Nice work. Interesting what you say about odd numbered securing on fittings. My diamond wires are attached with 3 rivets after I drilled out an additional hole, but they are more in shear but I never considered the lever action. Fantastic work on the hulls.
I just helped a friend buy a wooden mozzie but is good to see one back to a skeleton.

I work in steel fabrication, so design through to completed work is my pay packet
Everything we manufacture from major steel work to a 'kit shed' all relies on even numbered bolted connections, yeah even those kit sheds that are tek-screwed together use even numbered screwed joints.
There are other factors that come into the equasion such as clamping area and rotational forces but in 99.9% of designs we have to have engineered are all even numbered bolted joints, I cant actually recall ever using an odd numbered connection


With my front shroud plate, the lowest bolt in the pic has become the 'hinge point', this places a leverage load on the two other bolts.....
Obviously they wont sheer but they will add undue pressure to the weakest part of the connection which in this case is the timber sub-frame, and hence the movement I now have, this movement is "wearing" at the timber holes.....
My plan is to enlarge the clamping area over what it currently is, and by fitting a plate to the nuts side of the timber sub-frame I should dramatically increase the 'grip' the fitting has... this plate will be the same size and shape as the actual fitting
(thankfully there's a good supply of stainless sheet in my shed, this is one of a few fittings that will be re-worked... stay tuned)

well it took all afternoon but was worth it.....

NB: Washers are under the actual bolt heads now


and the other side......



My new plate glued into place and all nice n tight


maybe tomorrow I might start to get some decking action.....

The rear decks are done.... pics to follow

but I noticed something wasn't quite right with the fore decks, so after a bit of investigation......


the deck had dropped down considerably, ~5mm drop between the front beam mount and the forward shroud mounting plate.

Around 30% of the stringer/sub-foam connections had let go so the stringers were basically "floating" other than the connection to the deck.



So I went for a similar plate to do the load bearing for the stringers and to take that load into the sub-foams, the stringers that hadn't let go were cut with a hacksaw blade cut at ~45degrees as seen.
I cut some junky old 12mm ply strips up into the shape of the deck and then zip-tied the stringers to the strips so that they were held in the correct place while the glue set on the new support plates.
Once the glue on the plates has set I'll run a strip of 50mm wide 100gsm cloth across the visible face and onto the hulls so it ties it all together



I only fitted 3 small stringer supports to each hull as the support at either end is good so it just needed a bit of help in the middle......




Today I'll build up the compressed foam and reshape it to the correct deck profile instead of the banana shape I had, and maybe tomorrow if the family decided that the world isn't about to end....... I might get the foredecks on






must be doing something right.... 1103 views and no-one has told me I'm doing it all wrong

Hi Allister, I can't find your number on my phone, but I'm guessing you've sourced the plywood for your decks.

Just wondered,I need to order some more, but if I'll order a sheet less if your right.

Matt.

for the fore deck and rear deck...... yup

for the main deck..... you better order 1 sheet for me please

txt sent with my number

rear deck fitted and ready for hatch hole

starboard hull just after foredeck fitting was finished

port hull

the junky old ply was used to press the deck down and hold it on place while I stapled the deck down.
Once its cured I'll cut the excess away and then smooth it into a neat finish......

main decks next w/end ??????



foredeck and rear decks are from 3mm thick 3ply, the main deck will be 4mm thick 3 ply.
Originally it was all 4mm thick ply over the entire deck area, so the weight of the added plates I've put in is offset by the lighter timber fore and aft decks..... admittedly it isn't a huge saving but it ended up being so close to equal its not worth the argument over the vast strength gain I've achived.

The goal right from the start was to get structural strength back into the boat AND get the weight down to the minimum as best as I can .....

Still following this forum with interest. Where did you purchase the 3mm ply? We cannot get any in Adelaide.

PM sent....


When I first thought of purchasing Jurassic Karp I did some research of timber availability ..... mainly the differing types of ply and their abilities.
Marine ply, water resistant ply, normal ply, etc etc all supposedly have very different properties, asking a few questions tho came up with very different answers and prices aswell
Eventually I discovered there are some differences in the glues used although not a great deal, more a case of how "watered down" the glue is to its use...... the other main factor was the quality of the timber veneers but the biggest difference came with the actual process of manufacturing, lower grades of ply are just about chucked together leaving gaps and in some cases overlays of the veneers, 'better grades' appear to be laid with more care with only the odd gap between the sheet, we've all seen small gaps in a middle layer mostly they are 1~2mm wide...... the high quality or what we call "marine grade" is basically precision laid quality veneers with no gaps or overlays and a un-watered down glue..... which obviously COSTS !!!!

After talking to 2 "old salts" (both boat builders from yesteryear) they both suggested I use the "water resistant" ply as its quality was "good enough", as it turned out one guy had a sheets left over from his last A-Class build, this was purchased for $25
I took the sheet to our local cabinet maker for his opinion ( and to be ripped down to size) and he told me that this paticular ply was still available commercially should I need more of it, I did purchase a 2nd sheet as the original sheet had marks that may have caused issues later on... I can supply his details if you want to discuss it further
I can not pick any difference between the old ply and new ply that I have other than the dust that's been rubbed in slightly, the pliability or 'bending' is ever so slightly better in the newer sheet, as a result I used the older sheet for the structural work and the newer sheet went into the curved decks.

The best quality okoume (Gaboon) plywood available as far as I'm concerned is from Andrew Denman Marine in Tasmania. I have several sheets here, with one going to Pirate, and will be ordering more in the next month or so. Look them up on the net.

When Pirate picks up his sheet, I'm sure there will be a very good review of this plywood. Andrew Denman will ship to the mainland, would have to contact him for freight costs to South Australia, but my last order was actually shipped free to the mainland, I had to pick up from Melbourne.

These sheets are not only excellent quality, but are also 2500mm long sheets, which as you may be aware, results in only 1 scarf being needed for Mozzies and other classes.

I have no affiliation at all with Andrew Denman Marine, but I've had marine plywood from all states on the east coast, and this stuff is the best I've seen and worked with, and its information worth sharing.

Yeah I know.......
you've been missing ya daily dose of what's Kingy up to now ?


well not much ......
pulling staples out of the foredecks
and
fitting the main decks.....





Made a couple of minor changes before I fitted the mains, simple stuff really, tig welded nuts to plates and urthaned the plates in place .... eliminates me having to reach through the hull to do up bolts


All staples are now removed from the foredecks and they have been shapped to the hull and fully sanded.
should be able to start pulling the staples from the mains this w/end ..... mutter mutter mutter ... more bloody staples !!!

NB:
sorry for the pic quality..... dusty shed and Iphone lense

I've had a couple of messages about the tools I've been using, probably more along the lines of what "specialist tools" did I buy.....

Seeing the only 'wood working' tools I owned prior to this rebuild consisted of an axe, sledge hammer & wedges, 2 pro chainsaws and a 70ton log splitter.... none of which are really suitable for 3ply wood


so here's my list ......
10" GMC bandsaw which cost me $40 & another $39-95 for a new blade ..... mutter mutter mutter

near new 12" tenon saw, cost me $10 at a yard sale
(included a couple of horse rasps aswell)

Number 4 Stanley plane, freebie from #1 son (chippy)

renovator.... borrowed but would be well worth buying ....

staple gun..... had it for years and cant recall the price.

a jigsaw.... had it but its never had a wood blade so $5 for 2 blades at the local hardware store


I've also added an electric plane & a belt sander, neither have seen much use at all so they were a bit of a waste of money.


for the resin side:

plastic cups for mixing in, supermarket, 10 for $1-95

stirring sticks ..... off cuts of ply so freebies

2" paint brushes came from the local two dollar shop, 3 brushes for $2

syringes.... may seem a tad odd but they worked perfectly for injecting resin into tight spots without spilling it everywhere, I also used them for running a bead of resin along the stringers when fitting the decks.
these came from the local Vet and he didn't charge me a cent, he also threw in a couple of 18guage "horse needles" which I used for pricking any air-bubbles I got, not that I got many and I only used 1 needle for this.

I didn't go for the special grooved rollers, I did however use a squeegee made from a piece of 6mm thick plastic, roughly 5"X3" on size and I ran the plane along both edges to get a nice smoooooth vee'd edge, this was an excellent tool for spreading the resin over the ply and then laying the glass cloth into it.....
cost me zip as I cut it out of the side of an old wheelie bin

ok.... so I'm a tightass.... but what I save means I can spend elsewhere


the only other thing I've got....... is a massive learning curve, its been a challenge but I've enjoyed every moment so far

watch this space

Not much of a handy man these days myself, so haven't had much to say, but love watching other people work .

Probably a bit late now, but am wondering if the technique used for holding fibreglass sheathing in place before applying the resin on large jobs might help. It's held in place with staples gunned through packing strap, then you pull the packing strap up to pull out the staples, some need pulling with pliers still, but some come out clean. Thinking about it probably only works if staples are at the right angle to the packing strap.

Just for the record. That's my trailer ^^ and it works a treat!

Glad to hear that, the old fella said it was great to use aswell.

That marvellous thing called 'hind sight', said I should have run hay-band under each staple, would have made the process much easier and quicker too
a 'zig-zag' pattern with the hay-band would have let me run the staples in a nice straight lines as I did

The removal process was slow to start off but once I had a method then the speed came shortly after, a razor sharp chisel and a pair of wire side cutters got the job done relatively quickly. The chisel was just good enough to pry one end of the staple up slightly and then the side cutters did the rest.... I did one main deck in half the time it took the first foredeck.



Laying the cloth was an easy process, pour the resin onto the ply, smear it around with my wheelie bin squeegee into an even layer, lay the cloth down and then work it into the resin coated ply with that magic squeegee

Todays task (aside from the family stuff) was to get one hulls deck finished....
excess cut away,
smooth the ply's edge to the hull,
trim the excess away in the front & rear beam slots,
cut the hatch hole,
cut the centreboard slot,
radius the edges of the new decks,
sand the entire deck down,


completed..... now for a reward ..... where's me rum ???