Monday, 15 December 2008
Christmass.
sorry no photo's to day I haven't been on for a while mainly because I'm not getting much done this month with the run up to Christmass. I mixed up some filler to give the hull a quick skim to fill some areas of coarse grain but with the cold weather the resin isn't curing fully and my sand paper is just clogging up when I try to knock it back so Ive called it a day until the new year.
I will have to find a new workshop I can't stay in this one past February but at least I can move the hull now.
Job for the new year mot the car and build a cradle to support the boat so I can fit out the inside.
Well that's about it really
Have a good Christmass
Steve.
Sunday, 26 October 2008
Gunnels.
Saturday, 27 September 2008
Stem Cap Complete.
Friday, 26 September 2008
Stem Cap Fitted.
Monday, 22 September 2008
Stem Cap Roughed Out
Saturday, 20 September 2008
Keel Cap Glued Inplace
Sunday, 14 September 2008
Keel Cap Nearly Finished.
Friday, 5 September 2008
Keel Cap Blank Roughed Out
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Preparing the Hull for the Keel Cap
Friday, 22 August 2008
Keel cap
the timber I ordered for the keel and the gunnel's has arrived also the micro spheres so I can give the rough spots a quick skim.
I have marked out the width of the keel cap on the hull 2 1/2" around the centre plate tapering to 2" at stern. Going forward to the stem from the plate case I have tapered down to 2" but this will get narrower. So I will plane down until I just touch the top of the keel and try to and keep an even gap between the marked lines. I keep checking the keel for a fair curve using a batten but mainly just check by eye.
I ordered the timber sawn to save on cost so I'll plane it up by hand, it will take a bit longer but saved me about £25 that will probably buy two deck beams.
Monday, 18 August 2008
Hull patched.
Thursday, 19 June 2008
End in Sight.
Haven't posted for a while. Mainly still sanding but now the hull is close to fair now. That took longer than I thought it would. Still got some sanding to do but only a couple of weeks worth at the most. Then I will patch the voids using scarf jointed patches.
I will post some photos when I can.
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
No Clear finish.
Well I've blown it I have found two more voids one right on the transom. These are full of epoxy but the areas of coarse grain are still there so it must go right through the veneer. Overall this side of the hull is fair still a couple of low spots but they are quite small. So I am going to use West System Micro balloons as a filler to final fair the hull.
I am disappointed but I made compromises early on mainly due to cost, time and inexperience that I am paying for now. Well I'll know next time. The one good point is I won't have so much varnishing to do though I wood still like to have a clear finish on the decks and interior.
I'll know for the next one I build.
Still no luck finding a trailer.
Well onward.
Monday, 19 May 2008
Bargain.
What can I say it’s a small world? I have been looking for a band saw for a while can’t really afford a new one want to spend most of my money on what goes into the boat. Anyway I have been checking the classifieds in the Cornish Guardian which are really good by the way, you can pick up some good bargains I picked up three Stanley wood planes last year No4, No5 and No6 all in their original packaging for £50. This time I saw a Dewalt band saw for £30 it turned out the guy selling it called Duncan lived in the next street was a member of the CVDRA and had been following my boat build on the net. The saw only needs a new blade and a couple of guide bearing which cost about £5 each, also a bit of rewiring the earth bonding had pulled out in the contactor box sorted now.
Still sanding the boat almost fair on the side I’m doing have broke through all three voids now but most of the coarse areas of grain are sanded down now. The areas I don’t think I can sand down without taking too much timber off I will fill using west system micro balloons as a stopper.
All this sanding is at lease doing me some good my shoulders are toning up quite nicely just like doing press-ups for a couple of hours.
Anyway that’s all I think, onward.
Saturday, 10 May 2008
Voids.
Monday, 28 April 2008
Still sanding.
well what can I say I'm still sanding and it still doesn't look any different but that's probably me because I'm here working on it all the time and don't see the the small changes I'm making. Sorry no photo's today they don't really show the changes in finish anyway. I'll take some when I've got some good to show off.
If I'm still sanding by the end of May I might have to fit the stem and keel capping's anyway because I want the boat to be in a state where I can move it if I have to. I'm a bit concerned about how long I can keep my workshop for.
Well that's all for now, onward.
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Just sanding, more sanding and lots of it.
No photo's today well one photo of a partly sanded boat is the same as another really. I made a 3' sanding block out of 1/2" plywood it works really well on the aft sections of the boat but doesn't bend well enough round the curved sections at the bow so I may need to made a 3/8" block. I've run out of sand paper and for some reason I can't find anywhere that sells the stuff I'm using locally. I bought the stuff at totem timber in Plymouth while I was up there so it would be reasonable to expect Totem timber in St.Austell to stock it as well, wrong. I ordered some on line with a three day delivery thinking it'll be here on Monday just as I run out, wrong. It's not in stock take five day's to get it. So I'm resigned to loosing a couple more days of work this month.
Why the hurry you might ask, well normally this wouldn't bother me and I would enjoy pottering on as circumstances dictate but I know I'm due to move with my work sometime at the end of this year. I don't know when and it could be earlier so I am anxious to get the boat to a stage where I can take it off the mold so if I do move earlier I can trailer it. To do this I need to finish final fairing, cap the keel and stem. Possibly fit the outer gunnel's well I call em gunnel's.
This may not be a problem and I'm just worrying about nothing but I like to look ahead so there are no surprises down the line.
Well we'll see.
Sunday, 6 April 2008
Slow but sure.
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
More and more sanding
Bit of a depressing week. I made up a chalk stick and it revealed that the boat is not fair. Well I should of known really, the up side is that it doesn't have any big hollows or high spots just lots of little ones which can be sanded out. This will have to be done by hand with a long board so I made one up from a 2' length of 3/8" ply wood and made a start using 70 grit glass paper. I think I'll make up a 3' board as well for the long flat areas of the hull. The long board shows up the low spots quit well and they don't look too bad so far. I am a bit worried about the areas of coarse grain, I may have to fill here which would mean I couldn't clear finish the boat.
Well we'll see It could still sand out.
Sunday, 30 March 2008
Both Sides Rough Sanded.
Friday, 21 March 2008
More sanding
Well I have one side of the boat rough sanded finished it yesterday, don't want to go to mad might take too much off. Didn't take any photos to intent on getting the job done. Got the the other side to do yet its alot easier with the sander but still took three days.
Monday, 17 March 2008
Started Rough Sanding.
As you can see I've started sanding the boat this started out by hand but it was taking too long and driving me round the bend so I am now using my sander. The gougon brothers book says you should only do this if your experienced with power sanders. So practiced with scrap pieces of veneer then cracked on with the boat. As you can see from the other photo its coming up quite well. I'm using 80 grit disks to rough finish and fair then probably 120 and 240 gite to finish sand I'm not sure yet.
Friday, 14 March 2008
Jollyboat website.
I found the new jollyboat forum the other day quite by accident. I was looking for a friends car blog in google and it wasn't coming up so I put my own blog in just to see if it wasn't finding any blogs or just his and the search results came up with my blog name. I clicked it thinking it would take me here and it took me to this new site by the CVRDA and they were taking about my boat cool!
I started this blog because I had had a bit of interest after I had sent some photo's to Tony Dixon just to show him what I was doing with his plans. I joined the CVRDA forum so I could get a bit of help when I'm not sure what the plans are getting at. Anyway after a while it went a bit quiet so it was a bit of a boost to find out there was some interest in by boat and people had been watching my blog while I had been beavering away on my boat.
Anyway great website lots of good photo's which were a great help to me.
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Veneering is finally finished.
Thursday, 6 March 2008
Stern Almost Finnished.
Monday, 25 February 2008
Bow finished.
well as you can see I have finished the bow. I think it looks quite good just needs a rough sand to tidy it up. I was running low on glue so didn't made much more progress until yesterday. However due to daftness on my part I only got one veneer on because I dashed out of the house to go work on the boat and only realised I had left the new glue at home when I go to the workshop. I tried to wing it with the glue I had left but only got one veneer on.
Still the plan today is the try and fit the other veneer on this lunch time. I doesn't take that long to fit the veneer it's all the fannying about preparing the kit you need to do it so you don't wast time while the glue's curing.
Also I'm getting a bit concerned that I'm going to run out of veneer I estimated to hull surface area to just over 10 square meters times three layers equals 30 so I ordered 32 and got 33 sheets 1 square meter buckshee.
So that would mean 11 sheets per layer right. On the first layer I used 13 1/2 sheets so I order another 7 sheets and after laying up the second layer I had 13 1/2 sheets left for the last layer so it should be enough.
Now I getting close to the stern I have two sheets left which should give me 8 veneers minimum but it doesn't look like it's enough. Where did I go wrong?
Saturday, 16 February 2008
More veneers on the boat.
As I said last time I took a week off work as I had some time off due and got some work done. I started the week with 28 veneers on and now have 38. That's quite good going seeing as they're a pain to fit. There's such a tight bend on the one's going aft I had to use some weights from my barbell set to hold them while I'm spiling. I left them on because I was worried that the staples would loose their hold after I had left the workshop.
Hopefully I can get this layer cracked by the end of this month then I can do something different like sanding.
Sunday, 3 February 2008
Back to work.
Well I lost two weeks of boat time due to work. I was putting some long days and nights and when I wasn't at work I was on call so I just put the boat on the back burner for a bit.
Anyway after all that mucking about I took three days off and put some more long days in this time on the boat. I had twenty veneers on last time and I managed to get another six on in the last three days. Don't sound like a lot but I am preparing, splining and planing the veneers by hand and they all fit well so it was good going for me. I was so set on getting as many veneers on that I forgot to take any photo's but I will take a few when I've made so more progress.
Friday, 11 January 2008
Third and final layer of veneer.
Hi guy's,
Not much progress achieved I'm sorry to say. I had no access at all to my workshop over most of November. This photo was taken in the middle of December when I only had eight veneers on the boat. I have had real problems spiling these veneers to get a good fit some of them have crept away by about a millimeter a small gap I know but I know it's there. With Christmass and new year I didn't achieve much I now have twenty veneers on the boat and the spiling process has improved the main problem being the top of the veneer was lifting slightly while I was spiling the bottom of the veneer. This caused the bottom of the veneer to move closer to the edge of the previous veneer increasing the overlap. This caused me to plane too much off the bottom of the veneer and would leave a gap when the veneer as properly glued in place. I solved this by using two four kilo weights to hold the veneers down while I was spiling. Due to work I will loose the rest of this month so all the progress I made in January will be wasted it's a bit frustrating at the moment I either have problems with access, materials or time. Still if was like this last year I had access problems and I couldn't source materials I needed locally which in the end set me back three months.
Well the end of the project is in sight every time I go and work on the boat I do make progress just not always as much as I hoped I would. Still twenty veneers on thirty six to go then I can do something different from fitting veneers.
Monday, 7 January 2008
Second layer of veneer.
The work you see here was done between July and September 2007 last year. In the first photo you can see the first three veneers on the Starboard side two have been joined with scarf joints to cut down on wast by using off cuts. Not much else to say It's the same process as for the first layer of veneer but with the veneers at approximately 90 degrees to the first layer, bit like curved plywood really. Oh and yes it will go out the door the max depth of the hull from mast latch to keel is 29" the door is 34" so it should go throught and anyway I can allways knock the wall down nobody will notice.