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 Part 3!

Good progress this cycle! With 28 days and only a bit of business and home duties to slow me down I'm satisfied the boat is coming along. Left below is the first hull that we flipped a couple days ago and the new hull at right almost ready to flip. I've decided to join the bridgedeck as a unit after both hulls have been flipped and finished on the bum instead of joining half the deck and joining the split. I will feel more confident of good alignment if I can set in the structural bulkheads as complete units. Also not near as clumsy a thing to roll around.

This building system is brilliant! Even with some difficulties to start the boat is going together well. As originally intended, I look forward to trying other materials though the Duflex panels have achieved their goal albeit with quite a few repairs along the way.

Schionning Marine is supplying materials for the next phase of construction. I have found they match prices with the best of them and the people really know what they are doing. So important!

It's hard to work and play photographer at the same time so I apologise if the photos aren't organised to best perspective but these were mostly caught by my partner whilst I was hard at it. But stop your whining cause if you are studying these pages for instruction you are going to be miles ahead of where I started. Building from these kinds of plans (anyone's) involves a lot of independent direction and it's very common, especially with a newer style of boat, to find (hopefully) small mistakes or incomplete directions. Designers will make themselves available for questions but to keep from being a nag on the phone.. the advise is.. take responsibility, stay alert!

   

  In previous taping and filleting I had to be more careful than I should have because I wasn't making the stuff thick enough. With real body, it is much easier to work.
 like so...
  
 a cute little trick... I love those cheap wood stirring spoons. I use them to mix, apply and then to make the perfect fillet I go over the bogg like you see here. Perfect radius!
  For scrapers, I prefer the cheap plastic kind as they are reusable. Just let the shit harden and then bend the things and the bogg breaks off. It doesn't stick well to the plastic.
 this one is easier to see. The fillet is done and ready to lay the wetted tape on. I used clamps on this joint to torture the panels to fit the bulkhead.
  When all hull panels are in place you can do the bow. Here the panels have been clamped and held in place any way you can. The idea is to form the stuff to fair. Then a 100mm wide piece of scrap is cut to shape to insert behind the outside edge. Fill the inside with bogg and force the scrap into it. (already done in this photo and clamps removed) then smooth the bogg and tape over . This can be tricky as this thick of a resin body creates heat that can make the stuff smoke! And go off very fast.
  When done that is what it should look like.
 

  Then the first bulkhead, what a bitch of a thing. The bulkhead is at an angle, meeting the bogged bow at the bottom and about 500mm back at the top. There is no way to reach the work area down below in front. The way I got around it was to leave a careful mound of bogg on the forward edge of the panel prior to inserting it in place. Place a couple screws at top and then fillet the inside. To tape the forward side I used a broomstick cut off to nudge the tape in place and then taped a paint brush to work it in and then masking tape to hold the roller on the stick.. all this whilst holding a torch in the other hand... would like to have had three hands and 40 inch arms for this job...

 

It all came good!
  Then trim off excess bogg and even out the edges. Fasten and force into shape some PVC pipe of 20 to 25 mm, screw in place and bogg around the sides. when bogg is set remove screws and bogg around the screw holes and tape over with two overlapping strips of glass. Then later, fill the pipe with left over resin.
 A finished bow

 The next keel panel... except it was wrong!!!!!

It was cut 20mm undersize every side... OH SHIT!! So.... cut a bunch of very accurate 20 mm strips from my scrap pile and fastened with glue and screws driven through the edges. Screws were removed after setting of course. the stem end would be too messy to do that way so just cut the old one off and taped a new section in and very carefully.... very carefully... redrew the lines and cut... very carefully.
 setting up temp forms on rough ground. Using a cheap little laser level I started on the bow end and set wedges under the legs of the forms to level and set distance and true.. very carefully!!! Forms must be accurate in four dimensions. Distance between forms, angle side to side, angle back and forth and level.
 I found it easier to fasten in the keel panel with a single screw in the centre to set distance between and helpful for the other dimensions. when satisfied I poured concrete on the legs to hold in place. when ready to drop the hull out of the forms it won't take much to smash the concrete out.
 OK.. looking good.
 preparing panels for taping.. remove all peel ply and grind off any excess glue ect..
 tape...
 
 Smoothing the wetted tape unto the filleted and prepped join then will roll on a little more resin then cover with peel ply and roll with consolidator and if required you can roll a little more resin on with the paint roller right over the peel ply.
 
 
 lowering in the big sheer panel
 
 
 there is a lot of filling on the chamfer panel, it is cut kinda sorta close but not perfect, a limitation of the cad program I think. the upper hull panel is really off too. See bottom of page for more comment on this.
 this is with the chamfer panel in and ready for the upper hull panel and bulkheads and bow work.

 And now to turn the other hull as a pair of victims showed up to help. Keith of "Speranza" is not shy about admitting a "technical bypass at birth" suckers are hard to come by so we decide to go ahead anyway...

 

hhmmmmmmm?? how do we do this?!?!
 braced up to preserve the sheer line and prevent too much damage.
 we can shove it around but....
 hmmmm again...
 Patti of "Speranza" gives the boys a little hand...
 Patti reckons she'll let the boys think they did it..
 legends in their own minds..
 thanks Patti and Kieth!
 
   
   

 Tricks, Fixes and Problems

Epoxy is murder on me and a lot of people. I found normal rubber gloves inadequate as my shirt sleeves would ride down and pick up a bit of epoxy and then ride up my arm again when I moved and transfer the epoxy to my wrists which were suffering and I couldn't figure out how for a while. Now I use barrier cream and ace bandages taped on and it really makes a difference. I can't make it plain enough... do not get this shit on you and wear a very good quality respirator at all times when working the stuff. I use a 3m brand not that Chinese made junk from the hardware store.
 I found an anomaly in the plans that will cost a little work but it could have been worse. The big red arrow and the dotted line it points to are objects I put there to show the actual end of the chamfer panel. The dotted line to the left of that is where the plans indicated the end of the chamfer panel. The problem it caused was that I was about to cut off material on the deck panel as it appeared to be over long relative to the chamfer panel. I stopped short of making the cut but did do the under deck support before I found out the error in plans. see below..
 I was just about to cut off the deck panel to be even with the chamfer panel as the plans indicated. As it is I will have to scarf in another piece of pipe for the support and fair it off later. It turns out that the deck is meant to overhang the chamfer panel. I have made the designer aware of the problem so assume it will be fixed in future plans but this makes a good point about keeping alert. I give myself a C+ grade for spotting it before I cut but after the support glassing.
 This is a view of the inverted hull showing the join between inner sheer panel and chamfer panel. The inner sheer panel was cut in "Facets" rather than a smooth arc. Do not trim the panels to fit!! Just fill with bogg. And speaking of the chamfer panel, it is very easy to get it mounted wrong. It is nearly, but not quite, symmetrical. Another builder had got that wrong and made more work for himself to repair. I heard about that so really took care. The designer says he may put a cut notch into the panel in future to identify which side is which.
 The inner hull panel is cut way off. This one you do trim. The black line indicates the approximate shape to begin with. I trimmed off about 20-30mm in the centre to get it close enough to bogg. This panel again is nearly symmetrical. The way you tell which side is up is to look at the aft end. When the hull is up-right the end of the panel will have a slant and you should leave the short end up. You may have to repair that too.. see below..

This is a close up shoot of the end of the inner hull panel where it meets the bulkhead. I had to splice in a piece of shaped scrap to fill. It all fit under a tape join that was to be there anyway. It should be OK like that.

 

So the lesson is... keep your eyes open for problems and don't expect perfection. It is sooo much easier to spot problems before the action rather than repair after. The error in the keel panel was also the designers mistake.  Bob offered to assist in that repair but I preferred to do myself. He and any reasonable designer will be contactable by phone to advise if there is a question but the fact remains, you are building a big boat with drawings and what amounts to a couple A 4 pages of text. I think it is more useful to look at plans like these (anybody's) as guidance but not neccesarily as step by step instructions.

I talked to an experienced builder and surveyor just a day ago and he agrees emphatically, especially on a new design it is unusual not to find a few bugs.