Thursday, March 31, 2011

March

As always, when the time came, I was anxious to get back at it.

I had planked everything except the bow area.



I trimmed the foam along the gunwale and installed battens.  You can see the strip of high density foam along the keel that is required to strengthen the hull for trailering, and the sacrificial strip above for vacuum bagging.




As noted by others, the gunwale needs a 'break' because forward of this frame it is straight. This transition will actually disappear as this is the area that will be cut out and replaced by the forward beam mount.



I transitioned to full foam strips where the gunwale line begins to disappear.



Here is the bow, an area where all the curves nearly disappear. Since this area is extending past the last frame, I double checked its shape by measuring down from the bow template.  By adjusting a few of the battens I made sure that I had a uniform transition from the deck to the keel.

















I tried a different approach to fill between the foam.  When planking the floats, I had produced a 'V' shape by using my router table prior to securing the strip. For this I had been planing to Dremel a notch between them, but I had difficulty controlling the depth and size. Now with the narrow gap already in place I decided that I could decrease the volume of filler material by only removing foam on one side with my knife.  I found this fast, easy, and surprisingly accurate.



Filled with the corner of a Zip-Lock bag cut off.



On the floats I had leveled this with a putty knife, but after sanding there was an obvious depression.  This time I made a small notch in the putty knife which left thin ridge.



If caught at the right time, it easily comes off with a scraper and then 36 grit -- just like the 'cheese grating' when fairing.



We closed off the month on Maui, Hawaii.  I enjoyed snorkeling every day.






The contrast of the volcano and . . .



. . . windward side was dramatic.