Largest laminate done! Yes!

Thursday morning didn't look very promising weatherwise. It was foggy and there wasn't a single pacth of blue in site. Still , plans went ahead and inside the shop temperatures were in the low 20's and humidity under 55%. I was just hoping it would hold during lamination and initial curing. I knew drier weather was coming on Friday and Saterday so, it would pay off. After all everything was arranged with my friends for that day.

Laminating 6x7 m of 280gms glass using hand lay-up was getting me a bit nervous. The first layer gave some fight but then all went very well. I used the dry on wet method with plenty of resin under the first layer and that helped move the cloth around. Following layers just soaked up the excess resin . At the end used a bit more than 12 litres which brought the resin to glass resin pretty close to 50:50 which is better that I could ever anticipate.

Having three mechanical engineers as extra hands , including a college professor , to boss around (lol) was something special!

At the end cooled down a bit with some beer.

In the photo I'm the one with decent working clothes .lol

My thanks to Tó, Esteves ( the Prof) and J.Carvalho. I wouln't have been able to complete this stage without there precious help.

Now I'm making a pause as far as boat building goes.

My shop is a mess! I'm running out of floor space. Next week I hope I have a new set of shelves

and a decent working table custom made for the next building stage.

Weather issue

The hull has been ready since nearly the end of July for final major lamination. There has been some good weather since then but it just doesn´t macth up with friends being available. Now that I had everything set up for next Thursday the weather forecast is a bit on the wet side. No good for amine blush. On the other hand I can use whatever peel-ply I have left to mitigate the situation.

In the meantime I built the porch and fixed a rocking garden chair. Working with wire isn't for everyone. I took a taste of the mean stuff (8 gauge?) on the porch. One the chair used a 10 gauge wire but still had to put on a fight.

Tomorrow will see how it works!

The porch looks ok. Put some solar lamps on the covering.

Have loads aof stuff to do around the house but right now just wanted to finish the hull and get on with boat building.

Whatever is left of this summer looks like it's going to be a bit on the wet side and that's no good!

Well...

One down one boat to go!

Well it all started with a few pilars and a great load of " god damn me if I don't pull this one out!".

Then... it was mostly pain!

But in the end it's there and for me it's more than satisfactory.

I think I'll spend some good moments swaying on that nett after a good working day on the boat.

The boat is ready for glassing and the message to my friends is: "Let's do it!"

Do I have other projects?

Oh boy! This is going to be a hell of a year. Throw in a shed for rabbits, ducks, chickens and a freak'n pig... I'll tell you later! lol

Other stuff

The boat has been belly up for time waiting for the right time to do the last large lamination.

I'm going to need some extra hands to do this in one go. Most of my friends are out on vaccation.

In the meantime I set my hands on another project long overdue, making the porch.

I'm using old wood from the original house and using whatever other material I have at hand. It's going to look a bit old fashion. So far (10 days working like a mule!) .

I hope to have it covered tomorrow!

I'm completely beat!

Belly up!

Finally got the deck surface ready for glassing. Here a rebate can be seen on the fore beam mount area. There's also a slot I routed through to serve as a guide for the position of the bulkhead. This area will be cut latter for the beam mounts.

Second cokpit floor in position and taped. Pre flanges worked very well. Amazing how stiff it become!

Belly up and ready for some sanding shaping and finally laminated.

Weather continues good with temperatures in the high 20's low 30's . Resin cures like crazy! Got to watch out for heat in the pot!

Comings days hope to continue on the inside ( plenty of stuff to do). Let's hope it doesn't get too hot!

The rudder and daggerboard have been restlessly staring at me since last December. I guess I´ll have to glass'm up and put them out of their waiting misery.

Little trick'n Tip!

Created an access to work decently on the rudder mount. Later will use it to reenforce the outboard mounting plate.

To do it, just routed 10 + mm down and left the bottom layer as a flange to support the cap.

It's going to be a life saver!

Here , rudder mount in place. It's official! If it's got a rudder ( well sort of!) , it's a boat!

Rudder mount

Getting ready to cut the gudgeon block in two. Cutting a thick glass/carbon fiber block can be a nightmare with all that terrible dust blasting off from the sawing disk. It can turn into a serious itching episode, so I'm not taking any chances. Despite the protection some dust still managed to get through my footware causing some very unpleasant skin irritation.

Finnaly the parts were cut and prefited on the web

A rebate was created to accomodate the UD

And first layer o C glass setting up.

Tomorrow will put final glass/carbon layers.

I don't know if it turned out to be easier or stronger than what was in the plans but I surely did my way.