Trials and Tribulations of Building a Boat

October 2011 With a little help from our friends

2011-11-18T16:03:00.000+10:00

Looking at the beginning and end of the month pictures you would think that very little has been achieved this month. At the start number 4 bulkhead is standing (not glued) at the end of the month it is back off.

We do not ask for help too many times - with the length of the build you can very quickly wear out friendships. This month we asked some of our great friends to spend a few hours getting covered in resin to install our fibreglass rope across the bulkheads 4, 5 and 7. With gloves to the ready they slipped all over the black resin coated plastic and made a complex job quick and less complex (definately not easy).

Ian has also been working on the seagull striker.

Being in the tropics we grow big things, cane toads, mossies and lizards. We had a visit from one very scared lizard one Saturday, I was a bit concerned when it heard me stalking it to take it's photo as I have been told that when scared they may climb up you thinking you are a tree. Now anybody thinking that I am a tree is really stretching the imagination. I did manage to get a photo before he/she scampered off never to be seen again.

Thankyou to our good friends.

Click below for the October video - one months work in less than 2 minutes.

September 2011

2011-11-13T19:23:00.001+10:00

Ian has finally finished bogging and fairing our shoes and they are both turned the right way. I never want to see them upside down again.
At long last our two hulls are joined.
September progress is in the video click on the picture

Rudder Tube Port Hull

2011-11-12T20:23:00.000+10:00

Ian has decided that he prefers to put in the rudder tubes while the hull is still inverted. Just seemed to make sense not working upside down. When the port hull comes off the strong back we will replace the starboard hull onto the strong back and complete the rudder tube. Would have been nice to do this prior to glassing a faring the hull.

Hole saw cut to OD of rudder tube then foam removed down leaving just the fibreglass at the hole and faired up to the hull bottom.

Rudder tube held in place while gluing, if you look closely you can see the depression closest to rudder tube.

Fibreglass vacuum bagged to ensure good adhesion to foam

After vacuum bagging

Filled up to surface with fibreglass and glue. Ready to be faired and fibreglassed with the rest of the hull

Yasi (Yet Another Space Invader)

2011-02-06T17:51:00.000+10:00

With cyclone Yasi bearing down on North Queensland we had a few days to prepare our boat, shed and home for the Category 5 storm. The anticipated landfall of Yasi changed as the it came closer. Initially landfall was 50km North of us, this is our worst case scenario. Gradually the forecast drifted north to Cairns and then on Wednesday drifting back south to Cardwell (165km north). Wednesday morning Feb 2, we were warned by the council that our shed was in a storm surge zone. So now we had a double whammy, mtrs of water trying to float our boat and all our panels and everything else in the shed being hit by potentially 270 kph winds picking everything up and blowing to smithereens. Our panels had to be securely fastened to the floor so they wouldn't float, or blow away. We were very concerned with the storm surge that the end of a panel would try to float and get ripped off. We 1/2 filled our starboard hull with water and were very pleased with the stiffness. We chocked under the hull to give extra support between the hull supports, even with all the water the top shim could still easily be removed - we do have a stiff boat.

During the night we were worried that we did not have enough water in the hull and had a sleepless night. At home you can monitor what is happening but the suspense of not knowing and being unable to do anything at the boat was really concerning. The highest wind gusts we experienced were 73knots at the airport at 1.30 Thursday morning. At about the same time 3 palm trees fell on the roof of the house over the road.

In the end all was good, nothing moved at the boat, everything was filthy and covered with muck but all so good. Our house escaped relatively unscathed we only lost a large wooden gate, many palm fronds and some tree branches. We consider that we have dodged a bullet and are very grateful. My heart goes out to all those people to our north who have suffered huge damage, again we have dodged a bullet in that our friends at Mission Beach are relatively unscathed.

Starboard hull with water on the inside - something very wrong about this

Boat chocked between hull supports - top shim easily removed even with 1.5 tons of water in hull

Moving panels

Panels tied up and down

These panels are well inside our shed - all panels were securely tied

Port hull strapped down to dynabolts

Drums of resin and any heavy weight that could be located around the shed weighing down our sheets, then securely strapped down.

Our fibreglass was stored in the cabin top - two purposes, one to hold the cabin top down and then to keep the fibreglass dry

We added some dry drilling mud to the fibreglass in the cabin top, all good weight

No movement inside the cabin top after Yasi had passed

Nose Cones

2011-01-19T14:33:00.000+10:00

Progress on the nose cones before attaching and shaping

Turning the hull

2011-01-14T16:54:00.000+10:00

I received a phone call telling me our boat was out of the shed and ready to be turned and did I have a mattress. I am sure that the hull would have been turned without me if there was a mattress at our shed. With such a small shoe we were able to turn the hull with only 2 people.

Hull outside of shed with mattress ready for turning

Cradles and mattress in place nearly ready for turning

Forklift begins lift

Starting to turn

So easy (apparently) cradles and mattress totally protected hull

Our first look inside of hull

Starting the walk back into the shed

My view from the forklift as hull is moved back into shed

Turning to port

Nearly there

Steady as she goes

In place and should not be moved for a few years

Starboard Shoe

2011-01-14T16:27:00.000+10:00

Starting to plank around the bulkheads.

Rubbish bins come in very handy

Planked and glued and fibreglassed

Starting to bog and fair the hull

Strongback

2010-09-29T14:19:00.000+10:00

Time to set up the strong-back. For all my non boat building friends the strong-back is like the back bone for building the hull. Our bulk heads (ribs) are attached to the strong-back and the hull built around the bulk heads.

The strong-back is the length of the boat and must be accurately set up, exactly level and straight. To achieve this we had a clean out and relocated our work benches to the side. This is the last time I will see this area of the shed empty for at least a few years.

We were very lucky to get most sections of our strong-back from some friends in Townsville who are due to launch next year. The wooden cross beams are where the bulk heads will stand and were set up to the exact mm from the front bulk head, this bulk head is also known as bulk head 0. Ian used a theodolite to set up the strong back triple checking to make sure that it was level.

Most of our bulkheads have been supplied in our kit but we do have a few temporary frames to make. These are made from sheets of MDF which are extremely heavy after moving around the foam frames. To mark the frames we tacked small nails along the correct line on the paper plots, removed the nails and then had good reference points to mark out the temporary bulk head.

The plots are very large and to mark out the templates and not damage the paper, Ian walked over them in his socks

Not all the bulkheads supplied were exact and a few had to have a few millimetres removed to ensure they were the same size as the paper plots.

The bulk heads are then attached to the strong-back, again accuracy is critical, each strong-back has a water line marked on it and the waterline must be at the same height for the total length of the hull. Below the strong back with 5 bulkheads in place. Bulkheads are still to be braced.

Bulkheads with some of the bracing to keep the frames solid during the gluing process.

Bulkhead 0 is very small, all measurements for the other bulkheads are taken from the front of this bulkhead.

Strong-back from the other end. The new way of building our boat is to build the bottom of the hull then turning it and building the rest of the hull the right way up. The bit that we build upside down is called the shoe, it will be fibreglassed and faired (smoothed out) before being turned.

Gluing Panels

2010-09-27T12:09:00.000+10:00

The real boat work starts now with gluing all the panels together. We priced hiring a Z Press from ATL, this is a unit that provides pressure and heats the join. Using this system, panels can be glued very quickly. Unfortunately the cost of transporting the Z Press was quoted at $2496.63 + GST, this is on top of the hire fee which is a reasonable $75.00 per day. At the time we were of the opinion that the cost of the transportation was too much for us to pay. Another way of joining the panels is to glue and screw. Our preference is to drill as few holes in the panels as possible, so we set up our own press. A large beam lifted by our fork lift to provide the weight and the natural heat of NQ to provide the heat for the glue to set. Hind sight is marvellous, where it would have taken a few large days to glue all our panels using a Z press it took us 1 month and 1 week gluing between 2 and 4 panels per day. The relief when the last panel was lifted off the pallet was palatable. Now we have long panels located all over our shed. Obviously the next problem is going to be finding and removing the panels as they are needed.

End of one of our long runs

Our Z Press

Storage is a problem, panels are placed wherever there is any room

What a relief - empty pallet

I'm Back

2010-09-14T19:56:00.007+10:00

Never really left, we have been building steadily, waiting for the time that we could order our kit and then waiting for the kit delivery.

In the interim we have finished our centre boards, centre board cases, rudders and cabin top. I will post photos of these in the next few weeks.

Our most exciting, anxious, amazing time came on July 27, the rest of our boat finally arrived. Years of planning, dreaming and budgeting finally came to fruition. All the normal comments associated to a boat in a box came to mind for this post but Scrumble well and truly beat me to the punch in their blog. I was nervous and excited as the pallets were unloaded, I can only imagine that I will be a nervous wreck on the day we will eventually launch. When that will be we have a plan but I am a realist and have not heard of a boat being built on time and to budget.

In our excitement we unwrapped 2 of the pallets, checking out where all our (banks) money went. Holding a panel and trying to work out where on the boat it belongs was pretty awesome . Actually it was very easy to work out the placement of this panel, with a window detail routed out.

As we were checking the panels we noted one was damaged. Too far down the pallet to unpack and check straight away but sent an email to Schionning who contacted ATL, all good news, during the ATL quality check the damage had been noticed and was on an off cut. Thank you ATL.

We have gone back to the future with our construction material with the core of the boat being corecell foam. This decision was one of the many compromises that we have made with many more to come. End grain balsa is very strong and we could not find another material with similar strength ratings however our main concern is that balsa, if exposed to water, can rot. We had read that water will not travel up the end grain balsa but a small experiment we conducted proved this incorrect. We searched for another material that we could use. Months of research led us to corecell foam. There are negatives with corecell, it does not take a hit as well as balsa and the resin does not infuse deeply into the foam, ah well, our choice and we are sure that we will be happy with it.

Getting it right

And this is a boat!

Looks bad but really no problems

Centreboard number 2

2009-07-07T08:32:00.012+10:00

Second centreboard was infused over the weekend. This was the best vacuum infusion that we have done. We took all day Saturday to set up. Five layers of glass and an extra strip along the leading edge, if these boards break, tears will be shed. Peel ply was sown to the bottom of the board so that it does not creep up during the infusion process. Next came the release film followed by the breather cloth which was set up in a grid to lead the resin over the board, this was again sown to hold its position, we tried to staple but the staples were not cooperating. Last of all the vacuum bag over the top.

Sunday morning we pulled a vacuum anticipating the normal leaks. This time the gods were smiling on us as we only had a few small leaks which took a few minutes to seal.

We set up 3 ice cream containers ready for the quick initial uptake. All preparation completed, we were ready to go.

Approx 10.00am with the temperature around 25 and humidity around 34% (perfect conditions) we started the infusion. It is good to watch your hard work come to fruition. Watching the board wet out is very gratifying. We kept mixing and infusing resin as needed for the next 1.5 hours, but of course not everything can go perfectly, the leading edge was dry. You could hear the brains ticking over, how are we going to fix this problem. Then the light went on, just like a cartoon scene, we changed the top (leading edge) vacuum hose to a resin hose. It worked like a charm, within 15minutes the leading edge had wetted through.

Unwrapping the board the next morning was proof that the process had gone well. No dry spots. Next is the sanding and final shaping

Shaped centreboard blank before glassing

Breather cloth set up

Set up with hanging tubes

Calculation of resin used

Infused centreboard you can see the spine and foam strips through the wet glass

2nd time lucky

2009-06-24T12:42:00.004+10:00

We were always going to vacuum bag the centreboards just didn't expect it to be such a large learning curve. We thought that we had made all the required bloopers that are part and parcel of learning when we vacuum bagged the two centreboard spines. Duh, got that one wrong, still more bloopers to etch the experience on the brain.

Wrapped up the centreboard with all the required glass, plus extra for our own peace of mind, peel ply release film and this time we used shade cloth for the breather fabric. The decision to use of the shade cloth was made after discussions with some local builders who had used it and having seen others on the web using with no difficulty. Great option in that it is a lot cheaper and more readily available then the specialist cloth.

Everything was tested that night to make sure that there were no holes in the bag. All set for an early start in the morning.

Early morning and everything seemed so smooth. Temperature under 30, humidity low. Everything going swimmingly.

Pulled the vacuum, mixed the resin unclamped the resin line and whoosh, within a flash the resin was sucked into the bag. More resin mixed and whoosh again. We were going great guns.

Ian had calculated how much resin we would need based on the amount of cloth around the board, yep we soon passed that calculation. Ok that means that the cloth and hoses should now be full. The resin intake was slowing as the resin was spreading across the board, everything was wetting our beautifully. Eventually the resin stopped being sucked into the bag, sorry can't remember how long this took. From the outside the whole process looked perfect. Ran the vacuum till the resin went off and then went home.

Next morning we went to work early to take off the bag before the guys rocked up. What a disappointment. Fully infused shade cloth and top layers of glass, but had not gone through to the bottom layers of glass. Nothing could be done to salvage the situation. Everything had to be taken off the board and binned, and the board sanded back to shape. What a waste of time and money, and very very demoralising.

But we did learn. Next time we went back to the specialist breather cloth and ran it in a grid to direct the resin to where it was required.

What a difference. Resin went in at a slower rate, you could see through the bag where the board was being wetted through to the foam. Any dry spots we injected resin using an idea from Westsail 42, used a basketball needle inserted inside a syringe. We were confident that this time all was going to go well.

Next day, opened the bag and this time no heart ache. This time it all did look perfect. Ian had to cut a diagonal piece off the top of the board to give it the correct shape. This is great in that you can see how deep the resin has penetrated. Just as we thought, through to the foam and glass on the spine. Very very happy.

We, well I should say Ian, have now shaped that board and it is in the final stages of bogging, sanding and sealing. With the extra glass on this board I am confident the we have a very strong board.

Pictures will be attached soon.

Rudder work to follow soon.

little helpers

2009-05-05T13:21:00.005+10:00

The smallest things are so handy. You look at them and wonder maybe I could use that.

We have been known to be reticent about throwing things out and that creates a bit of a jumbled mess but also saves you money when creating. We have saved most of our offcuts and have bits and pieces of foam and wood of various sizes and shapes. Amazing where you find a use for them.

Fellow builders suggested, and kindly gave us some little tile wedges/spacers, we have found numerous little places where they come in handy and they don't stick to resin.

4 letter word beginning with w

2009-05-04T16:05:00.007+10:00

Yep thats work. Paid work that takes your time away from boat building.

We are fortunate that we are steady at work in the curent economic climate but that also means that the boat work only happens for a few hours at the end of the day and on weekends. Makes it frustrating in that the boat work is slow but we are fortunate to be receiving an income to assist us in buying the bits and pieces that we need for the boat build. All this means that we may have to wait a little longer for the launch. So be it.

Boat work has still been progressing and we now have a few projects on the go.

Still shaping the centreboards have also started on the seagull striker and rudders.

The shaping jig is working a treat and has proven to be very good at showing when things are a bit out of kilter. We were sure that the foam strips were glued straight with no little whoopsies in them, that was before we started routing the board. The bottom of the board was showing little cuts whilst the top of the board was taking off larger chunks of foam. Solution was either to cut and re-glue new bits of foam or use more bog. Cut and re-glue new bits of foam won. The boards are now straight with no warping. that makes me very happy. They should move smoothly up and down the centreboard case.

Centreboard prior to routing

Leading edge routed

Centreboard shaping jig

2009-04-13T09:50:00.008+10:00

Ian has designed and built our centreboard shaping jig. Should have been easy, the design was relatively simple however when things are not triple checked time is wasted. The little things that went wrong are:

The wheels to run up and down the rails were to have a 1/2" hole drilled in the centre. They came back with 12mm holes and not centered. Fortunately this was Wednesday afternoon so we took them back to be redone. Low and behold the new centres were correct but still 12mm. Fixed late on Thursday afternoon (before Easter) by our friend who runs the machine shop.
Ian picked up 10 x 50mm steel for the rails, ran the now completed wheels over it on Thursday afternoon and could not work out why there was slop. Immediately blamed the machinist but this time his measurement was spot on, then measured the steel it was 2 x 3/8. Too late to do anything, everything is closed over Easter.

It truly makes me wonder about Australia being a metric country.

Started the basic shaping with the slightly wobbly jig. Works very well, we will do a rough shape and finish after Easter with new wheels to stop the wobble.

How it works

A template is fixed to one end of the board, the router is adjusted left/right, up/down to the correct position then the jig is run up and down the rails. So as not to erode the template a tally-ho tobacco paper is placed on top and adjustment is made till this paper is touched. Sounds simple if you say it fast.

Setting up the jig

Test run

gob smacked

2009-04-12T15:02:00.004+10:00

That is how I felt when I read comments on my blog.

I find it amazing that anybody besides my family would be interested in reading about our boat building progress.

Thank you for the positive comments posted.

One comment asked which resin we used for the vacuum infusion.

Here we are very fortunate to have made friends with another couple who are well advanced in building their Schionning Wilderness. Their build quality is excellent and they are very kind and impart little tips to us every time we meet. One excellent piece of advice was to use Kinetix R246TX resin with H160 slow hardener for our vacuum infusion. The working time is hours compared to minutes.

Ian is working on the centreboard jig. Pictures soon.

Oh so big

2009-04-02T10:36:00.002+10:00

We have cut and glued all the foam strips to each other and to the front and back of the centreboard spine. A lot of time being spent with the set up to make sure that everything is straight. The foam by itself was very flimsy. With the gluing complete you can see the shape and stiffness starting to happen.

When standing the boards are humungous but taking into consideration the height of the hull the depth in the water is not dissimilar to many racing dinghies.

Next stage is to make a jig up to shape the boards.

One of the centreboards just finished gluing.

A picture to show the height of the boards

Taking risks

2009-03-22T15:46:00.001+10:00

I can say for sure that Ian is not afraid of taking a calculated risk. This was the case with the vacuum infusion of our centre board spines. We did hours of research (Internet is marvellous) spoke to suppliers, who told us that vacuum infusion can only be done in molds. However, our research was showing people were vacuum infusing without molds or special tables every day. So we (Ian) made the decision to go ahead and vacuum infuse the spine of the first centre board.

The set up was like wrapping your baby up to go outside on a cold winters day. First the fibreglass as per plan, then the peel ply followed by the breather cloth and finally the vacuum bag. For those people out there that are in the know you will have realised our mistake, no release film.
Fortunately this mistake was not disastrous but did involve some surgery to remove the breather cloth. Many orthopedic surgeons would have been proud of the surgery performed. Visitors who have come to inspect our work were impressed at the final product. They didn't spot the minor surgery scars (more like scratches)

While I was out of town Ian infused the spine of the second centreboard, this time with the release fabric. Both times the resin is taken up extremely quickly, and although the set up was nearly identical for the second centre board spine Ian was left with a dry spot. To fix this he turned off the vacuum, opened the bag in installed another resin line over the dry spot. Voila, no more dry fibreglass. Next day the vacuum bag was removed to reveal a well fibreglassed spine.

We will definitely be using this technique as our build progresses.

The end of one of the spines needed to be trimmed which was a good way to check on the extent of the infusion. Excellent result no dry glass anywhere.

Cutting the breather fabric

(Used to carry the resin over the project)

Second centreboard spine nearly ready for bagging

Resin measured, weighed ready for hardener

(Note the supervisors desk in the background)

Nearly fully infused

wet and wetter

2009-03-04T12:14:00.001+10:00

With the forebeam and a celebratory bottle of wine finished we were ready to get stuck into the centreboards. Then it rained, and rained, and to really hound the point, rained some more. It seems that the gods of boat building have decided that we will learn patience and how to sit on our blot whilst waiting for a weather window. Of the 28 days in February we enjoyed 21 days of wetness. On the days that it was not pouring rain we managed to cut and glue the flimsy bits of foam which will apparently become our very stiff centreboards. This stiffness will be enhanced by the spine (also cut and glued in Feb) which is made of Duflex.

For my friends who love statistics we received 989mm (38.93") of rain which washed away the previous February rain record. When added to December and January rain we had the wettest summer on record (1822mm or 72")

when

2009-02-28T11:02:00.002+10:00

We have already started. Received materials for forebeam, centreboards, rudders and cabin top just before Christmas. Feeling very daunted on the size of the project that we have now committed to. First cut in the construction of the forebeam was 23 December 2008.
Wow what a huge learning curve for me. Reading plans is a totally new language, the same can be said for reading books on boat building. I don't understand the terms so I am always backtracking and re-reading. I am hoping that over this project my ability here will improve.
Operating power tools can be dangerous, I gave the belt sander a go, it had a life of its own, was like a wild animal trying to escape my hands. Let the wild animal go and will not attempt to domesticate again. Way to powerful for me, I will have to take a little longer to sand.
Below are some pictures of the forebeam build.

Where

2009-02-23T08:42:00.001+10:00

At least this decision was easy. We are fortunate our business operates out of a large shed and we can rearrange the workshop to vacate an area large enough to build our boat.
Our work is in dirt and this is reflected in our workshop not exactly ideal for building but better then some and not as good as others.
While we were away looking at Mojo and Cheetah our guys got stuck into clearing our boat build area. Still some stuff left there, but they wanted to move everything so they don't have to come into that section of the shed. They have a theory that fiberglass is itchy and will not be deterred from this theory. I have a suspicion that they will be proven correct.

why what where when

2009-02-22T15:16:00.001+10:00

To build, to buy, what design, what length, what options. Questions and more questions, decisions and more decisions, discussions and more discussions. Finally one choice, a compromise, the first of many.
To build - with minimal chance of winning a large lottery draw this is the only way we will get our live aboard catamaran. Our boat was always going to be a catamaran. Schionning Wilderness 1320, is the length we were looking for with proven performance and dagger boards .
We were fortunate to visit Mojo and Cheetah before Christmas. Two exceptional boats with owners who were very willing to share valuable experience with novices in the boat build/live aboard experience. We changed our mind on a few options after this visit but nothing is definite until it is built in. Even then, if necessary, changes can be made.