Yeah your right your photographic skills suck! :P Seriously these fillets are absolutely perfect (better than my cornices!) and I think this is the first boat I've seen where I would have no issue running my hand inside hidden recesses with zero fear of getting snagged on a sharp glass needle.
Keep up the good work...just work faster

Mark,
I understand your comments about the cornices. But then I hate putting them up so not surprised they are not perfect.
Building boats on the other hand I really enjoy.

Recently I have been making the flat panels for the **** floor and **** seat.
I seems like it is taking up a lot of resin and concerned the panels may be heavier than optimal because of this.

Once again I took detailed notes when making the panels and decided to analyse the outcome of the **** seat panel.

The **** seat all laminated but with peel ply still on weighs 5800gms.

It was made in two sections and joined after because my vacuum table is not long enough to do it in one piece.
It took 120grams of resin to glue them together and glass tape the join with 60gms of glass tape..
Not concerned about this weight as the joined section will be cut out and discarded
when the CMM is fitted but the numbers are needed in the analysis.

So 180gms all up to join to two halves.

Making the panels the glass required to laminate the upper surface 896gms and lower surface 614gms.
Total 1510gms. And I used 2051gms of resin.
The foam weighed a total of 2328gms.

With the finish panel weighing 5.8kg but still covered in resin soaked peel ply.

I weighed a section of peel ply that I removed to do the join and this allowed me to calculate that there is still
approx 318gm to come off the 5800 when the peel ply is removed. leaving 5482gms for the panel.
When you subtract 180gms (joining) 2328gms (foam) and
1510 gms (glass)

So 5482-180(join)-2328(foam)-1368(glass) = 1464 of resin in the laminate to wet out 1510gms of cloth and fill the 1.5mm holes drilled every 30mm.
The laminate on close inspection looks perfect so my concern about resin consumption resulting in a heavier than optimum panel is not something to worry about.

My resin allergy has been causing me some problems so I thought I'd take a break from working on the boat for a couple of days and analysed some weights to pass the
time and cross check what I'm doing.

Crazy waste of time?

Most certainly!

But I found it entertaining.


BTW:- below is a couple of pics of how I have approached the installation of the **** floor.
The extra timbers are set up to align the **** floor exactly and will be removed before I can install the **** seat.





Under the floor.

Thanks for the Pics Phill. Great to see your progress. I hope you can contain the allergy problems.

regards
Nico

PS: I have a few weeks off later this month, so I hope to put some valuable building time in.

Phil,

a boatbuilder I used to do a lot of work with in NZ had resin "sensitivity issues", he found that if he changed brands with every project that it minimised the issue. If you're still after some help with your mast I should have some time at the end of the week to look at it.

Chris,
Sounds like very good advice.
I have used 4 or 5 diff makes of resin over the years and find they seem to affect me in two different ways depending on the ratio of hardener required.
5:1 cause me to blister where ever they contact my skin.
The 2:1/3:1 resins affect my breathing and airways.

With this project I'm using one brand of resin for the building and a two different brands for the fairing.
One for the rougher fairing and one for superfinefairing.

Your friend makes a good point but I think I've exhausted most of my options.
Now I have to be very careful to limit my exposure and I take a break as well as anti - histamines to help when exposed.

I would certainly appreciate help with the mast if you can spare the time.

Thanks,
Phill

I have now finished installing both the floor and **** seat.



Using some pulleys attached to the **** floor and going to an over head beam
I managed to break the hull free of the mould while some friends threaded a webbing strap between the hull and mould battens.



I bought a couple trailer winches off ebay and made up some steelwork
that will allow me to clip them on the 1 ft deep RSJs running down each side of the hull.
This should allowme to pick the hull up and rotate it to work on at any angle right up until it's time to join the foats on.

I pulled the mould apart last night and today a couple friends came around to help roll the hull over. I asked them around just in case the winching system didn't work as expected.
Turns out everything went off smoothly.
One of us wound webbing out of one winch while the other wound the opposite winch in. The hull rolled over and then we just wound both winches out so the hull could settle down on the supports that it will sit on until the outside is glassed.

I am thrilled with how straight and fair the hull half is. At this stage it looks like a light sand prior to glassing is all that will be required.
I must say taking my time heating the foam evenly in an oven and placing the foam with care has really paid off.
I just hope I can replicate these results on the next half.
Below are a couple of pics.

As we are going into summer and the weather is getting warmer I asked some friends around yesterday to help laminate the outside of the hull. I wanted to make sure it could be done and a vacuum achieved within the resin's specified vacuum window.
The previous week I managed to laminate the deck and side down to the gunwale.
As usual I weighed everything that went into both and everything that came out. Just to keep track of how things are going. I managed 21 inches of mercury vacuum on the hull and 25 for the deck.
The end result was a 43% resin content in the deck and a 44.27% resin content in the hull laminate. Both laminates look perfect. I'll post some pics later on when I get them off my camera.

I managed to glass the deck with 3 sections of glass.
An overlap across the deck at a point where and extra piece of glass was required for additional reinforcing.So the join does two jobs at once. The cloth wasn't quite wide enough and so another section had to be added near the gunwale. That area will have to be faired once the wingnet lacing tube is added anyway.
I used drawing pins to hold the glass in place until I had enough resin on the cloth to keep it there. Then the drawing pins were removed. Some pics are below.





Here is a pic of the hull under a vacuum. Unfortunately I didn't take a pick of the deck under vacuum.

I took some time off from boat building and restored a rusty old Mangle and turned it into an Etching Press.
They say a change is as good as a holiday and quite enjoyed the break playing with the welder and lathe in place of glass foam and resin.

I can't wait to get back to the boat now.

Now it is time to start the second half of the main hull.
A pic of setting up the frames to build the stbd half of the main hull. I made up a measuring stick and transferred the Keel to deck measurements for the frames so I could check them as the could splay out given how thin some are in the middle.



I've finished setting up the frames , installed the battens for the hull and started placing the foam. Just haven't taken any pics of that yet.

Foam in stbd side of main hull and filling rebates.
Feels like deja vu.

I have now laminated the inside of the stbd side of the main hull. I still have to foam plank and laminate the side and deck before joining.
I performed the lamination in two phases. The rear 3rd and then the fwd 2/3rds. Given the warmer temps at this time of year this gave me more time to get the vacuum in place during the vacuum window. I'm still keeping detailed notes of the resin used and removed from the hull in the vacuum consumeables. I also record the time of each mix and the temperature. The time and temp allows me to confirm that I get the vacuum on inside the window.
The resin content of the laminate is running at 45%.
Interestingly after wetting out the glass it is 55%, after adding the peel ply and applying a thin layer of resin to wet the peel ply. This allows the squeegee to move easily over the peel ply and shows up any dry spots the resin content is at 64%. After the vacuum and resin is taken out with the absorption fabric it ends up at 45%.
And yes to work stuff like this out I must have too much time on my hands.

First I did the rear section as per pic still under vacuum.



Pic of fwd section the day after as the vacuum was turned of at 10pm the previous evening.

I got up at 5am this morning to laminated the side panel in the stbd side of the main hull while it was still relatively cool.
I wanted make sure that I made the vacuum window while using fast hardener as running low on the slow hardener.
The data sheet show the viscosity of the resin with fast hardener to be much higher than slow and I found that and even with a lot of squeegey work the 922gms of glass plus the peel ply took 1600gms of resin. Hopefully vacuum will pull the excess resin out. I'll weigh the absorption fabric when it comes off to see how well it does this.
The vacuum pump is set to turn off when it reaches 25 "/hg and back on when it hits 22"/hg.

I managed a particularly good seal for the vacuum on this job demonstrated by the duty cycle- running around 20 secs every 43 minutes. By far the best so far. Not that it matters, the control circuitry ensures the vacuum is maintained it's just the amount the pump runs which affects the electricity consumption.
The resin would be hard by now but I will probably wait until tomorrow to unwrap and start installing the battens to take the deck foam.

Phill, looks like it is going well.

What vacumn switch are you using, I've not really found ( other than pretty expensive commercial products ) a switch that can release the vacuum to let the pump spin up.

Wayne,
Mark (Try Flying) would be the better person to answer your question, he gave me the vacuum pump and lent me the control circuitry as well as a spare pump in case I had any problems during a session.
I looked at using the milking machine that I have but the startup current without a delay on closing the vacuum would be just too much and my two other vacuum pumps, while great for small jobs, are really too small for big hulls.

Hi Wayne

Phill told me about your question so far from being an expert here is what I setup for Phill and how i would go about putting in a delay if it was necessary for a piston pump.....

Phill's setup uses Gast rotary vane oil-less pumps so spin up is not an issue. The control circuit is a 24vdc vacuum switch with built in hysteresis that is set to the desired pressure and triggers the AC contractor for the pump (single phase). The vacumm circuit incorporates a old compressor tank and the none return valve is used to stop bleed back via the pump when it is off.

On a piston pump I'd put a two way air solenoid inline with the vacuum side of the pump that was normally open to atmosphere and control it with a delay timer (say 5 sec) that would allow the pump to spin up prior to being switched to the load side.

I threw the gear for Phill together using some scrap parts I had at hand so cost was zero. (Yes Phill is very lucky to have me as a close neighbor... I should get a few free sails in though )

Hope that helps.

Cheers
Mark

My pump is a piston pump and to date the hulls I have pulled have been just big enough ( F16 ) to have just enough air leaks that I could leave them running. But I have to layup 2 carbon ski bikes which at this time of year I get hooked into and the moulds are quite small volume with very good edges to seal onto, hence the question.

Phill, yes I did buy a set of plans but work has been so continuos that I have not had a chance to start. Maybe this year.

Wayne,
Did you get the F85 plans?
I use plastic domestic irrigation hose and fittings. They are cheap as chips and work great. The hose slides over the bayonet fittings and seals.If ever in doubt I wrap a bit of tacky tape around the join.
I was surprised to find that even the taps are air tight and will hold a vacuum for many hours. I was just thinking that you could do it quick and dirty by putting in a "T" piece and a tap. Leave the piston pump running and regulate the vacuum with the amount you open the tap. I suppose it all depends on how much you are going to use it. The system Mark has put together works great for me as I'm doing quite a lot.

Yup updated my F82 plans to F85, as you know I always wanted the extra length and larger amas which Ian duly penned. Work commitments have been pretty relentless over the last few years and it's getting to the stage where I may have to simply take 6 months off and get building.

Funny you mention irrigation pipe, I may try to "infuse" these bikes, and the small pin holes every few centimetres may be just the answer. Still enjoying the building of things with composites and these little beasts are good winter fun.