth.
It look great and gives definition.  Tomorrow I'll insulate the area.
The next phase I'll need to buy another sheet of 3/4" plywood for starting the lower dividers of the stbd settee / water tank; and the drawer / work top of the nav center.

Just an Update

Five of the six tank covers are finished and installed.  I've been thinking about buying diesel fuel 5 gallons at a time so it doesn't cost so much all at once to fill the approx 60 gallon tank.  Also, this way I can mark a dip stick every time I pore in another 5 gallons.  No electronic tank levels ... electronics can malfuntion.

Today I finished glassing in the new cockpit drain system.  All that's left is some cosmetic work before I start painting the topsides.  During this process I replaced the hose that connect the rudder packing box to the fiberglass hull fitting.

Next major fiberglass project is to glass reinforce the hull/deck joint with 5 lays of mat and cloth.