Deck Beams

Hi all. Deck beams and king planks went in today although not really necessary with a boat of this size i thought the process of fitting them would be a good exercise. The top picture shows the clamping method devised by Justin our instructor for claming down the plywood part of the deck. The next step is laying the oak and sapele veneers to match the bulkheads. We are slowly getting there and now have an extra persons help.

Chris

Bulkheads

Today we began fitting the bulkheads in the boat. I began by spliling the shape onto plywood. These were then covered in oak and sapele veneers and fisxed to the boat with epoxy filets.

Inwhales

Today we fitted and shaped the iwhales. The shaping was done using the router table to cut notches in the oak to give the scuppered effect. The next step was steaming the inwhales which is shown in the top picture. The oak was steamed for an hour and a half as it needs 1 hour per 1 inch of material. Altogether a very productive day although still so much to do.

Chris

Sent from my iPhone

Infusion

The boat was success fully infused over the last few days. Although the process only takes are an hour the resin need several days to cure properly. This meant time could be put to making the foils for the boat. I will update on these in the next few days.

Cheers

The boat ready and set up for the infusion



You can see in the photo below the resin flow front wetting out the layer under the vacuum bag. You can see the wooden strips underneath.




The boat out of the vacuum bag and a very successful infusion despite the panicky nature of the boat builder.


And finally the very wasteful nature of this process although it doses produce a really good quality laminate. All of this has to go in the bin.

Vacum Infusion

Image from http://www.gurit.com/files/documents/Infusion_brochure_2010.pdf

Unlike the outside of the hull wich was done using a wet layup method i plan to glass the in sde of the hull using a process called vacum resin infusion which without going into too much detail uses a vacum to draw liquid resin through the dry glassfire to wet it out. The digram to the right gives and rough idea of the process. There is also a video demonstrating the set up and an explanation.

Fitting the Gunwhales

The gunwhales were fit over the past couple of days as can be seen in the photos the number of clamps required is large when bending solid peices of oak around a curve. On one side the boat started to make some worrying cracking sounds under the weight of the clamps and so had to be supported. The next step will be glassing the inside of the hull. Cheers

Chris

Cleaning up the inside

The next job was to turn the boat over and start cleaning up the inside and fairing it off. Most of this was done outside as it meant not having to tent off the boat and aslo i got work in the glorious sunshine.

God I hate sanding epoxy.

The next task was to fair of the epoxied hull which was a very labourious job and not much fun. Even though i was suing and electric sander the epoxy is still very hard and clogs the sandpaper very quickly. Anyway it was conpleted after too days and the next step was to build a cradle to hold the boat.

Glassing

Today the out side of the hull was sheather in glass fibre and epoxy resin. This was done with a team of 5 people and was complted sucsessfully. Unfortunatly I didnt manage to get any photo except of the boat draped in glass fibre.

Fairing time

Now the hard work begins. The fairing the of the hull begins using block planes and a lot of sand paper. Unfortunatley the hull is quite delicate and so no power tools allowed and so a lot elbow grease is required. Due to the toxcicity of the cedar dust created the boat has been tented off to protect the others working in the area.

Up to the Centreline

Today we reached the centre line with the planking. A straight line was then cup along the center line and planking was continued on the other side. This is were the progress slows up as each plank ends have to be fit up to the centre line. Althought the bottom of the boat now becomes a good workbench.

More Planking

The planking continues.

Planking begins

And so the planking begins. Paul can be seen stapling the planks down to the moulds. Each plank is edge glued to the previous one and glued to the apron.

Fairing off the apron

The next step was to fair th eqpron so the planks lie flat against it. Onec this was done the sheer plank was fitted and checked for fairness. On the side of the building box are all of the strips used for the planking.

Setting up the moulds

I began the process of setting up the moulds today. Each one has to be centred and leveled.

The second mould being put up.

Lastly the stem jig and the last mould were added to the box.
The moulds are ready for the boat construction to begin. You can see the rough shape of the boat now.

Laminating Stem and Apron

The next job was to laminate up the apron and stems. This was done by applying thickened epoxy between thin strips of sitka sprue and clamping them around a former.To allow the stem and apron to be laminated at the same time, apeice of polythene was used to ensure that they didnt stick together. The picture below shows the stem and apron around the former.

To allow both the stems and aprons to be laminated up in one day they were baked to allow the epoxy to cure faster and this also post cures the epoxy.


Cheers!

Initial Set Up

Today I finally started the buld of my canoe. First job was to have a clean up of my work area. The next job was to clean off all the old glue off the building box and level it all up. Its good to finally get started on my own boat. Pictured to the right is the building box i'll be using to build my boat.

Day Boat Build

For the First Part of our time down stairs I have been helping with the Build of the Yachting world Day Boat. You will be able to follow this build written by Sean the owner at http://dayboatbuild.wordpress.com/ . I will update the blog when the my boat is started.

Cheers.