March

I'm working on several of the larger parts. I make templates on paper using the dimensions given on the plans and then transfer them to the foam. For the forward bunk this allowed me to play with the curves, and the parts that are symmetrical port and starboard can be made by just flipping the template over. I found that poking the pencil through the paper and then connecting the dots as necessary was easiest.

The bunk is longer than a single sheet of melamine so I clamped two together and put a piece of vacuum bag sealant tape between them, covered with a piece of RR. This allowed for a good vacuum seal.

Layup proceeded in the usual fashion. A big bag was fashioned by reusing three old bags joined together.

The VB table 'extension' did get pulled up into the vacuum and leave a small impression on the part. As it was the underside, it won't be a problem.

I decided to break the decks into three pieces. I started by cutting out the HD inserts and making the high strength resin putty inserts.

Partial layout with stiffeners.

At this point I found that I wasn't satisfied with the foam that I had left. The remaining half-price cutoffs were of a variable thickness (only discovered after cutting in the inserts of two sections) so I decided I would save the remaining for settee backs etc., and put off further VB'ing. I was also finding myself short on RR and PP. All these things took significantly longer to receive than I thought -- coming from two suppliers and they were both out of what I wanted! A lesson in planning ahead and project management.

I switched to making the CF chainplates. Not much to say other than I relearned someone else's lessons. After layering up the CF I was concerned that it was resin-rich, so wanted to VB the part (realizing that's all I've done). This took care of the resin, but compressing CF that's wrapped around an end causes it to wrinkle slightly. I think they'll work fine, but my advice would be to wrap and tension PP around the edge, then do a 'poor man's VB' (for ideas look at Henny's : F-39 building project : Main hull : Beam bulkheads and folding system setup).

I ended up taking the last two weeks of the month off for non-boat related projects, including getting ready for April 16 -- the day our annual taxes are due.

February

In January I think I only took a couple days off, and the excitement of starting helped me work late into the night after work. But then real life set in during February. It's going to be a large project, and I realized you can't sacrifice 'balance'. I took at least a third of the month off - a week for turning 46 years old, and 5 days for family skiing at Sun Peaks in B.C., Canada.

When I added up the month's work, I found that sometimes it's the short period spent after a late day at work, which doesn't seem like much, that then allows the whole thing to happen the next night. Or a week of little things that sets the stage for a productive weekend.

I journal in a spiral bound notebook about what I've done, ideas I don't want to forget. And I've found that following Ian's advice about making a plan at the end of each work period helps jump start the next -- especially if there's a break between work periods.

Now a month 'wiser', I look back at notes and smile -- when first finding my way, a written plan of attack was important, though now they seem to be the natural order of events. Notes like: don't forget to drill holes (to allow equalization of the resin between sides), vacuum the part clean, don't confuse transfer of the patterns if port or starboard with asymmetrical parts . . .

A couple of things I've learned. Foam is easy to cut, file and sand to shape. With 3/8", a score with the knife and quick snap is an easy way to deal with cutting to size.

If the part is going to be vacuum bagged, joining pieces is easy with a Copula or hot glue gun. As I get more scrap pieces and realize that the VB process does all the joining and flattening of the part, there is no need to use large virgin foam for each part! Extra resin in the seam adds insignificant weight, and looking ahead, efficient use of supplies will be important. Since I'm doing all the flat parts first, I will lose the luxury of such an easy way to use that pile in the corner.

Planning out the cockpit seats and floor slowed me down. I was thinking about drainage, two thicknesses, putting in rebates . . . in other words I was thinking too hard. I chose to lay out the pattern on paper and then transfer it to the foam. Next time I would save my 3/4 stock and use a second layer of 3/8 scrap. I would not worry about rebates (they have to be on the bag side, not table side to work, but you have to also consider which side you want flat if you are doing two thicknesses . . . I used rebate 'spacers' wrapped in release film which worked but . . .) In the end the product looked great, but it didn't need to take so long.

One thing that I tried which I really like is using an electric blanket for speeding the cure in a unheated winter garage. I'm guessing 70ºF evenly applied heat at 15 watts! Compare that to radiant heat lamps. A spare piece of foam over the top can help. Mine cost $3 at a thrift store and didn't have a controller so I just plug it in directly. (I only do this when I'm there to supervise, and as they say, 'try at your own risk'.)

Luckily, since I'm not even sure it will be useful, I'm finding less things that rebating might help. When I do, like down the center of the bunk, it's a quick swipe with the electric planer. I'll cut the forward and aft-cabin bunk in half and put a gluing flange along the back side before installation. I'm hoping the rebate will make taping the top joint easy to fair.

I started out doing square panels when I was VI'ing, and I continued that with my early VB since there were lots of parts to put together like a puzzle. But strange shapes await and I think I can be more efficient with foam, glass, and epoxy if I 'pre' cut and then trim to shape after.

I am also starting to reuse my vacuum bag material. I had saved all the pieces from VI and early VB. By going from larger to smaller parts, you can make up for cutting off the edge with the tape. Or you can join pieces with tape to make a larger bag. I wouldn't do this for VI, but it seems easy to get at least three uses and if a small leak happens it won't ruin a VB part, just make the pump cycle occasionally. Although I've read about reusing the tape, I've found that I can usually separate the two until I get to the areas with pleats, then it's impossible.

January

Forms

Because of my limited space, my plan is to make all the flat parts for floats and main hull before I start planking.


I transfered the full size patterns to MDF using carbon paper.

To support the panels while I cut them, I put a sheet of insulating foam on the floor and then shortened the saber saw blade. To conserve material I followed the cut plan shown in the plans. I will save main hull #1 and 2 for later, as they will come out of my setup table and vacuum table.

Since the main hull forms use the factory 90 degree corners and parallel edges, alignment is easy. Since the floats come from some odd shapes, I decided that I would run them through the table saw so the top and bottom were parallel and uniform, and then align them so the deck was flat. I cut the area for the deck flange perpendicular with the miter saw, extending it so that the form for the flange could extend the length of the float without having to be cut different widths.

I then began building the strong back. I chose to use 2x6 cross pieces and 3/4 ply ripped to the same height for the sides. The braces are 2x4. It's a three dimentional trick to get everything aligned.

After construction I confirmed that the cleats were parallel to each other and perpendicular to the center string. It's raised on feet, and level was accomplished with a laser level.

Placing the forms with clamps began to give the whole thing shape! I used the deck edge for alignment.

The final step was to brace the forms plumb. Straight, level, plumb, perpendicular, parallel . . .

For battens I used Paulownia wood that is finger-jointed to remove knots and comes in 20 ft lengths. It produced a nice curve, though it's 'soft' (hence the low expense) so you could drive a screw head right through it if you over-tighten. The battens were 'artistically' placed: it seemed best to position wide for simple curves and narrow for compound curves. I usually started in the middle and worked towards the ends.

The only difficult area seemed to be at the keel near the bow, where the curve also required a twist (I ripped these square, which helped). Since the forms are not faired and sometimes have limited contact with the batten, I found the direction of the screw to be important -- perpendicular to the batten, not form, and off-center to counter any twist.

The transom overhangs form #11. Looks like a lot of battens. I guess I'll only put screws through if it helps shape the foam. Luckily I get to reuse them with the main hull.

At Jeremy's advice I decided to use the strong back/forms as my table legs for the vacuum table. Originally I was going to alternate back and forth, preparing one while the other was curing and vice-versa . . . of course I could never work fast enough to make this worthwhile. And I found that one waxed surface and one clean surface for prep work was the best.

It's all about physics: VI

As I have mentioned, I followed Henny (and then Tor), long before I committed to building a boat. 
Consequently, I always knew I would have to try Vacuum Infusion (VI). I do not plan to outline the details of the technique from start to finish (as they are outlined many other places and my advice would be to start with Henny's Kit) but I will mention some of my personal experiences.

I say 'personal experiences', because while this is the case with many techniques, likely it will be more so for those experimenting with VI.

I became very attached to the 'dry' lay up -- both sides, multiple layers -- that VI allows. Below you can see the disposable layers and a 2x4 foot foam panel with three parts outlined. (Note: the bulkhead shown below has a locating dowel used later for positioning the deck and beam. As Jay notes in his blog, the central position of this should be double checked before assuming you've put both bulkheads in correctly.)

Trying to control the variables (and finding out what they are) is most of the fun.

Resin. Although the resin I am using has been used for VI of large parts and vessels according to the manufacture, it is not designed specifically for VI (I accepted this as I knew I was not going to attempt VI of the whole boat). Hence its viscosity is a little high, especially for the temperature of a garage in winter. And it's open time is short, ~1 hour at 70 deg. F.

Vaccum. My system only pulls ~27.5 -- more is likely better (given the above).

One measure of a 'successful' session (besides a good product) is limiting resin waste. I think the volume that cures in the tubes and resin distribution media are fixed losses based on the size of your part package (though low viscosity resin might decrease this -- I might touch on this later). That leaves resin in the waste trap. Basically, a perfect session would have the top and bottom resin front reach the outflow at the same time. If one beats the other, you have to waste resin while it catches up.

My first issue was 'race-tracking' along the edge, which I cured by not allowing the resin distribution media (RDM) to go over the sides (the sides paralleling the direction of resin flow) and having a strategic pleat in the vacuum bag (VB). Second, my experience was that the bottom resin front was fastest. I suspect that the wax surface and fixed (larger) space in the RDM accounted for this. I am using a 'stretchy' vacuum bag material and this seemed to be sucked into the space of the RDM on the top layer, slowing the resin advance. By accident, I discovered that when I used two pieces of RDM and overlapped an edge, the resin would move faster in this area. So, I placed a second sheet of RDM on the top, whose shape countered the above tendencies. (I say 'shape' because it was not uniform. The counter current effect of the placement of the inflow and outflow, which should make this less of an issue, was not as efficient in my system.)

There were may more lessons -- but enough of that. To understand the picture below: inflow is far right corner, with a tube coming towards you (it ends early to help slow down the near side of the resin front). The outflow exits near left with its spiral tube going to the far (a little past) left corner. The dark green is the second layer of RDM. The goal is to have the top and bottom resin fronts get to the near right corner at the same time. You can see the beginnings of the foam showing through the now wet/transparent glass and the markings of the future aft-cabin hatch.

And a while later. You may be able to see that the bottom is catching up to the top.

Almost done. You can see I have blocked off the new section of garage with its glass 'heat sucking' roof, and have been heating the area (I had to take off my fleece). The heat did decrease the viscosity of the resin and speed up the process. I found I could clamp off the resin intake before the far edge was 100% and it would continue to finish. I picture the resin layer being wedge-shaped, and the extra resin to finish comes from the final 'flattening' of this layer. This was also how I also explained that even when I 'won the race' by having everything perfect, the waste trap would have excess resin in it the next morning.

It's always fun to open the package! What a great product VI can produce.

Another technique: VB

Read Henny and Tor's experiences and you will know that I still have a lot to learn. But I was running out of parts to efficiently fill my quarter sheets -- and I knew that was the reliable limit given the above observations with MY variables. It was time to learn something new -- tried and true wet lay-up vacuum bagging (VB).

I began marking out the area that I would wax -- moving up to bigger parts. I thought that the VB tape might not like the wax, but have since found that the tape I'm using will stick even on waxed surfaces.

Wet out the peel ply (PP) first. If the part has multiple layers of glass in specific areas, I trace this location onto the bottom PP with a pencil. Glass is next.

Then foam. At first I wet both sides -- but that was too much work and didn't seem to make a difference after the VB'ing. I started out using a thin foam roller, but while it may have a role (no pun intended) I have found a squeegee to be much more efficient.

More glass, peel ply, resin release film, two layers of breather, VB . . . and presto -- another great product.

You can see I have experimented with placing some strategic rebates for taping in an attempt to minimize faring later.

A sneak peek shows the nice matte surface under the peel ply.

Comparison

My first VB panel was a repeat of my last VI panel. The weight of the final product was approximately 5% less for the VB -- sucking too much resin into the breather? -- though they don't look different and the thickness is the same (it might also be within the error of my scale). The difference in resin usage was significant -- about half as much, which was confirmed by weighing the RDM, etc. -- a significant cost in the garbage, not including the increased disposables.

So, my experience and variables supported continuing with VB'ing. Would I choose to avoid VI having come to this conclusion? NO. Like everything in life, additional skill and experience is a valuable bonus.

I do want to pass on something that might be useful. When researching VI, I came across a company that produces sticky fiberglass tape, which is designed to hold fabric in place dry before the VI is started. (Henny has been using synthetic staples, I believe.) The thin, open weave tape is incorporated into the laminate. I was going through a steep learning curve about cutting and handling stitched fabric when it came to me: I have some sticky fiberglass tape for repairing dry-wall!

It takes a couple of seconds to apply. Cut down the middle and both edges hold together without any fibers coming off. It also reduces snagged or twisted fibers from an inadvertent fold while handling. The roll stays neat -- and odd-shaped pieces keep their shape. This is especially true for 45/45 which seems to be very finicky. Originally I was thinking of leaving the tape in the part (hard to feel, at least after VB'ing) since if you take it off dry, it begins to pull at the loose stitching and causes a problem. If you wet it out with resin, though, it lifts off and the glass stays right where it was.

Building aids.

One of my early projects has been to put together a vacuum system. I found an old pump in need of repair for the job, but on the advice of a knowledgeable person at work, decided to spend my money towards something that wouldn't immediately malfunction.

I also decided to follow in the steps of Allen, who is building a Farrier 44SC, Sail #1. Instead of searching for the control parts separately, I ordered a kit from Joe Woodworker and enjoyed putting it together.

I used a propane tank as a reservoir and PVC pipe as the sub-reservoir. You can set the pressure at which it cycles to (the highest I could seem to achieve with this automatic on-off was to turn on at 24 and cycle to 27). I also wired in a 'continuous' switch, as the pump is rated for continuous operation. After equilibrating the gauge I seemed to max out at 27.5 to 28 -- not the 29 I paid and hoped for, but it should be good enough. Likely I will run it continuously until the epoxy jells, then leave it on auto for the remainder of the cure.

I also made a fiberglass cart (forgot to take pictures, but I'm sure it will be in the background in the near future). I was naively thinking this would just be a luxury, but after picking up the glass from Jeremy's -- it's a necessity.

I hope to start building after Christmas and the New Year.

The garage extension.

November found me adding an extension to the garage: an aluminum and glass roof with enclosed sides. It has a 'floating' floor (apt for a boat project?) that allows the water coming down the driveway to flow to the existing drain.

I moved the garage door forward. Fooling with the tensioning spring gave me pause, but it went without a hitch.

I have a long, narrow space which should allow me to build the floats and main hull halves. The main hulls will have to be joined some place else. I think it's important to be close to family (and dinner) for as much of the project as possible.

Some of our supplies have arrived.

I also went out to Jeremy's to investigate his progress. Wow, foam on battens! It's not a race, but I haven't even started.

Gathering supplies.

We ordered up some foam and fiberglass from Noah's Marine in Toronto. My brother Jeremy and I are building at the same time, so we split an order of A400, A500, and A1200 foam. We also picked up enough 12 oz. biaxial and double bias and 18 ox biaxial fiberglass to finish the boats. The carbon fiber and G10 tubing will be coming directly from Farrier Marine.

Received plans: F-22 Sail #61

I ordered the plans soon after getting back from vacation. I didn't want to be too far behind my brother Jeremy -- F-22 Sail #58.

It took several weeks for the plans to arrive. While I waited, I went out to Jay's and helped him with some projects: main hull battens and the start of a hot box. Thanks Jay!

Since then I have enjoyed looking at my own plans while I continue to work on finishing house projects.