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.