Question:
How on earth do you get the time to do all this? retired maybe?

Matt

I hate football.... (American football however is quite good)

cant stand singing shows.....

Fred & Ginger could dance, everyone else just prances around and calls it art-full movement....

I like to eat but cooking is the missus job so therefore I don't watch cooking shows....

Home reno shows are dangerous, they encourage absolute morons to alter their homes without proper knowledge or overseeing by experts => this in turn will in the future cost lives.... and if not then a bank full of money to make the house right to live in again !!
so I don't watch that shyte either.....

Vampire / supernatural type of shows are an insult to anyone's intelligence

that leaves days of our lives.... thank God I'm at work when that dribble is on !!!

and motor racing, yep I love my nascar racing but the supercars bore me to tears in comparision.

So removing TV time from your life leaves lots of free hours.




Also...
when I was racing cars I always had prep work to do before I could go racing, often that meant nights after work were spent in the shed.
Even when it gets to the toasty 6degrees we're at right now the shed isn't that bad, its also much quieter than the house where 3 of my 4 boys are tormenting their mother





retired .....
not by a long shot

did a lot of fiddling today,

cleaned all of the excess resin from initial build and subsequent repairs over the years away,

lay a thin coat of resin over all the foams, this helps in 2 ways EG:
one-> it stops the foam degradation from salt water,
two-> it stiffens the outer 'shell' of the foam making it stronger

altered the chain-plate's internal mounts as per the pic...
laid a 120gsm mat over the ply doubler and glassed it in place then added the stainless elongated washer while the resin was still free, this will force the resin into the compressed area around the original hole where the washers used to be.
The plate is also glassed is so I don't have to fumble around when its time to re-install the chain-plates.



I also added a strip of mat across the ply stringer supports, I believe this will do a couple of things.....

one-> substantially increase the loading strength of the plate and give a larger area of 'grip' between the ply and foam.

two-> because I've also turned the end of the tape onto the hull by ~50mm this should tie the 2 sides of the hull together and again spreads the load on the stringer support plates out into the actual hulls thus taking some of the load away from the foams.
In hind sight I think maybe the tape could have been better placed if it had of been sandwiched between the plate and the foam..... just thinking out-loud there...


next job....
glue in the stringers


The resin I'm using is a slow set resin, the skin gels in around 3 hours, it takes 4~5 days to fully cure.... so the stringers need to go in by Tuesday night if I'm to fit the new decks on the coming weekend

Love your work Kingy! Keep it coming.
Why didn't you just glass/glue the chain plates in?

We are going to have mosquito projects coming out our ears kingy!
Hooley dooley all worth it tho, love sailing these beauty's.
Even if mine has a platform weight of around 1000kg haha
Al

Have every intention of keeping it comming

&

I did Karps chain plate that way and it was lots of stuffing around, the plate on Shy is old school so the 'ring' at the top was going to leave a big gap in the deck to have to fill later.

so the choice was straight forward really and largely based on time and available bits on hand.

the scary thing...... I've been offered another one, for now I'll let it sit

With Matts purchase that should make 5~6 mozzies at the club

and your little fatty is about to get put on a diet
I have all the gear here now for yours, new supply of resin arrived last week, ply for the fore & rear decks is here, ply for the mains is here.... even the cloth from the states arrived far sooner than I expected.

Has Phill started on it yet ??

&

do you want a thread on it like this one ???

Haha you're the wizz with this stuff!
Don't see why we couldn't do the same thing.
Interested to see how much weight actually comes off it.
And negative on making a start haha. But hey. Season starts in 4 ish months.
Al

The plan is to rip all your decks off and replace them the same as I've done to Shy's.
The mains will be last to be done because we have a nasty gash to attend to before they can be put back on.

If the weight is anything like Shy's massive decks then I'd expect that the new decks will be less than half the weight of the originals but have the same strength.

So far with Shy ....
the rears I fitted came out at same weight as the originals but their now much stronger, I could almost stand on the rears now but you couldn't lean on them beforehand


the fore decks came out 1/4 lighter than original and probably twice as strong, remember I had to replace them before the Easter regatta after a wayward elbow ripped it open, now I'd be happy to stand on them !!

The mains......
If I've weighed it all correctly then its so close to exactly HALF the weight of the originals it isn't funny.
Karp's mains are the same as I'm doing to Shy's and although I did have a minimal weight improvement with Karp it was minor because she already had the thin deck material, it was all the underneath stuff that had failed and caused the mains to go soft.

This was solely due to the stringers being set directly into the foam and the foam NOT having a layer of resin over it, the salt water broke-down the foam and ultimately once the foam failed the stringers had no support at all..... hence the plywood plates I glue to the tops of the foams.

I looked very seriously at 'I' beams and strength wise they are superior, BUT they are extreamly time consuming to make let alone fit, that's why I came up with the ply plate to foam solution, its quick, simple, easy to make and fit and uses the foam as support as much as it supports the foam.

win win ....... & win situation as far as I'm concerned.

The weight of the plates and stringers and thin deck ply is unbelievably light compared to the original stuff

Ah the smell of curing resin.....



all the under-deck work is done, as soon as the resin cures fully I'll give it a light sand and check the curve is all good... A quick check of the curve say's we're spot on but I' wont be happy until I've run a sanding block over it. The sanding will also cut the resin that's managed to find its way on top of the stringers, I need clean timber or "roughed-up" resin so the resin that's applied to the underside of the deck will stick.

with the resin just about set I decided to attack the ply board and cut the strips down that I'll be using for the decks....

reasonably happy with the grain in the timber and the way it sits, the peak of the visible 'tree-rings' is right at the back of the case slots, it then seems to be a more walnut grain from there through to the front beam, this then ties in nicely with the front decks grain


Port hull




Starboard hull



Saturday looks like gluing day

opps.........

forgot to add one tiny little insignificant detail.....

I've changed 'brands' of my resin, the supply had been great but the price fluctuations were just plumb crazy


So I've made the switch to Trojan resins from WEST systems... have to admit I was a little hesitant at first having to go from a 5:1 mix to a 3:1 ratio mix, but I have to admit I'm actually happier with the Trojan product, so far its certainly far more consistent in its gell & cure times.....
So much so I would be confident enough to say I can almost set my watch by it

Its now at the stage I'm using less product as I'm able to calculate the amount I need versus the time I actually have to layup, the WEST systems always gelled up to early or didn't go off when expected, I actually had a worrying time with some of the work I did on Karp, the resin was still a soft gel after 3 days, it did eventually set but it was the slowest mix ever to cure and it wasn't the mix's fault either..... I mixed up 3 pots for the task at hand and none of wanted to cure at all, as to why I'll never know.

I'll also be using a different cloth aswell on the weekend, so this could all be very interesting

I use international exoxy resign with international light weigh filler and glue powder,or international exoxy glue (strong stuff)

Right.... lets get into it !

Someone sent me a PM asking for a few more details on the process.... I hope this helps

I usually do a good test fit prior to fitting the ply, once this is done I then work on the under side of the deck and this will be all I see for the next 15mins or so. Writing the end that the ply goes to will save an embarrassing back-to-front fit, so always make the note as to which way it goes.
A light sand with some ~180grit paper will cut away any strands of timber on the ply, it also 'roughs-up' the surface.... I've also sanded the stringers / case slots / and anywhere else the new deck will contact

resin mixed, cloth cut to size.... ready to go !!

I then pour a little resin from the pot directly onto the ply an "screed" it out as I go..... this (although shakey photo) is my squeegee, its been cut from the side of an old wheelie bin, the hand plane makes a nice crisp edge and its an easy tool to make an use.

the entire board coated in a thin layer of resin... this takes around ~5mins to do, the resin is 'worked' into the ply as I go.

Lay the cloth onto the resin loosely....



out with my squeegee again the work the cloth into the resin



done
this is the slow fiddley bit, its very easy to wrinkle the cloth or have it drifting off the board or even worse lather the cloth.
slow and steady is the key here



the cloth I'm using here is 40gsm cloth

So you saw a little bit of resin left in the pot, this gest syringed directly onto the stringers in a small bead, a sort of caulking-gun in miniature if you like.....
sorry for the shakey pic I had to keep moving aswell as snap the pic with the wrong hand...

now the tricky bit......

lay the board down on the boat but only allow one end to contact the boat, as soon as you have it centralised the staple-gun and a cord is placed in the middle and a staple is fired into the deck.... then lay the other end down and again cord and staple it once its central.



next step is to 'tie' the board down, I start in the middle of the deck and work my out



Once its tied down I then start the stapling, the cord as I've shown in the past is to rip the staples out when the resin cures.
In this pic I'm half way through the stapling.

Once both sides are stapled down, add a little bit of thin ply under the tie-down boards if they are loose....



I added a few down the side of the boat to increase the pressure aswell



So that was the starboard deck......

and here's the port deck I prepared earlier



The process today took just under 6hours and after the cleanup of the shed the resin had already started to gel nicely.....
now we wait for a couple of days while it fully cures