Filleting and more masking

No picts this time.  Just building on what I was doing in the last post.  I finished the fillets at the chine and started to mask the areas around the floorboards.  This was a little tricky.  There are a lot of places to mask.  In front and behind each floor support and each side where it meets the CB trunk and then the keel itself.

Most of it needs to be done from inside the boat unless your an orangutan.  Walking around in the inside of the yet to be fiber glassed hull is a little disconcerting.  So I got a couple of old boards and laid them across the tops of the tack welded floor supports.  That creates a nice stable platform and its a lot easier to do accurate work.

I can finally see the end of the hull filleting.  I've been having a good slow long go at it and learning more along the way.


Hours this session: 4
Hours total: 130
Hours remaining: 270

Forward Floorboard Support Fix

I gave a lot of thought about how the remedy for the front floor support being almost 1/2" too high.  I originally was going to trim the top down by the offending amount and add that amount to the underside of the support.

That didn't go so well.  I was unable to come up with a jig that would allow that precise a cut to be done in that small an area.  I tried but all I managed to do was mangle the floor support.

So I broke out my flush cut Dremel tool (the one I blogged about my wife getting me for X-Mas).  This fantastic little tool did a wonderful job of removing what was left of the old support without damage to bulkhead #2.

The rest was pretty easy.  I made a paper template of the support in the new location and I cut a new support to fit.  Since there wasn't a way to clamp it in place I had to hold it to the bulkhead with a couple of temporary screws.  I was even able to find a couple of screws that wouldn't penetrate the bulkhead.  All in all it looks very good.  Little touch up work and you'd never know that I had a problem here.

Since last time I also removed the "punch out" sections from bulkhead #6.  I used my japanese saw to make the cuts but there is still some touchup work that I will have to do with the Dremel rotary sander.  This was a little premature according the the sequence in the manual.  But I wanted a continuous fillet and didn't want to have to fill it in later.

I taped the chine and the bulkhead #2 in preparation for filleting and then I removed the last of the stitches (not actually the last I still have one left in the bow that is totally encased in a fillet.  I had to leave it in place in order to keep the bow closed.  Once that bow area is fiberglassed I'll heat it up and pull it out.

Hours this session: 4
Hours total: 126
Hours remaining: 274

Filleting the Bow

No pictures on this one.  Just the same process for the bow.  The only items left to fillet are the main cabin chine area, keelson, and the floorboards.

Hours this session: 4
Hours total: 122
Hours remaining: 280

Structural Filleting, Part 1

Been a while since I updated this site.  Had some family issues that kept me from doing much for the last 3 weeks.  But I'm back to work now.

When I left off I had masked the area between bulkhead 8 and the transom for filleting.  Got those done and they turned out pretty nice.

I filleted the center section under the footwell with one big fillet instead of two smaller ones.  It was work to get it right but it turned out nice.

Moving forward I did the next bay.  Since the center area is wider here I used two smaller fillets on the keelson-hull joint

I've masked the area between bulkhead 1 and 2 and removed the stitches in preparation for filleting.

Next up:  Continuing the process of structural filleting.

Hours this session: 8
Hours total: 118
Hours remaining: 284

Masking the Water Tight Bulkhead Area for Filleting

I finished the tack weld step.  Gotta be kinda a contortionist to get to all the places.  I've got aches in places I forgot I had.

In preparation for the final filleting I masked off the area behind the watertight bulkhead.  This was done by:
1.  Removing the stitches in this area.
1.  Deciding what radius I wanted to use on a specific seam.
2.  Inscribing the radius on the seam using a compass.
3.  Taping to the radius lines.

The idea behind this is that it makes the fillets much more even, reduces sanding and overflow cleanup.  I've done this before on other boats I've built and I think it is well worth the time.

Notice that the vertical corners of the transom have not been taped off.  I ran out of tape!  So time to take a break.

Hours this session: 4
Hours total: 110
Hours remaining: 292

First Tack Welds

The two steps that I tackled today was to glue bulkhead #7 and floor support #4 to the centerboard trunk and to create the tack-welds.

Bulkhead #7 was no problem since I hadn't stitched it in completely to allow for the temporary screws.  I masked off the edge of the trunk and the mating edges of the bulkhead to keep squeeze out to a minimum.  That part worked perfectly.  I then finished the stitches and all went easy.

Floor support #4 was another manner.  It was lightly stitched in and wouldn't pull out very far which made it difficult to get epoxy behind it.  In the end I prevailed and while I was there I created the fillets for this floor board on the C/B trunk.

Now that everything in the lower hull is in final place I started to do the "tack weld" step.  The idea behind this is to run thickened epoxy between all the stitches.  This glues everything together so that most of the stitches can be removed (crap... I just got them all in!!!).  These tack welds must be made small enough that they will be completely covered by the final structural fillet.

My first attempt at the "pastry bag" method was a minor disaster.  I cut the corner too deeply and thickened epoxy gushed out much too quickly to create the small fillets.  When I realized this, I immediately transferred the unused epoxy to a new zip lock bag and cut a much smaller hole.  This time it worked perfectly and created fairly nice tack welds.  I smoothed out and cleaned up the areas where I didn't get it quite right.

I repeated this process and did about 1/3 of the boat before I had to stop and take the wife to dinner.

I'll let this dry and get on it again for the next session.

Hours this session: 6
Hours total: 106
Hours remaining: 296

A Little Problem

If you check out this link it'll explain the problem that I found.

http://www.pocketship.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=207

Basically all but the floor support at bulkhead #2 line up perfectly.  However, the pre-glued support at bulkhead #2 is about 1/2" too high.

It doesn't seem like I've made any measurement or assembly mistakes.  I have an idea of how I can remedy this situation, but I'd sure like to know what went wrong.