Back in a sticky spot, finally

 All right, the icicles have finally melted, and I am done cutting expensive foam board into little pieces.  We are back to work and mixing epoxy.  The first items glued together were the solid glass reinforced plastic (grp) side plates that will support the struts that link the main hull to the beams.  As shown in the photo, the thickening rings were glued to the side plates.  Both parts were fabricated a long time ago when I was making the parts for the central mounting modules.  Each piece is approximately 3/16" think solid glass and epoxy.  To ensure the hole in the rings and plates were properly aligned, I ran a bolt through them while the epoxy cured.  The biggest risk in this step was the parts becoming permanently glued to the bolt.  To help avoid this, I wrapped the bolt with a layer of clear packing tape, which the epoxy doesn't stick to very well.  Then I simply cleaned up any excess epoxy before threading the parts on the bolt.  Since these are high stress components, the epoxy mix included some cabosil to thicken and toughen the glue.  I still need to round over one side of the long edge on each piece, as well as a little general clean up sanding, then these parts are ready to go into the beam mold.

I used the left over glue from the reinforced side plates to start bonding the high density inserts into the various pieces of foam that will make the beams.  There are a total of 16 inserts in the pieces shown here.  Although I still had glue left over at this point, it started to kick and got too thick to use.  I only made about 100 mL, combined with about an equal amount of cabosil.  So it doesn't take much epoxy to do this job.  I covered the table with a sheet of vacuum bagging material, which the epoxy doesn't stick to very well.  Then I just pressed the inserts into their openings, squeegeed off most of the excess epoxy, and evened it up on the table.  Once cured, the parts popped off the table with minimal persuasion.  Before assembling these parts into the beam mold, I will sand both sides clean.  Easier and quicker to do the sanding now than when assembled into a complex form with lots of inside corners.

These parts are the foam pieces for the beam sides, including all 72 high density inserts.  I spent the past couple weekends custom fitting each of the inserts so I could glue them in place efficiently.  Each piece is labelled so if I drop the stack I can figure out which insert goes where.  Next good weather day, i.e. reasonable temperature and moderate humidity, I will permanently bond the inserts in their respective cut outs.  Then a little sanding and ready for installation in the beam mold.  I could have installed all of the inserts when assembling the parts in the beam mold, but I figured it would be easier and less stressful to separate the tasks.

I still need to do a little prep on the mold before starting assembly of the foam.  Some of these tasks include drilling holes for screws to hold these parts in place until they are bonded together, and marking and taping the seam locations to prevent gluing the parts to the mold.  Hopefully old man winter has gone to bed, and the spring showers cooperate so we can get on with the fun.

Slicing and dicing

We received all of our supplies to proceed with the beam construction, including gallons of MAS epoxy with slow hardener and several sheets of CoreCell foam.  The weather has been particularly cold and damp, so I am not in a rush to start work with the epoxy.  When temperatures rise enough for my 1500W space heater to keep up in the garage, I try to make progress by pre-cutting the foam as needed for the beams.  Here you see all of the high-density foam inserts that are required for the four beams.  This is CoreCell 1200 (~12 lbs/cf).  It is much harder than the CoreCell 500 or 550 I use for the majority of the structure.  As a result, cutting takes a bit more time and effort.  I cut all of my foam with a knife rather than a saw to minimize waste.  This stuff is just too expensive to turn it into dust.  In any case, it took me about 4 hours to cut all of this, including time to figure out all of the dimensional details.  I think I have less than a few percent waste, so that is good on the budget.

Here you can see the foam starting to be fitted into the beam mold.  The foam along the bottom of the mold is just being dry fit for size.  Most of the foam seen here is standard density foam, except at the two ends.  Once all of the foam parts are cut, including cutouts for he high-density inserts, I will start epoxying them together and then the real build begins.  The wedge in the middle of the mold (upper left in photo) will form a recess in the beam for part of the beam folding mechanism.  I finished cutting the foam bits that encase the recess last Monday during a brief warm spell (I think it hit 30 F!).  This weekend I plan to finish cutting the foam for the sides.  I will also try to cut the foam for the top of the beam which is formed on the other mold to the right in the photo.  Hopefully Mother Nature will cooperate and give me some warmer weather so I can start mixing epoxy soon.

Building beam molds

 Happy 2014!  New year with new progress on the F-82R.  Here is a view of my new boat fabrication factory.  There is just enough room to lay out a 4x8 sheet of particle board, if I suck in my gut!  Nonetheless, I was able to assemble the three molds and stands needed to build the beams.    The one that looks like a skateboard ramp on the right is for the beam tops.  The box on the table is a support stand for the beams during fabrication.  The main beam mold is on the floor in the middle of the picture.  I also had to get some new tools since most of my power tools are also back home.

Here is a picture of the main mold for the beams.  The main side panels had to be recut since the originals are still at the "main factory."  The spacers and other bits were shipped (I am sure it would have been more economical to recut everything).  In any case, it all went together very nicely.  Now I just need my supplies to arrive from Noah's and I will be back to boat building.

I'm back!!!

Howdy fellow Farrier fanatics.  Well I just couldn't stand to sit around wasting time that could be used working on my F-82R.  So I went back to the high mountains of northern New Mexico, packed up a bunch of parts and supplies, and shipped the stuff back to New York (after taking a second mortgage out on our house to pay for the shipping costs!)  Turns out the garage door in our new home is small enough that my wife isn't comfortable driving her car in, so I have a mostly empty one-stall garage just begging for a small boat-building shop.  Here you can see how happy this makes me.

I am going to build several of the smaller components for my F-82R, starting with the beams.  Depending on time, I hope to build the four beams, rudder support, rudder blade, daggerboard, and maybe the daggerboard box.  Although I already cut the parts for the beam molds, the pieces were too large to ship (at least on my salary), so I am recutting them here.  Hopefully I will have all three molds/frames for the beams assembled in a couple days.  Then I am just waiting for a new supply of Core Cell, fabric, and epoxy to arrive in the next couple weeks.

More to come soon, so keep checking in … it's great to be back!

Long awaited update

Sorry for the long wait since my last update. We continued to work on the port side of the main hull through March and it is ready to be removed from the hull form.  However, we also had a new opportunity pop up and decided to take advantage of it.  This opportunity now has us on the east coast for a few years while our project remains in the New Mexico mountains.  Of course we also sold our monohull along the way and are now close to the ocean and have no way to sail!

Settee top installed, and other updates

 Well, it has been awhile since my last update, but progress has been steady (and slow). I finished installing and taping the forward bunk and the cockpit floor.  I spent quite a lot of time preparing the settee top for installation.  The top has two access panels in it for storage with rims made out of marine ply.  Seemed like an easy and quick job, but it took me a couple weeks to cut the ply rims, glass them, and laminate them onto the settee top.  In any case, the top and openings look very neat and should finish well (if we ever get to that stage!)  I also cut the reinforcement for the side of the companionway out of white oak and glued it to the bulkhead.  In the photo looking aft, you can see both the settee top with access ports and the companionway with reinforcement.

Here is a view of the underside of the settee top after it was installed in the port hull half.  The panel has been glued in place and a fillet run along all seams.  I also went back and added partial fillets along some other seams on adjoining panels.  I left the top six inches of panels yet to be joined to panels in the starboard half lose for final tweaking once the hull halves are joined.  Next I will tape the filleted seams and apply peel-ply for a clean finish.  I am very happy with the taping when I use peel-ply.  Although the peel-ply is sometimes a headache to apply, it gives such a nice finish that it is definitely the way to go.  But you also have to remember to peel it off before installing additional elements.  I came close to glueing panels on top of peel-ply a couple times today.

Here is the underside of the settee top for the starboard hull half.  I prepped both panels so it won't take as long to assemble the starboard half.  The marine ply rims are taped to the panels on the underside.  Since we will be sitting on, crawling over, and generally abusing the settee top, I figured it was worth applying a little extra reinforcing.  For a clean finish, the rims were laminated on the panels on the vacuum table.  The peel-ply is still on the panel shown.

Once the settee top is taped in place, I will install the settee front, and then we just have the cockpit seat to install.  So hopefully this stage of construction is close to finished, but no guarantees!

Bulkheads in, other panels in progress

 Progress continues on the interior of the port half of the main hull.  Last week I finished dry fitting all of the panels.  This took quite a bit longer than I expected (the rule of pi, everything takes about a factor of 3.1415... longer than planned).  But I was happy in the end because all of the panels sat plumb and level in the intended locations.

 I also installed all of the bulkheads.  Final installation was done in four basic steps:
1 - Glue the bulkheads in place with just enough epoxy-microballoon putty to hold the panel in place and let set.
2 - Once the glue sets enough to keep the panel from moving, apply a heavy fillet between the bulkhead and the hull, and let set.
3 - When the fillet sets enough to hold its shape, apply the glass tape and epoxy over the fillet.
4 - Before the tape starts to set, apply peel-ply for a super-clean finish.
I thought this all went fairly well, although the peel-ply was a bit tricky to conform to the curves without pulling up.  Unfortunately, today I removed some of the peel ply and discovered several bubble under the tape.  I think I pulled up the tape in a few places while fighting with the peel-ply.  Luckily glass and epoxy is forgiving, so I pulled out the sander and ground out the bubbles.  I'll go back and apply some additional patches to fully restore the strength of the join.

This weekend, after dealing with the bubbles, I moved on to installing the other panels.  I started with the forward bunk and the cockpit floor.  The installation process is basically the same as with the bulkheads.  The only real difference is the panels get lighter fillets and tape than the bulkheads.  In this overview of the hull, you will also notice that I added some braces on top of the panels.  These braces hold the panels vertical.  I am not joining the panels to any vertical surfaces, e.g. bulkheads, so I can make final adjustments when I join the two halves of the hull together.  Hopefully I won't need to make big adjustments to get the halves to match, but best to have some flexibility.

Here is a view inside the hull looking aft from the forward bunk.  The forward bunk has several additional reinforcements because the beams that link the floats to the main hull tie into this section of the hull.  For example, you may notice the unidirectional glass at the bottom of the bunk near the bulkhead.  The bunk and cockpit floor are now glued in place. Next I'll continue with light fillets and tape the panels permanently.