Arriving home with timber and plywood for the flat and level building base. Due to space issues I am going to have to build out doors, which is going to create a couple of problems especially seeing that we are in the middle of winter
The long awaited day when the kit was delivered from CKD Boats who supplied the six sheets of Okoume marine plywood (4mm) and the timber nicely cut and planed to size. When one sees the complexity of the layout and cutting involved in the plywood having it professionally done is definitely worth the money.
The complete package of plywood, timber and a box with epoxy and glass fibre.
The building platform (base) complete. It is essential to get everything as flat and level as possible from the beginning.
Saw horses assembled and screwed down onto the building platform. Screwing them down onto the platform should also keep everything square and level.
Building stocks spaced according to drawings and also screwed onto saw horses.
Cut out the transom and the transom doubler as well as the bulkheads and backbone pieces.
Cut a 4mm slot into the building stocks and mark off the angle of the bow. mark the positions of bulkheads 2 and 4 and cut slots into the building stock to accommodate these.
Position the back bone and bulkheads 2 and 4 into building stocks and secure with cable ties.
Checking out the drawings yet again.
Time to start trying to get everything square. Being only 4mm thick plywood this is going to be a rather time consuming exercise as everything is a little wobbly at this stage. I believe that once the stringers go on and the hull panels are in place everything becomes a lot more rigid.
Still trying to square everything up.
First coat of epoxy on the centerboard casing. Curing in the kitchen with the heater on as it is a rather chilly day today and I want to compare this curing time to the exoxy that I applied to the back bone outside.
Side sections of the centerboard casing epoxied onto back bone.
Left over epoxy applied to bow section of back bone which is not accessable once hull panels go on.
Getting everything squared up became a lot easier when I took off cuts from the building stocks and clamped them to the bulkheads. the clamp closest to the backbone is important as the bulkheads are not perfectly vertical, they are 1 degree off vertical and this clamp pulls the building stock piece up snug at the backbone to give this angle.
Centerboard casing being epoxied in.
Scarphing the stringers together. 6:1 scarph slope.
Epoxying the stringers in place. There is considerable twist in the stringers two clamps are pulled together using a cable tie to hold the twist in the stringers while the epoxy cures. (I left the clamps in place for two days to be sure)
Joining hull panels together with glass fibre tape and epoxy and a lot of weight. The wax paper between the plywood sheets stops the epoxy sticking the plywood together enabling you to stack a couple one on top of the other when joining.
Glueing the bow transom in place.
One side of the centerboard case planed down to match the angle of the hull panel.
Bottom hull panells going on. There is considereble twist in the bow section so large cable ties are needed here, and care must be taken to not to twist the bow, as once the epoxy sets there is no going back.
Bottom hull panels cable tied on and epoxied between ties (a bit messy, but nothing some sand paper wont take care of).
Bottom hull panels in place. Note the twist in the panels. Also note the start of my epoxy filler mess up (the white stuff on the bow section).
I mixed up my first batch of thickened epoxy to start filling in the gap between the bottom panels. In my rush to get started I did not check the lables on the containers before mixing. The problem is that there are two sizes of containers. The big one contains the epoxy and the smaller ones the curing agent, or so I thought. It turns out that two of the smaller ones also contain epoxy and not curing agent and it is one of these that I opened without checking the lable and added to the epoxy. Off course two days later my mix still had not hardened and eventually figured out my mistake. Fortunately it was nothing that a bit of scraping and sanding would not resolve.
First side panel going on, definitely easier than the bottom panels as there is not nearly as much twist in the panel.
Second side panel going on. I placed a cable tie loosely at the bow end and one near the stern to support the panel.
All panels in place and secured with aproximately 150 cable ties (3,6mm) and bigger ones at the bow where there is considerable tension on the ties due to the twist in the panels.
Glueing the panels together.
First sand and cable ties removed prior to second application of thickened epoxy to fill in holes and gap under the cable ties.
