Beam pads

 As promised, here are a couple photos from today's woodworking adventure milling the pads that will eventually support the beams.  These pads will be subjected to large compressive forces, so a high density hardwood is a must.  This is lovely white oak, used for centuries to build ships thanks to its natural rot resistance and strength.  So my F-82R will have a direct link to all of the great ocean explorers of past ages (okay, not exactly a direct link, but close enough!)  These are the blanks after being milled to thickness.  Each blank is about 3-feet long and will produce four pads.  The burn marks are due to a combination of dulling cutters and tough wood.

Five hours later (said with a french accent, a' la Sponge Bob!):
The eight milled pads awaiting glass laminate and installation on the central mounting modules.  It is amazing how seemingly simple jobs like cutting blocks of wood into these parts can take so long.  But I prefer to take my time and double check my measurements so I only screw up a quarter of the cuts!  Actually this all went pretty well.  I know it is hard to gauge the scale of these blocks, but the caliper to the left is about 9-inches long.  The blocks in the foreground are about 6"x7" and the blocks in the back are 10"x6".  So these are not too small, and there are few right angles.  The crazy bevels made each cut a challenge in set up.  Just a couple more small tasks (drill a few holes, laminate pads) and we are off to assembly of the central mounting modules (patented by Ian Farrier).

Oh yeah, and I also made a little more progress on the ports in the port float.  The weather was kinda damp and cool (a rarity in this part of the world), so not the best epoxy weather.  We should be able to glass the ports next weekend and be done with the port float for a while.

Parts cut for mounting modules

 In addition to the progress on the port float, we are preparing to fabricate the first parts of the main hull. If you recall I was vacuum laminating various panels a couple weeks ago for the "central mounting modules" (patented by Ian Farrier).  These modules provide the load bearing structure supporting the beams on the main hull.  There are some big loads on these components when the wind is trying to heel the boat over and the leeward float resists by push into the water.  Ian includes lots of warnings with skulls and crossbones to make the point that these modules must be built carefully and to his design.  I spent the past few days carefully laying out the components and cutting them to size (note the tools in the photo were mostly supporting actors, the table saw and band saw played the lead roles).  Many of the cuts are at odd angles, so I had to carefully think about how I was going to make the cuts to ensure accuracy.  Here you can see most of the parts just about ready for assembly.

The highest load components are cut from 4.5 mm-thick solid glass reinforced laminated sheet.  This was one of the panels I made on the vacuum table.  Ian's instructions estimate the solid sheet will require about 9 layers of 12-oz bi-directional glass.  In actuality, mine required 12 layers, with alternating layers of bi-directional (0-90 deg fibers) and double-bias (45-45 deg fibers) fabric.  I am not sure if the extra layers were needed due to the vacuum press, or due to the fibers being more uniformly spread out in my double-bias glass, and hence thinner than the bi-directional glass.  In any case, the panels is solid and heavy.  Feeling the weight of the solid panel compared to a foam-cored panel really shows the difference in weight of a solid laminate boat compared to a cored laminate boat.

In addition to the numerous small parts, there were also four large sections that form the backbone of the modules.  These sections are about six feet long, and will eventually span the main hull.  Next time I'll show you the high-load bearing pads I am currently fabricating out of lovely white oak (very old-school, indeed!)

The fairest of them all ... with ports

 I know it has been a while since I last updated our progress.  It's mostly been sanding and fairing, so not too much more to say that I haven't already.  The good news is I finished fairing the port float last weekend, and it looks great.  There is some minor touch up remaining on the deck, but mostly in the vicinity of the ports, so I decided to address these issues when I blend the ports in to the hull.  Fairing went somewhat quicker (or at least less painful) on the port hull.  I didn't do as many iterations of applying filler followed by sanding.  To summarize, I did the following:

1 - Fill holes and seams in foam,

2 - Initial fairing of foam with extra-long fairing board

3 - Fill significant low areas in foam and fair,

4 - Laminate outer surface and install bow,

5 - Skim coat entire surface,

6 - Sand with fairing board,

7 - Fill any remaining low spots,

8 - Final fairing pass.

 Here is another view of the port ports!  I followed the same basic steps I used for cutting the openings in the starboard float.  I am still working on blending the ports into the hull form like I did on the other float.  Once I get the epoxy putty shaped, I will apply glass tape on the inside and glass fabric on the outside to reinforce the openings.  Then this float goes on the shelf while we move on to the beams and main hull.