Hello folks, I am happy to report that my project has been sold.  I look forward to seeing the new owner finish this F-82R and get her on the water.

Thanks to all of you who have followed my posts over the years!

Fair Winds ...

Hello World!  I know it has been a long time since my last post.  Much has happened in my life since then.  Although I would like to start working on my F-82R again, I have no idea when I will be able to do so.

I think it is a waste for this project to sit untouched in my backyard, so I am offering it for sale for a reasonable offer.  I am including all parts, components, and supplies I have on hand, as well as the boathouse that the project is in.  I have the two floats and half the main hull, plus thousands of dollars in machined parts, glass, carbon fiber, and epoxy.  And of course, I have Ian Farrier's excellent plans.

I am offering all of this for $11,000 or the best offer.

My F-82R project is located in northern New Mexico.  Send me a message here with your contact information if you would like to discuss this project and your offer.

Beam fillets

Made a little more progress on beam #4.  Here you see the beam and mold on its side to make lamination of the corner fillets a little easier.  The only way I can figure to laminate the interior of the beams is to do the sides (w/ fillets) and bottom separately in three big stages with healthy overlaps.  Even laminating  piecemeal, I find some of the areas with complex geometry difficult to keep neat, though I am getting better with practice.  I laminated the first side (now oriented above) yesterday, and could have easily flipped the assembly over to do the second side in the afternoon, but laziness is quite the seductress.

Here is a view from the other end (outer end).  As usual, I always try to apply peel-ply to keep the glass fibers well encapsulated and aligned, as well as making prep for the next stage much, much easier.  It is important to apply the peel-ply before the epoxy starts to kick, otherwise it won't wet the peel-ply.  And I often have to resist the temptation to apply epoxy on top of the peel-ply, but that generally just prevents trapped air from diffusing through the fabric.  Better to add a little fresh epoxy to the glassed surface prior to laying down the peel-ply and let it wick through the fabric.

Four beams to a boat

 I know it's been a while since the last update.  The weather finally got out of the winter funk and into the spring thaw a few weeks ago, but I took a little longer to get up and at 'em.  I have made some progress, nonetheless, with the fourth float now coming together in the mold.  I added the first layer of carbon fiber to the interior bottom today.  I also glued the transverse gussets into beam three (on top in the stack as seen in the photo).  Not much new to show you, once you see the first couple of beams being constructed, it gets kinda redundant.  Once I get beam four to the same stage as the first three we can finally move on to new stuff.

 I had to get the table saw out to cut some additional foam filets for beam four, so while doing that I decided to cut a set of blocks out of hardwood.  These are installed inside the beams to provide strength where a bolt will tie the beams to the main hull.  In particular, these will prevent the ends of the beam from getting crushed by the loads at the attachment point.

Just to illustrate where these pieces will be installed, here is one in the port aft beam (beam three) on the ledge of the inner (main hull) end of the beam.  It will eventually be trimmed to fit snugly, then bedded in putty and taped in place with glass and epoxy.  So a little something new to show you … yippee!

Catching up

We've been making good progress the past month (at least by our standard).  Nothing too new or groundbreaking, just more of the same you have already seen with the past two beam interiors.  Here is a photo of beam #2 with the gussets at the inner end (bottom of photo) heavily glassed to strengthen this high stress area.  I haven't made any additional progress on the bulkheads in this beam because I am focusing on getting beam #3 assembled and out of the mold by the end of the month.  Then I hope to have beam #4 assembled in January, and the work with the mold complete.  This is in anticipation of a possible move back home next summer, which I would prefer to do minus the heavy wood forms.  I actually never thought it would take so much time to build these beams.  They just have lots of details and they have to be done correctly.

So here is beam #3 in the mold with the initial carbon fiber lamination.  In the background you can see the corner fillets ready to go.  This is the first aft beam, which requires a little less reinforcement than the forward beams.

And now beam #3 has the fillets installed and has been fully laminated with glass.  All that is left to do in the mold is to add the reinforcing laminations, including some carbon fiber and more glass.  Should be done tomorrow then ready to pop out of the mold.  I will also fit the bulkhead foam core before removing from the mold, but that is a pretty quick job.

Here is a close up view of the interior of the recess where the upper linkage with the main hull will be pinned.  This recess will be subjected to lots of stress, especially around the pin, so there are solid GRP plates on either side, which were fabricated a couple years ago when I built the central mounting modules.  There will also be several layers of reinforcing glass to distribute the load to the rest of the beam structure.  The peel-ply keeps everything neatly laminated and is better than sanding, no matter how complex the form.

 Here you can see the three beams in various stages.  Beams #1 and #2 are stacked to the left, while #3 is in the mold.  Note the exterior view of the recess in the bottom (upside down view) of beam #2.  You might also notice the heater working away to the right of the photo.  Temps have dropped, snow has fallen, so now I am trying to maintain progress by keeping temps in the garage warm enough to cure the epoxy in a day or two.  At least I don't have to worry about the epoxy kicking too fast.

To ensure the epoxy is usable, I am keeping it inside in the laundry room closet.  This way it is warm enough to flow and wet out the fabrics.  It does get chilled pretty quickly once it is applied to the cold assembly in the garage, but it seems to be working.  Should get me through the cold winter with fewer excuses for not making progress.

Beamers

 Howdy folks, thought I'd give you quick update on our progress.  We have been working away on laminations and reinforcements in beam 2.  I lost a weekend to a cold, but otherwise made steady progress.  This weekend I finished the internal laminations in the second beam.  Today I cut and dry fit the bulkheads and gussets so they are ready to be glued in place.  Here you can see the seven bulkheads temporarily in place.  You can barely see one of the gussets at the far end to the right of center.  Now I can pull the beam out of the mold so I can start assembling the third beam.

Pull out about a bazillion screws, and here is the newly freed beam #2 along with the first beam (with installed bulkheads as previously discussed).  They look nearly identical, and will even more so once I get the bulkheads installed.  I will glue the bulkheads into beam 2, assemble the foam core for beam 3, and prep the foam core fillet for beam 3 all at the same time so I can make better use of the epoxy putty I will need to mix.  I hate wasting material, so having several tasks that all require the same putty might make better use of the batch.

I should also note that it is starting to get cool here in the northeast.  To keep the epoxy ready for use, I moved the two parts to shelves in the laundry room.  This way the epoxy will be a reasonable temperature so it will flow, rather than being like molasses.  Well, lots of gluing to do, so next weekend should be busy.

Longitudinal webs

While working on the foam fillets for beam #2, I also continued work on the bulkheads in beam #1.  Here you can see the longitudinal bulkheads (or webs) that have been glued in place between two pairs of bulkheads.  I also glued a small longitudinal stiffener at the outer end (bottom of photo) that will help strengthen the attachment point between the beam and float.  (In case you are confused by this photo, beam #2 is still in the mold underneath beam #1.  It is convenient to set beam #1 on top of beam #2 while working on other tasks.)

Today I sanded the glue joints and then added putty fillets along the edges of the longitudinal webs.  In this photo you can see the nicely filleted web that will strengthen the bend in the beam.  Next I will glass over these webs in the same way I did for the bulkheads, and be one step closer to complete.