June

There was a momentous event in June (wish I could say it included finishing the pond). My oldest daughter graduated from high school! Hard to imagine that time could pass so quickly. She will be leaving for college in California this fall. When the celebrating was done, I got back to building.

To cut out the bulkheads I used the same trick as with the forms: flat on a piece of styrofoam. I rough cut, then finished with a sanding station.

To remove foam for filling exposed edges, I use a Dremel 'steel brush' attachment. It could go through the laminate, but with a little care, only removes the foam. (The hose is from my dust collector.)

The full size templates make fitting very easy. I made each slightly small so that I would have a bed of fillet material under the edge.

Since no clamping pressure is necessary, the placement gig only needs to hold the BH in proper orientation until cured. Originally, I had thought that the BH would be cut to size and fit in its correct location, but making them marginally smaller made me rethink things. A 1/4 inch MDF screwed at the centerline of the BH and placed across the form made the vertical placement easy; a small piece of BH material acting as a spacer between the MDF and the edge of the form took care of fore-aft placement; and a small level took care of the third critical element.

After testing and marking, I placed some fillet material on the hull, put the BH into position, and finished the fillet on each side with a plastic bag and a putty knife rounded to the size of an American quarter. I found this left a smooth finish and allowed me to pick up the excess material and return it to the bag, making for very little waste.

With the proper timing, the tape can be placed before the fillet cures completely. Since I use the PMVB technique on the tape, the cure must be solid enough to withstand pushing with the squeegee. If the fillet material will cure first, some PP will make sure no sanding has to be done before the taping.

During my first experience of PMVB on a fillet, I used small pieces of plastic to account for the curves of the hull, stiffener, keel, etc. This seemed too slow, so I started using one long, narrow piece. This allowed for working out the air and excess resin, but did not allow for a complete 'seal' like the technique does for flatter surfaces. In the end this didn't seem to matter, as you can differentiate a bubble that appears later under the plastic vs. one that appears under the glass. Wetting the plastic and cutting a small dart in it as you are proceeding can decrease any problems. In any event, it seemed superior to working the glass alone or with just PP. Extra layers of laminate are placed at the same time and I put small pieces of PP in areas that will have future layers, like near the keel, where it will eventually be taped together.

The chainplate is placed in its proper orientation on each of the left (for starboard) and right (for port) float halves (don't forget future deck thickness) and receives its extra glass.

I had constructed the deck flange mold such that it could be removed for fitting the chainplate while the hull was still in place on the forms/battens.

Then the big moment -- lifting out the float half! Pop the keel side and out she comes.

Lots of screw holes to fill, but the foam joins and fairness look pretty good.

Off to storage.

Starting another half.

May

Still working on the pond, but also made some progress on the boat.

Beginning to plank the first float half was an exciting step. I reread the plans, reviewed several other builder blogs and developed a plan. (Note: in checking the battens for 'fairness' I found a very flexible metal ruler, placed perpendicular, could show you if there was a batten that was an out layer).

As seems to be the tendency, I planned to place the foam and then fill between with bog. I decided to place the keel first, then scribe the planks to fit. A 'two footed' device helped with this. The deck flange would be last.

Starting in the middle helps get things going as the angles and bending get more severe near the ends. I would cut to shape with a utility knife.

I quickly learned that I developed the best shape by thermoforming each plank. No stress or tension became my motto. Maybe because of the flexibility of my battens, forcing a plank of 500 weight CoreCell would deform them slightly, which then 'flattened' the shape of the hull. It's easy to shape the foam by using a heat gun while flexing it by hand. Constant motion equals no scorching and no sharp angles. The foam expands with heating, so start on the 'outside' to begin forming the curve, then inside, then outside a second time. At three minutes you have to be careful not to flex too hard as it starts to give. Hold in place quickly to get near perfect fit.

I rechecked the keel fit and beveled the join with a small palm micro-planer. Especially near the ends where a compound or twisting action develops, the plank-to-plank join can be adjusted top or bottom with a couple of swipes with the hand planer. Instead of making a groove for the bog after attaching the foam, I ran it though a table router with a dove-tail bit. The curve never presented a problem with several feather boards to hold it in place.

In the end I stopped using my long clamping bars. The clamps are flat -- there is very little of the hull that is flat. As you get towards the ends, the foam twists with changing angles, and bending fore-aft and athwart ships.

It's the fore-aft bending that argues for narrower planks, especially with the decreased holding power of the screws with the thinner 3/8 foam. Once satisfied with the shaping, I pre-drilled holes in the battens from the top and pre-placed screw from the underside. A light-weight lithium-ion driver with clutch is the tool to get. Push from the top, drill from the bottom. A 'spinner' has no holding power in the foam, so set the clutch low to start.

I learned to run my hand along to check for smooth transitions.

A very pleasing shape. I cut the deck side to length and slipped the deck flange mold in place.

I placed the foam filler along the deck edge with bog and screws through the deck flange mold (the deck is not 90 degrees to the side of the hull as it bows out slightly). This keeps the deck flange oriented correctly, and the gap bellow will need to be filled with bog and given a smooth radius to ease glassing later.

I spent some time deciding what to use to fill the grooves. Using premixed fillet and fairing materials was something I had already decided. The instructions are: "use low density, it only needs to be stronger than the foam." System Three replied about QuickFair: "You can use QF for this but you must SAND before coating with itself or anything else."

The grooves were filled with System Three Quickfair in a zip-lock bag. This was easy, quick, and made for no voids.

Being efficient with glass usage can be difficult. It seems that the farther you can look ahead, the better you can plan. I am not cutting my own tape, so long thin sections are difficult to use. For this situation it seemed that I could save by going across, parallel with the foam.

I used the 'poor man's vacuum' technique, working from bow to stern, one section at a time.

Order of events:

Pre-wet ahead one section of tape at deck flange. My tape has a thin matte backing, which makes it easy to work with as it holds its shape/size, but it takes longer to wet (and will also add weight).

Wet foam. No point in having a dry interface where it is a mechanical bond. Concerns about the glass floating or excess resin are minimized by the VB technique. (I would like to look at the foam under a microscope after thermoforming. The surface is made up of little open cells and filling these with resin would seem to significantly increase the surface area of the bond with the glass [obviously happens maximally with VB'ing]. I wonder if heating the surface with a heat gun smoothes or reduces this interface in any significant way? You can see subtle changes as you do it.)

Lay out tape, then piece of glass, and second layers where called for. Subsequent sections require overlap. Wet, moving excess resin towards next area.

I placed peel ply as a final layer.

(I wore a simple paper mask as I found that when mixing the resin, occasionally small bubbles would float in the air -- don't want to breath those! The resin has low volatility, so with adequate airflow I haven't worried about the fumes.)

Begin placing plastic, width dependent on curves. I found 2-3 per 50 inch section. The plastic should be covered with some extra resin so that there is no resistance to the flexible squeegee. Position with light dragging strokes to remove air bubbles.

The plastic I used had many creases from packaging folds that initially concerned me. It seemed that they could be removed, only to reappear. This later proved to not be a problem (see below).

To remove the excess resin and 'micro' bubbles, using more force and pulling towards yourself with the squeegee's edge seemed effective.

I worked from the center towards the deck flange and keel, placing excess resin on the plastic. Since the resin has to be removed, not having the plastic too long is helpful. This resin usually had some micro bubbles so I did not move it forward onto the next section of glass.

Making sure that you have resin to remove answers the question, 'is it too dry?' Interestingly, after a little experience you can tell too little, too much, or just right by listening to the sound of the squeegee.

One key was making sure that the plastic sections had a minimum 3 inch overlap that had enough resin between them to act as a seal.

The keel was a little more challenging than the deck edge. Don't let the excess resin just glob up on the foam edge. Remove it, using paper towel if necessary. The plywood deck flange mold acts as an extension to seal the edge, but you don't have this on the keel side. I went back several times as the resin gelled to make sure it hadn't lifted off along the keel. This prevented any problems.

I cut the excess cloth and plastic off the keel easily with a knife while still green. Then removed the plastic after cure. The plastic leaves a shiny finish and some imprinted creases as well.

I removed the PP in the area of the future BH's and strengthening stringer, leaving some to allow easy, clean removal of the VB tape.

I'll take a close-up next time, but what I discovered is that the crease imprints were excess resin that was pulled on top of the PP (by the "poor man's" vacuum effect as the plastic fought to regain its fold), so they pulled off when the PP was removed (before this I had been wondering if I would repeat this technique or search for expensive, creaseless plastic like my rolled VB material . . . not a worry, it seems.)

I VB'd the stringer and extra scheduled glass layers. (Note: initially I measured from the deck flange, not the form -- look close before placing.)

No final picture, I guess. I next cut out the BH's, backfilled the access opening, and worked on a gig to ensure proper placement.

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.