Boat Progress

The epoxy was delivered yesterday but the weather was cold rain and snowing. This morning was fairly clear and by 11:30 the frost had about melted off the poly cover and the scaffolds so I started sticking core into the hull. Ten malt cups of epoxy later it was 5:00PM, the temperature was down to 45deg and I was bushed. About 3/4 of the replacement core has been spread with epoxy on it's bottom, clamped, screwed and weighted. It seems to be polymerizing slowly.

I put a little heater and two big light bulbs inside the cover to provide some heat during this cold night. The pictures shows what it looks like a few minutes ago. Snow is predicted tomorrow but maybe there will be some sun and I can finish the first epoxy for the core.

The next step will be a lot of filling and grinding in preparation for two layers of glass cloth set in epoxy. I could do with 7 days of warm weather but that is not to be.

Gazing out on the graceful lines of the boat and thinking about details of my design adaptation keep me inspired, and warm, so far.

Inside Work

After waking up this morning and thinking about laminating a deck beam that was curved in two directions........ later this afternoon I started making a jig. This is the beginning.

My epoxy came today and I made the last core out of plywood, it fits right up in the point of the bow. If I can get some decent weather this week I will try to mix up some epoxy and bond in my first deck core. Some apprehension about all this, like pouring concrete, lots of ways for things to go wrong and make a mess.

Monday Morning Weather

The first rot I dug out took me about three hours to do a square foot and I was feeling glum about the messiness and magnitude of this job of rebuilding the deck. A couple of days later I was up to more than a square foot per hour. I bought the router and got up to about three square feet and hour. The rot in the photo on the port bow was cleaned out in about two hours!

I am happy to have progressed up the learning curve for removing deck core but will be content with my current expertise.

Cutting the kerf in the curved plywood usually works fine. Now and then your grip on the workpiece jiggles and there are some saw gouges maybe 1/16th inch. This doesn't matter as the kerf gets worked over with the big disc sander to fit it to the hills and dales in the fiberglass. I expect that the epoxy putty will take care of gaps so it doesn't have to be perfect.

The top of the core will be sanded to level it off before I start laying on the fiberglass and this will give a me another chance to make up for some un-even laying of the core.

We woke to 32 degree temperatures, 20 mph NE winds, overcast, and snow flurries. I drove Mom to work, today marks the downhill side of her 6-week stint. Afterwards I checked the stores for a soft rubber pad to go on my Velcro, Bosch, orbital sander. I had seen an ad for these in a magazine and it should help to sand the outside of the hull. Home Despot had some for other model sanders. I may try to manufacture one during this cloudy day.

I also woke up at 5AM thinking about how to bend and laminate some wood that spans the beam of the boat along the back edge of the cockpit, to support the Harken mainsheet traveler. It will have to curve in both the horizontal and vertical plane. If you steam or heat wood, it gets softer, like plastic, and will bend easier and hold some of it's set. It springs back a little after taking it out of the clamps or mold. Bends my mind. I suppose I can use any failures for firewood.

Boat Deck

The pictures show the rot, the cleaned out deck, and pieces of plywood that replace some of the rotten core. I bought a $99 table saw at Home Depot and it is useful. It is set up here to cut a kerf on the edges of the plywood where they meet the edge of the deck. Works great but I still have to do some vicious sculpting with the big disc sander to make them lay down against an uneven surface.

I got in a full morning work on Friday Am. In the afternoon we fetched the F-24 from Canyon Ferry. Yesterday it rained hard all day and I was discouraged by weather predictions of rain, cold and snow for the next five days. However, today we got some sun and I put in 8 hours and got MOST of the new pieces of the deck carved out! This feels good! Construction rather than destruction.The epoxy is scheduled to get here tomorrow. I am able to trace the progress of the epoxy in the UPS system on-line, a very helpful application.Clouds came over and the wind turned cold at 5:30, I thought that meant rain is coming, and I stopped what I was doing and Mom helped put the cover back on and clean up a little. Time for dinner.

Rotten Balsa Core

I am converting an old Etchells racing sloop into a daysailer. This is what I have been looking at the last few days. I am getting better at ripping off rotten and wet balsa core. Even the wet core is stuck to the fiberglass and a router, Skil saw, slick, navy paint scraper are the current wrecking tools of choice. I will be glad when the deck is done.

In the beginning

Visitors slowed down the boat work. The Smiths were here Friday and Saturday and the Kerttus Saturday. Smiths brought a standard poodle and the Kerttus had two Brittanys as usual! No dog fights.

I got going this afternoon and started opening the places with rotten balsa core. It was pretty messy and I am remembering that some boaters say "If you are looking at a boat with deck rot, reject it, and find another boat!" I will allow that I am way down on the learning curve so it will take a while.

Deck survey [9/28]

Today I ordered Blue Interlux paint for the topsides and some red
Interlux hard bottom paint$$$ from Defender Industries, they were
20% less than West Marine.

I surveyed the deck today.� Took a little plastic hammer and
tapped on sections of deck composite that I had rudely sawn off
yesterday. I could see on the sawn edges where the good balsa
core made a transition to the rotten core and could calibrate my
ear for the different "sound". It is pretty easy to hear.

Then I surveyed the remaining deck and drew boundaries, according
to my ear, separating the good areas from the rotten or
delaminated areas. I measured the entire deck and measured the
rotten areas and saw that about 50% was rotten. I thought "is
the glass half empty, or half full?"

The thought of trying to patch up so much of the deck seemed
futile and at present I plan to strip off the top layer of
fiberglass, dig out the balsa, keeping the lower layer of
fiberglass, and lay in sheets of 1/2 inch plywood using epoxy
with filler. Then I will glass the top of the deck with cloth
and epoxy and then add a non-skid pattern and paint the final
result an off white. I believe this will be stronger and might
be quicker than patching. Now, the work that I have glibly
outlined in a few sentences may take weeks or months, if the
weather turns cold!!!

Cutting away [9/27]

There were dark clouds this morning and I spent some time
improving the shelter over the Etchells.� Weather is a big worry
as I have lots of fiberglassing and painting to do and the
temperatures�will be�dropping.� Some of this project will have to
wait for spring.

By afternoon the sun was out and I proceeded to cut out big
sections of the boat. This was pretty exciting as many hours had
been spent imagining what and where to cut. The result was
dramatic and gratifying.

There was lots of rot in the balsa core of the deck which I was
aware of. This fact encouraged me to start the surgery as it
would have been barbaric to chop up a boat in good condition.

It sure looks pretty sitting in the driveway.

etchells at new home [9/24]

This afternoon I bought this Etchells 22, a 30 foot-long racing,
one design, keel sloop from a guy in Bozeman.� I think it is
beautiful but it needs work.

I have had a latent plan for several years to convert one of
these from a racing boat into a daysailer-weekender.� Marjorie
wondered if we were too old for this kind of minimalist sailing
but I maintained we weren't.

Stay tuned.

12 point program? [9/17]

I looked a little at a 30 foot Etchells keel boat that a friend
has for sale cheap.� I once had an idea of converting one of
these Etchells from a one-design daysailer into an overnighter.
Kind of like putting a bed and hotplate into your Porsche and
making it into a camper.� Plum crazy but I am running alternately
hot and cold on the idea this weekend.� Marjorie is running more
on the cold side.

The Etchells mast is stepped on the keel. The bow and stern are
bulkheaded to make air tanks for flotation. There is not much
room left and the "cabin" would only be an open-backed shelter
with slightly more room that the underside of our dining room
table. Mounting an outboard is a problem.

This is what we were looking at in the rain on Saturday. Is
there a 12-point program somewhere?