My Farrier F-22 trimaran boat build

New build location

2010-03-13T08:16:00.000-05:00

We finally found our new home that has met all our family requirements, including the garage suitable for a main hull build. The one side of the garage is over 25 feet deep with plenty of height, with lots of room in the driveway to do the main hull, beam to float thing. The only trouble is that possession does not happen until June. But as we know all too well, sometimes these things just take longer if you want to make sure it is done right.

Next stop Ottawa

2010-01-30T15:53:00.002-05:00

Well, I have new news. I have taken a new full time position in the high tech corridor of Kanata, just outside of our nation's capitol Ottawa.

The good news is that relocating allows me to choose our new property with the main hull boat build in mind - amongst other family criteria of course.

I'm looking forward to a spring thaw with a new job, new home and a clean start on the main hull.

Main hull form frames cut

2009-09-01T11:46:00.003-05:00

Well, it's been an interesting lean inexpensive but healthy summer. I sold my Northstar 26 sloop on Georgian Bay, hiked daily with the dogs on the trails, and became an expert again at job hunting and doing interviews.

The only progress I can report is that I have the form frames for the main hull now cut out in plywood.

This was a reality check for the family on the true size of the F22, small, but small is becoming beautiful again and I am still quite sure this is the right boat for me at this time. It looks like I will be building the main hull in the back yard and I have purchased the build tent and prepared the back yard area. However, it may not be until the crack of next spring before I start building the strongback up again. I still have some flat panels to make and I may make this the first priority.

I have the daggerboard, daggerboard case, full rudder assembly and many small parts and bulkheads for the main hull already complete so my aim is make the main hull build a true kit building experience that goes very fast over one summer.

Boat build suspension

2009-05-13T05:59:00.003-05:00

I'm saddened to report that there will be a (hopefully) short suspension of boat building activities. More materials need to be purchased to properly initiate the construction of the main hull and I cannot justify the expenditure while I am looking for new full time employment.

Daggerboard in case

2009-05-04T11:09:00.002-05:00

My daggerboard was always on the thick side so I was a bit worried that with paint the board might stick in the case. Not to worry, the paint seems to make it more slippery and it slides in and out, horizontally, freely. I'm sure that in the vertical position it will be fine.

Daggerboard and rudder mostly done

2009-05-02T18:54:00.006-05:00

I've painted the daggerboard and rudder now, with a number of coats of the 2 part Interlux VC performance epoxy. To apply, I simply used a foam roller and tried to cover with as little paint as possible. Next time I will to use a foam brush to see if I can get an even smoother application. Of course, the rolling does not finish smooth and does require post wet sanding. As they are now, I am still working with 400 grit but they can still be taken a lot farther. However, at this point they look like they will work out OK so I might leave them like this for the time being and move on to the next step, cutting the form frames for the main hull.

I highly recommend the performance epoxy, it does wet sand very well and I think the product is perfect for parts just like this, that are under the waterline and need to be very smooth.

I weighed the daggerboard, it's about 16 lbs.

Daggerboard and rudder blade ready for painting

2009-04-20T12:43:00.003-05:00

It was a love-hate relationship with the fairing work on these foils the last week or so. This was especially true of the daggerboard. I think the root cause being my lack of experience to know when the foil shape is good and fair enough. Thankfully ... it is mostly love now. I thought I would post some pictures before starting to paint.

Daggerboard

Hanging up I can verify that the board is straight and fair enough.

Trailing edge view.

End view

Rudder

The rudder shape is close to ideal I believe.

End view

The trailing edge of the rudder blade. I'm glad I sandwiched the layer of fiberglass in the foam block. It is visible in these shots and I'm sure it is helping to strengthen the edge.

Fairing the daggerboard and rudder blades

2009-04-05T14:23:00.003-05:00

I've started fairing the daggerboard and rudder. I had thought that the blades were actually quite fair but I'm finding that there are a number of areas that need building up. I want to keep the final quality of these parts quite high.

I'm also quite sure that the trailing edge thickness will be greater than 2mm when I am finished fairing. So... I'm told that to prevent humming when the boat is planing, the sides should be made asymmetric. The following picture is from a web page that Menno kindly brought to my attention.

Ian Farrier also describes this approach in his sailing hints document.

Anchor well and cuddy cabin cowling laminated

2009-03-25T10:14:00.002-05:00

The cowling for the cuddy cabin and the anchor well are now laminated, and I cannot really do any more work on these parts until later when there is a hull to fit them to. It did give me a chance to use up some of the remaining carbon fiber cutoffs to laminate the inside surface of the parts. I wanted to see what an e-glass - foam - carbon structure would look like in terms of stiffness, lightness etc.

Later on I will have to purchase more material for the inside hull surfaces and the thought had occurred to me to use the 6oz weight carbon fiber cloth. There might be an advantage to using the carbon fiber on the inside for stiffness and the e-glass on the outside for abrasion resistance. The candidates for the inside surface are carbon and s-glass (as in my floats). No doubt when I price out the cloths, the small weight benefit with the 6oz carbon over the 9oz s-glass, may well be overwhelmed by the price difference.

Outside of the cowling laminated with 2 layers of the 8.9oz e-glass finely woven aerospace cloth. It will still need a small amount of fairing.

Inside surface covered with a number of scrap cut-off pieces of carbon fiber left over from the rudder parts.
The anchor well laminated with e-glass on the wear surface for good abrasion resistance. Carbon fiber on the inside. The part did seperate about an inch from the mold dimension when it was removed. I'm assuming I will be able to clamp it somehow into the correct position. The part still needs final trimming.

Cuddy cabin cowling and anchor well

2009-03-13T18:36:00.008-05:00

People who know me well are not surprised that I have decided to build the cuddy cabin main hull. It's faster, cheaper and very fashionable with the large cockpit and ultra modern racing rig. What finally closed the deal for me was the wonderful pictures of Loyd Crisp's (and his family) 'Stick Shift' in action. Then, as a testiment to the fact that you cannot make a good designer a manufacturing engineer for long (for the production F22), there was the release of Ian Farrier's concept for the F32SR, which looks to me very much like a stretch F22.

So, as I am committed to getting this project completed before someone can build a F32SR, I moved forward this week by starting the cabin cowling and the anchor well parts for the main hull. I do believe that after these are finished, I just have to review, inspect and finish the remaining flat panels. Then, the next step is to cut the form frames for the main hull.

Above are the form frames for the blister cowling. No battens to be used here. But you say, 'what is a blister cowling?' It's a removable shield that is placed over the cuddy cabin main hatch, so that spray and rain does not enter the cabin, as well as offer a bit more headroom. I simply have to panel this shape with foam and fiberglass it. No problem, eh!

Above is the form frame for the anchor well. This one looks fairly straight forward, although the one bend looks like I will have to use a heat gun for the first time.

The above two pictures show my attempt at planking the cowling. I took the designers advice to keep some of the strips to 25mm in width. This is not for bending along the longitudinal axis but rather so the strip can flex transversely. Wider strips will not allow this.

I now plan to use my polyurethane construction glue to bond the strips together. I'm hoping that the glue will drip through, lock to the frames below and allow me to remove all the screws for fairing and laminating. This will be a matter for next weeks post.

Slots in the bow web - another part waiting for a main hull.

2009-03-08T12:39:00.012-05:00

This week I finished cutting the slots in the bow web that I first laminated a long time ago now. There is a project management saying that there are 3 descriptors for a project, 'fast, cheap and good'. You can take any two. It certainly looks like my methodology is following the priorities of cheapness and quality. At least I certainly hope I am holding to some quality. I'm certainly not fast. In terms of materials I do not mind paying a little extra for quality but these costs come along infrequent enough that they are not noticable.

Anyway, I found another use for the cut out scrap from the wingnet rail, washers for the chainplate slots.

I made sure that the width of the slots took into account Ian's comments on a builders update. The slot for the Precourt deadeye (optional dedicated forestay) and the two slots for furling systems (jib and genoa) will easily accomodate a Furling system that will accomodate a clevis pin. It looks like Precourt Systems have developed an appropriate unit and I will definitely be using sails and rigging to support roller furling. No more hanking sails on and off. But, I do need to learn more about endless line furling and sails that can eliminate the need for a dedicated forestay. I found some very interesting pictures at Sigi Stiemer's F33 site. I had never thought or heard about using a double mainsheet system to replace the traveller, thats very interesting. Would it be possible to put a self tacking jib system on the F22? Interesting questions. Anyway, here is the finished bow web.

Everything was done by the books, all the exposed foam was dug out a bit and sealed with high density putty and covered with a layer of lightweight fiberglass cloth. The G10 tube was also glued into the part for the bow pole pin. The whole part weighs about 1.4lbs.

Rudder sleeve assembly completed (more or less)

2009-02-28T14:47:00.006-05:00

First, I cut the sleeve to accept the shaft to connect to the rudder mount. Not having the S.S. shaft yet I used a wood dowel to verify the fit. The big question here was how far to cut into the sleeve. The deeper you cut into the sleeve the wider the angle the sleeve can rotate before there is a hard stop to the gudgeon. The picture below shows the angle I can achieve. It is not a full 90 degrees, but it's getting close. My understanding is that the tiller will hard stop in the cockpit before this angle is achieved.

I also finished the tiller stub, which went together fairly straight forward, and glued on the sleeve. Straight enough I hope.

Here is my access hole, through the tiller stub, to get the shaft in and out.

The tiller stub is my first carbon tube, and I am thinking about molding the tiller itself with carbon when I have the hull and traveller completed. You can also see that I sealed the exposed foam at the end of the tube with a piece of carbon cloth.

Here is the complete steering system for an F22. The sleeve and rudder combined weigh about 7 lbs. Not all that much when you think about it, but isn't it funny that we go to all this trouble to reduce weight and then stick a heavy outboard at the end of the boat. Anyway, you can also see that I have not yet finished the plastic end strip yet. I'm think about using the option for 3/8" nylon hardware to keep the plastic strip in place.

Final laminations on the rudder case

2009-02-16T14:00:00.004-05:00

Just a quick post to show the final laminations on the rudder case. In preparation I smoothed everything out with the lighter weight QuickFair putty.

And then in one session I added the remaining layers of carbon fiber cloth and uni-directional. I can see why people love to work with carbon fiber The resulting patterns from the weave are most attractive. One other comment. You have to be careful cutting the cloth to size with the loose weave of the carbon cloth. It will fall apart. Orientation of the fibers at 45 degrees is also interesting as the cloth will stretch like an accordian in the most extreme way.

As it stands currently it weighs 1.8 lbs.

Now I have to think about attaching the stub for the tiller extension. The foam is rough cut to size but I have to shape it to the profile of the sleeve itself. Then more wrapping in carbon fiber.

Pivot tube mounted on the rudder sleeve

2009-02-10T14:45:00.004-05:00

Getting the pivot tube attached to the rudder sleeve requires that a spacer plate be carefully cut and joined to the tube and the case. I found myself using some of the trimmed off material (layers of s-glass) from the wingnet rail. The pieces cut away on the wingnet rail for lightening purposes were just the right length for this spacer plate. I glued two pieces together to get the correct thickness.

I just used a high density putty (cabosil and resin) and the best judgement of my eyes to glue the spacer plate normal and parallel to the fiberglass tube.

In a similar fashion I glued the pivot tube to the rudder sleeve case. I did not need any special clamping to keep the tube in place while it was curing. Again I trusted my eye to get the part aligned.

The plans call for some extra carbon fiber to strengthen the tube at the top.

Then in the areas where the tube will be cut away to fit the rudder gudgeons a very high density putty (cabosil, resin and chopped up s-glass cloth) was used to build up the gap. The middle area will be filled with a low density fairing putty and then the assembly will be ready for the final layers of carbon fiber.

Rudder sleeve out of the mold

2009-02-04T08:58:00.004-05:00

The plans actually call for the use of sheet wax wrapped around the rudder blade to build up the nesessary room for the frontrunner fabric (a durable marine fabric) that will line the case. Like the daggerboard, the rudder on the F22 design is just pulled up and down in the case. No pivoting, which I know some builders would prefer. I like the simplicity of this design however. The open transom design should give me good access to pulling the rudder up when needed.

Anyway, I could have purchased the sheet wax from Composites Canada who sell sheets at a .010" thickness. This is the proper way to do it but it would have required building up quite a few layers of wax, so taking once again the lead from Menno, I decided to try using the fabric itself wrapped in plastic. This fabric was kindly supplied by Jay in Seattle at a fair price and I have no idea where to source it in my locale.

Two 2x4's cut with the profile of the rudder blade provide for the mold edge for the upper and lower flanges. The picture shows the everthing more or less in position. The fabric was taped in place and compressed to what I hope is the correct amount. After this I used lots more plastic tape and some dollar store plasticine (horrible stuff made in China), then finally a number of layers of a mold release wax.

Here is the first layer of laminate applied. I let the first layer cure before adding the others. I'm not sure if this was necessary.

When all the carbon fiber was applied and cured I knocked off the 2x4's from each end. Then I removed the plastic strip from the trailing edge and was able to break the part from the mold by prying up from that open trailing edge. It came off no problem. I did make some initial trimming when the part was still green and I still have some trimming to do, but I am off to the next step of adding the pivot tube to the sleeve.

Strengthening the top gudgeon on the rudder mount

2009-02-01T21:15:00.002-05:00

Our excellent designer determined a weakness in the top gudgeon to rudder mount join and very promptly updated the plans with the appropriate fix. It was a very straight forward modification so I thought to just as promptly get it done right away.

I should have an update on the rudder case soon.

Rudder blade all laminated

2009-01-20T15:02:00.005-05:00

The plans call for an extra layer of fabric around the top of the rudder blade and down the leading edge. I decided to apply this reinforcement before the final complete wrap.

Then the wrap of carbon fabric went on in one piece. I also had some light weight fiberglass cloth (It seemed too light to be 6oz, it is probably 3.7oz) and applied this as the final layer for abrasion resistance.

It would have been a good thing to use peel ply on this final wrap. Just using plastic results in excess resin sitting on top of the fabric here and there. But the final result is not bad for a hand layup.

I'm fairly happy with the final shape. The overall thickness might be a mm thicker than the plans template, and the trailing edge might be ~3.5mm thick.

The blade weight is 4.78 lbs and with the laminations complete I can now move onto the rudder sleeve. In this part the blade will actually be used as a mold.

Sheathing the rudder blade

2009-01-12T08:38:00.003-05:00

January 2009 is just moving on at lightspeed so I thought I should post some small progress made on the rudder blade.

The Christmas break gave me the opportunity to stand back a bit, review other builders work, and it did not take me long to see that I made a mistake in the rudder blade uni-directional re-inforcements. You never apply uni-directional directly onto the foam substrate directly. It is always applied on top of some bi-directional re-inforcement. In any event I somehow went ahead and laid down the carbon uni directly on top of the foam and the wrapped high density core. Not as per the plans direction. The plans call for the uni-directional to be sandwiched between the two layers of sheathing. This was a strange error for me considering that I laid up the daggerboard correctly last winter.

I considered routing out all that unidirectional, but decided to leave that half of the rudder blade as is and make the other side correctly. If it breaks at some point - my bad. It will be my rudder blade half made right.

Here is a picture of the the complete rudder blade wrapped and the 6 oz carbon fiber (2x2 tweed weave) wetted out with the uni-directional apllied correctly on top of the cloth (at least on the one side).

I'm in the process of smoothing out and rebuilding the appropriate shape over the uni-directional fiber before I apply the final sheathing layer. The shape and overall thickness seems OK at this point.

Uni-directional carbon fiber in the rudder blade (updated)

2008-12-14T15:35:00.004-05:00

There are a number of steps involved in getting the basic foam core re-inforced properly. After the wrapped high density core is inserted, some unidirectional carbon fiber tape has to be laid down on top of it.

Here are the pieces of tape cut to length and ready for application. I used a 9 oz. weight carbon fiber tape. I can never get the tape trimmed as perfect as the plans show it. You can also see the rebate around the high density core. I tried to tailor the depth of the rebate down the length of the blade but I am sure some fairing putty will be required to get the profile shape back. I'm always slightly phobic about making the rebate deep enough (is the high density core too thick?, is it mounted properly?), but I just stick to the dimensions indicated in the plans.

First I filled up the gaps around the rounded corners of the high density core with some high density putty.

And while still wet applied the layers of carbon tape. The epoxy saturated carbon uni-directional material really needs to be compressed and using a plastic sheet to squeeze out the excess resin really does minimize the overall thickness, which I think is what you really want.

Everthing looks good and when it's cured I will apply the fairing putty to the trailing edge of the blade and recover the profile shape over all this carbon fiber. Then turn the blade over and do the other side.

Updated December 23rd

Work has slowed a bit with Christmas and other projects but I have made a bit of progress in finishing off the one side of the rudder blade.

The above picture shows the trailing edge cut away to the centre and is ready for the lightweight putty fill. The original layer of 6 oz fiberglass cloth really helps here to cut away one side of the blade at a time.

Here is the blade (port side) with the putty applied and sanded down close to a point that is almost ready for carbon fiber cloth sheathing. I will now turn the blade over and finish the other side but I have run low on carbon fiber and will have to visit Noah's or Canada Composites soon. ( A trip to the other side of Toronto). I want to make sure I have enough material to finish the blade and rudder case. This will be my last post of the year so merry Christmas and a happy new year to all. 2009 should be interesting.

Inserting the final high density core into the rudder blade

2008-12-10T15:11:00.005-05:00

The final high density insert has to be wrapped in carbon fiber (F-22R option) and helps to create the longitudinal rigidity required in a modern lightweight foam rudder. The high density foam is tailored in thickness so that further uni-directional carbon can be added on top of each side without adding thickness to the rudder blade.

I wrapped the upper and lower halves seperately so that it could be held for wrapping. You can see the plastic stretch wrap which really helps to hold the carbon cloth in place. It also allows all the excess resin to be squeezed out to either end.

For some reason I decided to shape the foam before glueing in this core. It probably would have been easier to insert the tailored wrapped core into the original rectangular block of foam, and then do the shaping. Inserting the core after shaping required the use of some simple jigs, spacers and clamps to make sure there was no twisting or mis-alignment in the blade while the epoxy glue was hardening.

The offcuts from the original blade block of foam were put to good use. The operation was successful and I am now putting in the rebates for the uni-directional re-inforcements.

Rudder blade foam shaping

2008-12-03T17:30:00.011-05:00

Fellow builder Menno had a idea that he shared on the builders group. He wrote

"My idea is to draw lines on the blank lengthwise, combining all points where the rudder/centerboard has the same thickness. Then use a router to make grooves with the correct depth and use those grooves as a guide..."

Something about this idea stuck with me and the thought of again artistically shaping the blade through the use of the templates seemed like a lot of work. I know, I shaped the daggerboard that way last winter. So I decided to give the router approach a try.

Above is the block of foam with the high density inserts in place. The block is thicker than required but I wanted to glue the foam so that the centre had a glue joint. I also applied a light fiberglass cloth in this centre joint (as I did on the daggerboard) so that this thin blade might hold together a bit better. Using the full size plan I transferred the lines. All the arrows are to remind me to keep the cutter to the outside.

I've used this mini-router before to create rebates where needed. This time it is being put to very good use.
Removing the extra block thickness.

I used the oribital sander to get the shape close and then finally some hand sanding.

And viola, here it is, close enough to start work on getting the high density foam core inserted down the middle. I wish I had made the daggerboard this way, this approach is much easier for me.

Two more F-22's launched

2008-11-30T22:17:00.009-05:00

Ian Farrier has posted pictures of two more F-22's launched in Australia and the Philippines. The pictures can be seen here.

I suspect we will see more Farrier trimarans coming out of Melvest Marine. If you check the link to their web site you can download a pricing spreadsheet for your very own F-22, if you want. Anyway, I am still waiting for good pictures of an F-22 sailing hard with the screacher flying from the bow pole.

Work on the rudder is going well and I should have an update very soon.

Bobstay bow eye

2008-11-23T16:26:00.008-05:00

My family finds the name of this part interesting. Say it three times really fast.

Kidding aside, I take the function of this part very seriously. This bow eye has to take a substantial part of the load that will be created when the screacher is flying from the bow pole. The bobstay holds down the bow pole and is connected to this eye which is mounted fairly low in the bow of the boat. Knowing that I will probably like to drive the boat pretty hard I want to do a good job on the part. It's another one of those parts that reduce the amount of metal in the boat and requires the use of carbon fiber.

I was able to make the part entirely from cut-off and left over material. Above is the initial foam core that I artistically created from one piece of foam cut out from the daggerboard core.

The actual bow eye is made from a simple mold, tape and two pieces of foam and some high density putty (Cabosil and epoxy resin).

I found that cutting and applying the narrow strips of carbon interesting. The unidirectional is made by knitting together bundles of carbon fiber strands in parallel. It was impossible to keep the knitting together with a cut of the stitching every 5 bundles, so the wrapping consisted of gathering up 5 individual bundles and wrapping them around the bow eye. The two plastic plates really helped to keep the bundles in place.

Final covering with the s-glass cloth was also quite challenging. I have to admit I finally resorted to using a stretch plastic food wrap to keep the cloth down. I saw this hint from a post to the buildersgroup by Andrew Cuthbert.

I used a small piece of G10 tube that was cut off in making the rudder mount to help make a solid bow eye opening. I plan to lash the bobstay synthetic rope (no shackle) so I also tried to 'bell mouth' the opening as I do not think that synthetics like a tight radius.

Don't think I can put off working on the rudder any longer.

Rudder Mount

2008-11-15T10:59:00.010-05:00

The rudder mount went together pretty smoothly although there are many steps involved. Below are some pictures I took at various stages of the part fabrication.

The gudgeon mold worked out pretty well. On the first part some of the thickened putty leaked around the G10 tube. So on the second part I made sure some of the glass reinforcement was pushed up into this area. This fixed that problem. I used a little hot melt glue to keep the foam in place.

I removed the parts from the mold when they are not fully cured. This is not just impatience. I like to use a knife to clean up the part ,cut off the flashing, etc. This is harder to do when its really hard.

The molded gudgeons are wrapped in carbon fiber for strength. I only have 9oz carbon unidirectional so I had to increase the number of pieces to get to the correct total weight. Only issue I had was in keeping the many layers on top of each other. But all is good in the end.

The finished gudgeons are then glued into the foam web. I found that a tightly fitting wood dowel was sufficient to keep the two parts aligned and clamped into place.

The part is then wrapped in fiberglass. I used a number of pieces of the s-glass cloth. It is pretty drapable and I did not have much of a struggle to get everthing covered. I just prefer to make sure that the part and the cloth is wet with resin before performing my hand lay up.

When the covering is still green and tacky to touch I applied the remaining reinforcements as per the plans requirements. I had no peel ply on hand so there is probably a bit more resin in this part than needs be...

The finished part weighs 1.27 lbs. It's not really that pretty but most of it will be buried under the cockpit floor.

Now it looks like I have to start thinking about the rudder fabrication. This will be a bigger job.

Winter is for building smaller parts

2008-11-05T12:03:00.006-05:00

Well, I did have to get the primer parts (the paint) warm using a pail of hot water, but I was able to finish off the port side float to the same point as the starboard float. They will both need sanding, perhaps more primer - then the topcoat. After that they will just need the hardware.

I've now covered them with a plastic sheet and tarps for winter. Hopefully the winter will not be like last years - way too much snow! But the good thing about storing hulls in your back yard is that you can watch them closely. There will be no snow loading on these hulls allowed.

So now with the floats tucked away I can concentrate on winter work. My overall plan is to have as much of the smaller parts done before the main hull is started in the spring. Here is a quick list of work that I am starting to think about.

Finish fairing and painting the daggerboard.
Work on the rudder, rudder case and all the associated parts.
Main 'pop up' cabin top.
Finish laminating all the flat panels.

Hopefully the main hull will go together like a kit.

Hull preparation - my best techniques summary

2008-10-25T06:58:00.012-05:00

This post is mean't to be a notes to myself for that time 'hopefully' in the not to distant future, when I am preparing the main hull. It's also a post for others with the following label. 'Every amatuer builder is different and the best techniques for one builder will not be a good fit for another.'

1) Lay up the foam as fair as possible. Use the polyurethane construction glue (the stuff that does not expand that much) so that the outer hull can be immediately sanded without any hard spots.

2) Always wet out the foam before laying any laminate. I have found that this is absolutely required with the fine weave aerospace cloth that I am using.

3) Always use peel ply when doing any hand lamination. Using plastic sheet over the peel ply is a good way to ensure a good result. When squeegeed the plastic creates a local vacuum (for good adhesion) and allows you to remove the excess resin. I may be at the point of not bothering with vacuum bagging as I fail to see any major benefit for all the extra trouble and cost.

4) Apply fairing compound sparingly and sand most of it off. Good results were obtained with Quickfair. Sand, sand and sand with the long board (60 grit) until there are no low spots left. Where possible make sure the bare laminate serves as the local high spot for the long board.

5) Apply skim coats of epoxy resin to seal up the fairing compond and fill the pinholes. Sand with the orbital sander (no more hand sanding, except for the hard to get at places), with 120 grit until the hull is smooth. Smooth is when the surface is all smooth and dull with no shiny spots. It's okay to apply more fairing compond at this point, this is the last chance. The thin first primer coat will seal it.

6) Apply the bottom paint. Thinking ahead, do a good job with a manometer or laser to get the designed waterline right on the main hull. VC Performance Epoxy can be rolled on. At least 3 coats. The surface can be wet sanded as smooth as required.

7) Apply the topcoat finishing primer with a foam roller. With Endura EP-2C primer sealer thinned 15% air bubbles are not a huge problem. I have been waiting till it is fully cured then sand with the orbital sander with 220 grit until the hull is smooth.

8) Unless an excellent method for applying the topcoat is found, take the hull to a paint shop for topcoat spraying.

No topcoat painting for now

2008-10-15T16:20:00.005-05:00

The weather was recently quite nice, low humidity and pushing 20+ degrees C, so I decided to apply a coat of Endura topcoat on the outer half of the starboard float. I used a foam roller and tipped out the air bubbles with a brush. Making a long story over a few days - well short, I was not happy with the result, so I sanded this coat down to 220 grit. It is now very smooth but dull. So ...I have decided to leave the floats for the time being with the finishing primer on the hulls. Maybe I will have a professional paint shop apply the final topcoat when I have all 3 hulls ready.

Winter is fast approaching and I hope there is time get the port float all sealed and primed as well.

Update: We weighed the starboard float today, it looks to be ~ 125lbs as is.

Finishing primer on the starboard float hull

2008-10-01T17:31:00.004-05:00

The skim coats of epoxy seemed to work really well at providing a very fair smooth surface after sanding. Fair enough, and I decided to hang the hull once again and apply the finishing primer to the whole hull (excluding of course the bottom paint which I masked off). I applied the two coats of Endura EP-FD primer with the foam roller and found that with the doors open I was able to get by with the half face respirator. I think flowing on the paint is far less dangerous than atomizing it with a spray gun. Quality wise I think rolling on the paint when the hull is hung like this is not optimal, I do have some paint runs here and there. However since I will be sanding this primer down to 320 grit, I thought that getting it all painted was more important. However, when I get to the topside paint I think I will be painting the hull in sections (roll and tip) , ie on one side, the other side and then the deck. If anyone is interested I found a very good tutorial (for Sterling paint) here.

Below are a few pics of the now white primer coloured float hull.

Bottom paint

2008-09-29T18:33:00.004-05:00

I turned the hull over to get better access for sanding and applying the small amount of bottom paint on the float. I used the Interlux VC Performance Epoxy product. It has no anti-fouling properties but does give you a hard surface that is easily wet sanded smooth.

The below the waterline area on the float is so small that I did not need to use any kind of laserline or manometer to mark out the area. I simply used a chaulk line. The area looks reasonable.

I used a foam roller to apply the paint, and put on 4 coats. After each coat I lightly sanded with 220 grit dry sandpaper. I am sure that wet sanding now with 400 grit or higher will result in a very slick smooth surface.

Now to finish sanding and get the Endura topside paint primer on.

Float painting strategy

2008-09-16T16:56:00.012-05:00

As it seems with every new activity/task associated with this build, I am finding that my painting strategy is changing day to day as I take my little steps forward.

Here is what I have done so far.

1) Purchased enough Endura EP-FD primer and EX-2C topcoat to paint the floats. It is the toxic stinky stuff, and my intention is to roll and tip at this point. I have purchased no high build primer. I want to acheive that optically smooth surface without the use of a high build primer.

2) I am currently applying a series of skim coats of epoxy resin to the hulls. My intention here is to fill the pin holes and smooth out the scratches from the 60 grit sanding. Interestingly, I had no luck coating the resin with roll and tip techniques. My laminating resin simply flowed/turned into an orange peel texture. I found that applying the resin with the roller and then squeeging the excess resin off works very well.

Here is the starboard float with 2 skim coats applied. Next step (already started) is to sand with 120-150 grit sandpaper and recoat. Then sand with 220 grit. Then apply the endura primer. At this point I am blessing my random orbital sander which is very useful on the relatively flat sections of the float hull.

Attaching the wingnet rails

2008-09-09T20:33:00.010-05:00

It seemed a bit odd to be setting up for actual assembly work after all that sanding. Once again, all the time is spent in set up, preparing the float hull and verifying the rail position. Here I am in preparation using straps and 2x4's to help hold the wingnet rails in place. It seems like a long time ago that I molded these parts in the basement. The rails were constructed in a fine weave 8.9 oz s-glass cloth. They turned out very smooth a did not require any pre-fairing to get rid of laminate texture.

First I attached the rails to the deck and left the gunwale attachment points free. I used 2 layers of the 8.9 oz s-glass cloth as tape. I also added some cabosil to the epoxy resin where the rails are attached to the float.

Then with clamps the inner supports are attached to the gunwales. The clamps did a very nice job lifting the rail up to the required height.

Finally, the two hulls are swapped in position. The starboard float is now in the garage.

Here is the port side float ready for final finishing and prep for the paint primer.

Video of F22 sailing and updated boat logo for Raven.

2008-09-08T10:18:00.010-05:00

Ian Farrier has posted a video of Oliver Doms F22 at sail in Germany. The link is near the top of the F22 page here. It looks like they are cruising (in a close reach) at 8.7-8.9 knots with no trouble at all.

My boat logo concept is now extending down the full side of the float. I've updated the small picture in the side bar but here is a better view (already updated).

As I originally intended, there is a bit of the Canadian west coast tradition in this design. But simple enough I hope for us to mask it off and paint it ourselves.

I've finished the float fairing and I am now setting up to attach the wingnet rails. After that it is time for painting.

Update Sept. 10th

Tom McCaw of Vancouver Island has cleverly put my logo on Oliver Doms F22 float hull in the water. Tom reminds me that it is not his best effort, but I think it is brilliant. I only hope Raven will look as good as this when complete.

I thought for a while Raven would have to be painted black. But white ravens have been spotted on the island.

Jim Shula launches his F22

2008-09-03T13:07:00.003-05:00

Jim Shula of Portland Maine has launched his F22 trimaran he has built for Sam Ballard. Pictures can be seen here. It's great to see another F22 in the water.

Still fairing the floats

2008-09-01T07:08:00.013-05:00

.... but I am getting close enough to think about attaching the wingnet rails and applying a paint system primer to the hulls. Here are the current set of questions in my mind.

What topside paint system should I use? I am tending toward using the two-part, water-borne linear polyurethane enamel from SystemThree. Environmental, thinning and cleanup attributes are very attractive.
Should I use a HVLP paint sprayer or roll and tip? Can I use my air compressor to drive a HVLP spray gun or is an air turbine required? The SystemThree LPU paint may work well with an air compressor driven HVLP spray gun as moisture in the compressed air could not possibly affect the finish.
Is there a designed below waterline region for a float? Some of Ian's drawings do indicate a small region, but I can see no dimension(s) explicitly called out. Is a topside 2 part LPU paint suitable for covering the complete float hull? I have been thinking about using Interlux performance epoxy for everywhere below the waterline, main hull and floats.

The fairing work goes much easier, in my height challenged garage, with the second hull sitting outside. I will be very glad indeed, when I am on to building a single main hull structure!

Visit with Jim, Carlene and Doug MacKenzie

2008-08-24T15:12:00.009-05:00

A long overdue 2 1/2 hour drive to London, Ontario to visit with Jim, Carlene and Doug finally happened this past weekend. They have been making good progress and as I am finally planning my own main hull build I wanted to see a F22 main hull in person.

We helped Jim move a float from storage into the garage for, I suspect, some work on putting in the access and storage hatch features.

They have room to swing the main hull into any position in their very roomy build shed. Jim shows how easy it is to push the hull around. Height is no issue for this team. My first impression is that the F22 main hull has a great deal of beam that pictures published around the internet do not really indicate. Obviously, I like what I see.

Here is a picture taken from the stern into the main hatch companionway. You can clearly see how the newer beam designs has opened up the forward v berth area. They have opted for the centre board version which opens up the living area even more. The MacKenzie's have a great deal of experience cruising on their trailer tri and this experience is stimulating discussions about how best to utilize this space. It will be interesting to see their finished layout.

How can this space below the cockpit floor (no aft cabin) be best used? For example, I had not thought about where the outboard gas tank will be stored? In fact, talking to Jim and Doug has made me realize I will have lots to think about.

Doug and Jim showed me how the cockpit panels fit up. I joked that a F22 kit would go together very fast. After a quick lunch and a cold beer with Carlene it was off for a sail on Lake Fanshaw.

So .... I finally have had a chance to helm a Farrier trimaran. She handles wonderfully with the shifty breeze this sunny day.

My son Cameron discovers a comfortable place on the wingnet.

Fairing float hull sides

2008-08-19T15:24:00.007-05:00

My float hull sides are actually pretty fair to start with. So like Roger Bonnet I decided to fair the hull sides by applying thin skim coats of fairing putty. After a couple of coats, applied with a wide 6" trowel and fairing with the long board, the hull looked pretty smooth. I found the best way to see/identify the low areas was to look for the differences in light scattering.

I try to apply putty sparingly to minimize the amount of material I seem to sand off the boat.

Here is the hull after 5 applications. No obvious low spots. It is true that you can sand System Three Quickfair putty after 4 hours, it is quick curing. The problem is to find the strength and stamina in yourself to keep working. I find that I am sanding hard for 20 minutes, resting for 20 minutes and so on.....

At a point you say it is good enough and wipe all the dust off, and pronounce it ready for the thin sealing coat of epoxy resin.

Completely off topic, here is a link to an interesting mashup between google and nautical maps. Pretty soon our smart phones will be all we need for sea navigation.

Fairing port side float deck and gunwales

2008-08-15T14:03:00.004-05:00

As with the starboard side float, the deck fairing on the port side float was a lot of work. Here are a few shots of the faired deck with a thin sealing coat of epoxy resin applied.

Next, I will be setting up for work on the hull sides. I hope they go easier and faster.

Fairing starboard side float deck and gunwales

2008-07-26T12:50:00.009-05:00

I've spent the last week fairing out the starboard side float deck and gunwales. My plan is to finish both port and starboard decks and then change out the supports for holding a float for access to the hulls and all that freeboard area on this design.

Step one was to apply beads of System Three quick fair across the deck. My fairing strategy is to sand these beads down with the flat long board (60 grit sandpaper) until the fiberglass on the hull is reached. The remaining high bead level indicates where and also the height to which fairing material has to be applied.

The above picture shows the beads sanded down. I was actually quite surprised at how much putty would be required to get the decks flat.

So I applied the fairing putty and filled the low areas. Sanding this first layer down did not yield a finished flat surface.
Here is the deck getting pretty close to finished. Still quite a bit of dust on the surface. I think I lost a couple of pounds this week working away on the long board.

A picture of the chain plates finally getting cleaned up and looking a bit more presentable.

Quick fair putty requires a sealing coat of epoxy. I plan to paint (2 part LPU) directly on this surface after some fine grit sanding. There will be no paint priming for the float decks. I hope the flatness of the deck will still be apparent when the non skid surface is applied.

This is how I will leave this float and do the same job on the port side.

Pictures of float interiors

2008-07-24T20:08:00.007-05:00

With the deck plates openings cut out, I was very interested to see how the float interiors look after the deck join. First impression: certainly looks like a home amateur build, but not bad for a first attempt. The floats seems strong and light enough on the inside and outside. I'm happy.

Starboard side float looking forward to the bow.

Port side float looking forward to the bow.

Starboard side float, looking forward from the hatch opening to the forward beam bulkhead.

Port side float looking forward from the hatch opening to the forward beam bulkhead.

Starboard side float looking back to aft beam bullhead.

Port side float looking back to aft beam bulkhead.

Fitting wingnet rails, hatches and deck plates

2008-07-19T07:07:00.005-05:00

I glued and taped the inner support parts for the wingnet rails.

They stand fine but in order to verify placement the cut outs for the deck plates and hatches have to be made.

Everything looks like they are in the right place. I was happy to note that simply clamping the rails in position have them standing at the correct height. The inner supports meet with the gunwale very nicely. It would appear however that I will have to provide more clearance for the side stays and lashings.

Next to fill in the deck cut out edges with putty and fair the deck before taping the rails on permanently.

Floats all glassed - ready for final fairing

2008-07-14T20:19:00.004-05:00

Both decks are now glassed and the transoms have their final layer of s-glass. It is time to think about the strategy for fairing the outer float hulls. Do I fair the hulls before the deck?, and when should I attach the wingnet rails?

Above are the deck hatches and plates with the cut wingnet rails lying roughly in place. Just for economy of effort I will fair, cut the holes for the deck plates and hatches and attach the wingnet rails before attacking the hulls. After all, both decks are accessible just the way they are. I do believe I can safely fair the hull sides with the wingnet rails in place. But, as the blind man said, "we shall see'.

Here are the float transoms, ready for final fairing. If you look closely you can see the tiny 2mm hole near the centre top of each transom drilled clear through for ventilation.

The garage also needs a real good cleanup.

Starboard side float deck laminated

2008-06-22T16:33:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I started laying out and cutting the cloth (2 layers of 8.9 oz) to cover one float deck. This time the cloth pieces are cut for the full length of the float and the cloth pieces for the extra reinforcements as required.

I decided to go for it and was able to finish the full deck in one go, all by myself. I was back in the house for a glass of wine (or two) by 7:00PM - well deserved.

Above are various shots of the resulting surface revealed today after stripping off the peel ply.

There are a few air bubbles this time I will have to deal with. But overall I am very happy to have one hull more or less fully glassed. One layer of cloth on the transom remains.

With the boys I made another rough weight estimate. (Two guys on bathroom scales minus there own weight. The float seems to weigh around 110lbs, just around the theoretical weight given by Ian Farrier. If this weight is accurate then I am very happy indeed. I was hoping that the 8.9 oz s-glass interior cloth and using two layers of 8.9 oz cloth exterior would save me some weight - and maybe it has.

Floats decks prepared for lamination

2008-06-15T12:14:00.004-05:00

Here is how my float transoms are looking. They are pretty much ready for the final layer of cloth.

The float decks have now been sanded and filled with light filler to ease the transition where the cloth from the hull lapped up on the deck.

The float bows look like this.

And finally here are the carbon fiber chainplates. If you look closely you can see the carbon fiber wraps showing on the outside.

Both float hulls now glassed

2008-06-01T10:57:00.010-05:00

It is a bit of a milestone to have both float hulls glassed. I can now present them upright in the garage and work on the float decks.

Here are pictures of the two float hulls out of the garage. It is interesting to see the various colours of the light fillers that I have been using.

The hulls look a little rough around the keel where the last lamination finished. The hulls are as is, no cleanup, but with all the peel ply removed.

Just to review the materials used.
Fiberglass cloth: 2 layers of the following cloth from BGF Industries

Style:	7781
Finish:	497A
Weave Pattern:	8 HS
Yarn Description:
Warp:	ECDE 75 1/0
Fill:	ECDE 75 1/0
Count: Ends X Picks (in)	57 X 54
Weight:	8.71 oz / yd²
Breaking Strength: (lb / in)
Warp:	242 lb / in
Fill:	231 lb / in
Thickness:	0.0089 in

The strategy with this cloth was two-fold. First, the fine 8HS weave is very drapeable with little crimp, resulting in better strength than a plain weave cloth.

Secondly, applying 2 layers at the same time hopefully optimizes the glass to resin ratio. The purpose of the epoxy resin is to communicate stresses from one fiber to the next. This cloth with ~55 strands of fiberglass per inch has very little space when laid up, to be filled with resin.

Applying the peel ply and plastic has resulted in a very good quality lamination. The cloth is very firmly attached to the foam and the weight seems to be optimized. The 'high contact angle' air bubbles have not been observed anywhere. They seem to be a thing of the past and the quality of the laminations have really improved from the 'early learning escapades' on the float interior to the outside hull.

Epoxy Resin: PTM&W MVS-420 resin MVS-468 hardener.
This resin gives the working time I need 2-2.5 hours but then cures at a rate I like. If I work through the afternoon on a part I can expect to be able to rip off the peel ply early the next day. The Aeropoxy resin would take days.

Mast step parts welded

2008-05-17T14:50:00.007-05:00

All the 6061 T6 aluminum and 316 stainless steel parts are now welded. Many thanks goes to Dusan (the welding artist),Vlad (the facilitator), Mike (the good guy) and Les (the extraordinary machinist) for this effort.

Late note: (May 25th) If any builder is having trouble locating a source for the 1" diameter 316 stainless steel ball, I found an ebay store ToolSupply . The ball bearing ships anywhere by mail and is actually a couple of dollars cheaper than McMaster-Carr who declined to process my order.

It weighs about 3 lbs and I am very happy how it turned out.

Now to get it coated and perhaps build a main hull to mount it on.

Other recent news: my 26" Northstar 600 is now listed for sale. Here is the link.

A couple of links

2008-05-11T22:16:00.003-05:00

Just wanted to upload a couple of links
1) A hydrofoil dinghy - enough said
2) Oliver Dom's F22 with sails up on an $800 dollar mast!
That's all

Mast step parts

2008-05-08T18:37:00.003-05:00

As a favour to me, a friend from my previous workplace machined the mast step parts on his own time for me. At this price :) I could not turn this offer down, and as it happens they turned out very good indeed. It shows that CNC cutting is not necessary to make any of these parts. A decent quality mill with encoder feedback is all that is needed. I recommend that other builders print out the fabricated parts drawings with no scaling on the printer so that the part shape is actual. This will help the machinist and yourself verify the part contours are correct.

I am somewhat saddened that I could not make a batch of parts as I had offered earlier to the builder's group. Maybe Ian Farrier could be persuaded to make these parts in a batch as he is making the folding system kit. His new online store looks very professional and he is promising to expand his offering for the F22.

Below are a couple of pictures showing the parts laid out and some actually standing more or less in place. It is an intriguing mast step design.

Next step is to get the parts welded together.

Spring activitiy begins - start the push to finish float laminations.

2008-05-05T11:55:00.004-05:00

It has been a very busy and stressful spring up to this point and it has been bothering me that I have not updated this blog for about half a month. A couple of things have happened
1) I resigned from my old company and I have just accepted a position in a new one. Sometimes you just have to make a change, however, I'm not the kind of person who makes this kind of change easily. The new job looks amazing and is a very good fit for me.
2) I've listed our Northstar 600 sloop for sale. We have spent the last few weekends cleaning and making sure she presents herself well. A few pictures of 'Gwaihir' can be seen here.

But back to F22 boat building.

I have the outside laminations complete on one float except for the deck and the transom. My plan is get the other float to the same point so that I can work on the decks with the floats side by side. Below are a couple of pictures of the float getting some extra heat into the resin on a sunny day. Using two people and two bathroom scales the float looks to weigh around 106lbs at this point. Still have the deck and transom to go.

Next the flying float gets lowered into the supports for lamination and the other one gets itself strapped up high.

Better results on the bulkheads

2008-04-17T19:47:00.003-05:00

Well, in my last post I thought there might be an issue with the Divinycell foam. This was certainly not the case, and I think I was hasty in publishing that post. As Tor commented, my problems were certainly caused by something else. I may never be sure.

Things are going much better now. After work today I cut the glass, the peel ply, the plastic sheet, measured and mixed the epoxy and completed the above lamination for the standard cabin bulkhead in 1 hour. I could never do that vacuum bagging.

Starting lamination of main hull bulkheads - a problem with using plastic over the peel ply

2008-04-13T09:17:00.003-05:00

It has been hard to find time lately to work on boat parts. Same old story, too much time at the day job. That said, the little boat building demon in me will not let things stop totally. I started a test part ( the small middle forward bunk bulkhead) with the plan to do one side at a time going for a hand lay up, using peel ply and the plastic so that I could squeegee the air and excess resin out. To my surprise I found out that using the plastic on one side of a foam piece will not create the vacuum that I have seen elsewhere on the outer float hulls. After I would compress the foam, air would reappear underneath the plastic sheet. I can only deduce that the Divinycell foam that I am using is not totally closed cell in construction. I will be running out of Divinycell sheets at some point fairly soon. I think that I will make the main hull out of Corecell, especially if the foam turns out to properly closed, in other words, one side of the foam air isolated from the other.

So, for the moment I am just using peel ply as I can knock them off pretty quickly, laminating one side at a time. The epoxy weight to cloth weight ratio is alittle over 1 on the first part (ie epoxy weight/cloth weight) but I can live with that. I could go back to vacuum bagging the flat parts but it will require a setup of a larger table and I can't seem to find the time.

There are other techniques I can try. No doubt by the time I have all the bulkheads done it will be quite optimized. I can see why that after building the first boat some people just have to build another. All these skills that have been mastered and optimized for ones own personality, just have to be put to some use!

Main hull bulkhead outlines transferred to the foam

2008-04-06T18:13:00.005-05:00

It is not very exciting work, but transferring the full size plan outlines to the foam is challenging in its own way. The many bulkheads parts have to located in the sheets, then they have to be correctly aligned and taped together. I've used 8"x11" size sheets of carbon paper, this means that on some of the larger bulkheads there are 'many' carbon sheets to keep underneath the lines that you want to transfer. Not a difficult job, but tedious.

Here is a picture of one of the sheets of foam with the bulkhead shapes ready cutting out and laminating. You can see that I go over the carbon trace with a permanent marker.

I'm thinking about doing these panels differently from the float bulkheads. Back then I cut the parts to the exact size and proceeded with the two sided vacuum bagging technique. This time I may cut the parts with about an inch or so of extra material around the perimeter. Then after lamination cut them down to the exact size. I'm also thinking that since my 'hand lay ups' with peel ply and plastic is getting so good I just may carry on with this technique on these panels.

Starting the main hull bulkheads -

2008-03-31T21:19:00.003-05:00

Well, it finally had to happen. I've decided to start work on the main hull bulkhead flat panels and I realize that I finally have to commit to a cabin type. Even tough I was toying with the idea of the small cuddy cabin to keep things simple and true to the R specification, I just have to build the standard cabin with the aft cockpit.
It will be a relief to work on straight forward flat parts in the basement and as spring starts to appear, work on finishing the float outer hull laminations in the garage.

Daggerboard through the case

2008-03-29T13:59:00.012-05:00

I used the jigsaw, dremmel tools, files and sandpaper but I finally have the profile opening complete in the daggerboard case bottom. It was a little unnerving cutting out most of that poured plug in the case bottom and of course I cut the initial profile small, leaving a fitting iteration that took longer than I thought it would. But in the end all is well.

The board pulls all the way through easily. The scars of the fitting process can be seen on the board carbon fiber.

The leading edge might still be a bit tight and I did open up the profile too much toward the trailing edge. But overall I am happy. When pulled out the board gives a nice thunk as it bottoms.

Here is a short video of the board getting pulled out through the case.

Daggerboard outer sheathing

2008-03-22T17:11:00.005-05:00

To get the board to the correct thickness it was first necessary to sand away some of the light weight filler and some of the first layer of the bi-directional carbon fiber covering. this time I made sure I worked the board until there was ~2.5mm of clearance. Luckily very little of the uni-directional fiber had to be removed but the filler that provided the 'perfect profile' had to be slightly flattened. I tried to compensate by removing some of the bi-directional cloth...but it is not as good as it was. Below is the simple check I used to verify the thickness of the board.

I laminated each side with 2 layers of the 6oz carbon cloth, some areas will have more carbon than the specified two layers. Luckily, there was just enough cloth left to complete the board.

This time I changed my sheathing strategy and did one side at a time, similar to how I am covering the outer float hulls. The big advantage compared to wrapping right around the board is that I was just able to cover the length of the board with one continuous piece of cloth.

I also changed my laminating approach, this time I did not vacuum bag the part. I felt more comfortable using peel ply and plastic, as shown above. The quality I am getting seems equivalent to my vacuum bagging results and it is a far easier production for me. Less materials are used and less planning is required.

One side finished you can see how I laid out the board on the bolt of cloth. The white line on the daggerboard are bits of peel ply that decided to stick with the carbon. I should have cut off the ragged end on the peel ply. It's where where the two pieces peel ply overlapped.

The daggerboard is now fully covered, ready for some final fairing and thankfully, it now fits easy in the case.

Next I need to cut the slot out in the daggerboard case bottom.

March break vacation

2008-03-08T00:27:00.002-05:00

The annual week vacation on March break begins. This year we go west, not south, to see the other ocean and friends and family.

Update March 17th
Back from the vacation. Vancouver Island truly has the climate and welcoming atmosphere for me to consider it a place for me to live with the higher quality of life I desire.

Now, back to the boat build.

Daggerboard re-evaluated

2008-03-02T18:07:00.003-05:00

Fellow F22 boat builders,
Please make sure that when you start making your daggerboard that you start with a foam thickness of 45mm not 51mm (2 in). Please read the plan's cautions carefully. I made a mistake somewhere there when I started the daggerboard build. Now to get the daggerboard to fit in the case I find myself sanding away my first sheathing lamination and worse still some of the carbon uni-fiber.

I might have to make another, I feel like ...................

March 3rd
Also remember that the section profiles on the full sized plans are for finished boards, sheathed and painted.

I currently have the board with almost 2mm clearance from the case width. I'm not sure how much two layers of 6 oz carbon fiber and paint will add to the board thickness. If anyone has a comment on this I would appreciate it.

Beam Mounts arrive

2008-02-27T21:19:00.005-05:00

The beam mounts were delivered yesterday to our door. No one was home , and today we picked up the box at the post office. Actually, Monica accepted the task, as she is home earlier, and I was somewhat concerned that the box might have been too heavy for her to handle easily. No issue, as it turns out the box seemed very lightweight for her. There was however, for this Canuck, duty and taxes to pay the government, before taking possession.

The box just opened up looks like this.

After a quick inspection of the parts, I can comment that I am very impressed with the beam mounts' light weight and quality. The water jet cutting really works over areas that have two separated surfaces that make a very deep kerf. I think Ian Farrier made a huge effort to get the design right not only for the beams, but also for shipping.

Having the parts in hand, I can finally say that the instructions for adding the aft side bolt areas makes some sense.

Where am I

2008-02-24T08:01:00.003-05:00

Every now and then I add an entry that has nothing to do with the boat build.

This time I would like to share a picture from my neighbourhood along the north shore of Lake Ontario Canada. This is one of our favourite dog walks available from our house. The dogs can run free. Yes it is winter in Canada. Of course Lake Ontario has some great fresh water sailing and will probably be the most used body of water for my F22.

I also noticed that it is possible to copy HTML code to get a live link of a satellite image of the area from google maps. I probably will not keep this up for long but I thought it was pretty cool. I'm curious if some of the other builders are interested in sharing their neighbourhood location. Countries are big, neighbourhood communities are much smaller. Small is beautiful.

Pouring the daggerboard keel insert

2008-02-23T09:02:00.003-05:00

I estimated the volume of epoxy required to cover the keel insert area and cut up as fine as I could some of my s-glass cloth to mix in with the resin to add some reinforcement. I can make the following observations from the pour.

The s-glass fibers tended to clump a bit in the mixture, (should have been a warning sign) and when deposited at the bottom of the case, it did not flow very well. So with this observation and the process begun, I used a flashlight and peering down the case I deposited the mixture in a fashion akin to bombing raid over the length of the keel insert area. It's quite possible I did not chop the fibers enough or I added too much. If I could do it again I might just use cabosil and make sure the mixture was thin enough to flow properly.

It's cured now and I've checked the height of the pour. Best way I could think of is to use a tape measure making measurements relative from outside to inside down the length of the daggerboard case. It looks like the height varies from 20 to at one point just approaching 30 mm. I think the 30 mm high areas will be cut out with the 'A' section daggerboard profile, so I think I am OK. But I'm imagining getting in there with a dremel tool if need be.

Joining the daggerboard case

2008-02-18T16:09:00.013-05:00

I adhesively sealed the machine screws into place (making them studs) and then smeared some high quality silicon over the S.S pan heads. I didn't think it could hurt the cause of anti-corrosion. The bare fiberglass cut edge will be sealed as I join the daggerboard halves with epoxy resin and later with paint. A last look before it is on the inside forever. Starboard side of the case and all ready for laminating the forward edge. Here is a picture of the aft side edge all laminated and with plastic over the peel ply. I generally work the fiberglass and epoxy resin through the plastic till the epoxy has set to the point where the plastic starts to tear from my 'gentle' ministrations with the squeegee.

Joined, the case weighs somewhere between 19-20 lbs. I think it turned out Ok considering the poor vacuum I was achieving in its construction.

Here is the case free standing with the boys and our young Australian shepherd Cali who just has to be part of everything. Not really standing headroom in this boat! It is interesting though how the boat parts move around in the house.

Fabricated parts drawings

2008-02-16T10:27:00.003-05:00

I have finally got around to getting the drawings out for a local quote for the fabricated parts. The quote has gone out to the machine shop manager here. I have separated the drawings into two major assemblies. One for the beams that Ian Farrier has indicated that Precourt can make for $1240 USD (this looks very reasonable) and one set for the mast step. There are other parts for the mast which cannot be made yet. I have asked for pricing on 1 set and 5 sets. The greater the number of parts you can make on one set up the cheaper the price. I'm sure the Precourt price is based on having 5 sets or more to make at a time. I'm not sure if I will be able to do better than that. I am hoping I can get some other builders to in with me for that very funky and exciting mast step design. I'll have to order that S.S. ball soon.

Update Monday Feb. 18th: The shop came back with the comment that they cannot compete with the price as quoted by Ian Farrier and Precourt for the beam assembly parts, and have declined to quote.

Test fit of daggerboard cheek block

2008-02-14T22:30:00.003-05:00

The test fit of the cheek block has been achieved without major issues. The thickness of the wall was quite sufficient for tapping the S.S. machine screws. The screws tighten up to create mounting studs very nicely. The acorn nuts make for a nice scratch free finish. I will replace the 3 nylocks used temporarily on the cheek block with lock washers and acorn nuts for final assembly. You cannot see them but nylon washers are used everywhere to isolate the S.S washers and nuts from the Al plate.

On the inside I built up the cheek block with a piece of starboard plastic that I have used previously in my updating of my Northstar 26 sloop. Even though my boat will most likely sail freshwater I want to reduce any chance of galvanic corrosion and separate any contact between Al and S.S with something inert.

Everything looks to be at an acceptable position. The sheave and pan head fasteners will not interfere with the daggerboard.

Painting the inner side of the daggerboard case

2008-02-10T15:49:00.000-05:00

Once the daggerboard case is joined I will not have any chance to repair or re coat, so I have decided to err on the side of caution and have given the inner surfaces a few coats of the InterProtect waterproofing primer. I am not sure if this is necessary as epoxy resin is itself quite waterproof.
Here I am brushing the second coat on. This primer is full of nasties and really does require the use of a proper organic vapour mask. Not only that, I had to open the basement windows wide for ventilation and send the family and dogs out to visit with the mother in law.

Here they are after the first coat of the graphite epoxy mixture. I used ~ 25% graphite and 5% cabosil by volume to the Mas epoxy. A foam roller seemed to work just fine for application. Right now I'm thinking of 3 coats. I'm curious to see how durable this finish is. I have never used this technique before.

A perfect GPS compass and speedometer for the F22

2008-02-07T08:47:00.000-05:00

I was just browsing one of my local marine shops here and found perfect GPS compass and speedometer for the F22. The Velocitek SC1.

I can only imagine where the technology will be by the time I have the boat finished, in the water and ready to use a wonderful toy like this.

F22 community

2008-02-06T21:23:00.000-05:00

The F22 boat build for me has been a long term process of learning new skills using new tools and materials. It has been an opportunity for making decisions on the choice of materials to get the best result on the basis of cost, benefit and budget. The build has offered both moments of reward and extreme disappointment. It has stimulated a discipline of work habits and standards to ensure the best quality. The boat build has become a practice where I have come to know myself better.

One thing for sure, the number of F22 builders willing to expose and share their experiences on their web sites has helped create an international community of people, that in the sharing, has made the long march easier to bear. This sharing has given others the confidence to undertake their own build. This is all good for Ian Farrier's F22 design.

Port side daggerboard case laminated

2008-02-03T09:45:00.001-05:00

The system would only pump down to -15 in. of Hg.

...but it looks OK. There is a very clean looking rope channel. You can't really see the e-glass uni-directional but it is all there along with the high density inserts and the multiple layers of 8.9 oz cloth. On the starboard side I completed last April I used Areopoxy resin but both sides have identical weights and types of fiberglass. So I should be OK. I waiting for it to cure some more before I 'pry' it off the case.

One error I made on the starboard side was to put a 45 degree shape along the keel and deck trim lines. Not this time, I put the 45 degree shape on the foam (which is only there to aid in the fiberglass lay up) past these trim lines so that they can be trimmed square. If you look closely at the plans you can see this. When I do fit the case I suppose there will be a larger putty fillet on the starboard side.

I'm glad the major laminating for this part is done.

As I mentioned earlier I'm thinking of using a graphite/epoxy coating on the above water bearing surfaces. Below the waterline I am thinking about using Interlux VC performance epoxy, not only in the case but everywhere on the boat. It is meant for performance boats that are trailered, and has no anti-fouling properties. It also incorporates some Teflon to make the surface slippery and easier to wet sand. If anyone has any strong opinions on this I'd like to hear from you. I have no experience with it but I do know it has been used on J-24's.

Since Raven will live on a trailer I will not have any use for anti-fouling paint. I speak from experience when I say I hate anti-fouling paint. A very large part of my decision to build the F-22 was to get rid of marina fees and have a boat I could take anywhere and 'enjoy' ramp launching.

Update:
The port side came out of the mold fairly easy this time. I think the extra coats of wax over top the plastic tape really does help.

Here are the two halves ready for trimming, painting and joining.

I am impressed with the resultant sharpness of the rope channel.

Test vacuum pull on the daggerboard case mold

2008-01-31T19:21:00.000-05:00

Notes to myself on this test pull

Could not achieve a vacuum with the plastic tacked to the table. This could be because I have joined two pieces of table top to achieve the length required.
Putting the mold in a bag works much better. It is easier to arrange the plastic as it is pumping down, so that there is no bridging, i.e. less pleats. I used an extra piece of plastic underneath the mold for protection around sharp corners etc.
The vacuum pump works much harder with this mold; possibly the wood in the mold is degassing.
I've been getting away with the Home Depot plastic sheet, I don't see the need for buying more expensive bagging materials.
Hats off to the guys doing resin infusion, achieving a vacuum is tough enough for me, thinking about how the resin will flow... is too much for me. I just want this one part done and move on.

Cheek block assembly for the daggerboard case

2008-01-30T15:52:00.000-05:00

Long days at work and a flu bug have slowed me down somewhat. I was all prepared for the port side daggerboard case lamination and bagging but found that I was short on peel ply and epoxy resin. So another visit to Noah's, which is literally a 5 minute drive from my workplace.

I had started using MAS epoxy resin on the outer float laminations because it has excellent moisture resistance and it was on sale. I've been getting good results so I'm still using it on the daggerboard and case. I also picked up some graphite powder for coating the inner case surfaces.

I also have the first bits of real hardware for my Raven. The cheek block and the anodized Al 6061 T6 mounting plate.

Daggerboard case coating and new boat logo

2008-01-25T12:35:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Eric who has sent me a pdf of a completely different concept for the boat logo. I think it is starting to get close but may need some tweaks yet. I like the subtle use of the Farrier boat insignia (I will approach Ian for permission if I end up using this) and the abstract artistic indication of the trimaran floats. Thank you Eric.

Back to the daggerboard case work. I have the HD inserts and the foam pieces cut out and glued together. I've also realized that I will be coating the inside sections of the case halves soon. Roger has used a graphite/epoxy mixture for this coating and I like this decision. The daggerboard will to some extent bear on the case and this kind of coating seems best. I'm also thinking to coat before I actually trim the part sides to the final dimension, as I expect this coating may end up with a significant thickness.

Port side daggerboard case mold

2008-01-22T22:16:00.001-05:00

I have put the daggerboard case mold together in the port side configuration. Now I just have to get the foam, HD inserts, and cloth cut and then I can vacuum bag this part. I've also got the plate made for the cheek block assembly machined - just have to get it anodized. I'm lucky in that we send out many batches of Al parts for anodizing at my workplace. One more small part in a batch costs nothing more.

Time is getting to be a rare commodity, but I do try to get something done every evening.

Ian Farrier has retired from making further comments on the yahoo F-boat forum so that he can concentrate on the F22 manufacturing activities . I had a mad thought to invite him to the F22 builders group.

Wingnet rails part 3

2008-01-19T17:13:00.000-05:00

The second 9' 2" wingnet rail part is out of the mold. With this done I will be putting my attention back to the daggerboard and finishing off the daggerboard case. Last winter I only finished 1/2 of the part. I want to see my daggerboard moving up and down in a joined case.

I am also looking at the fab. parts and will be getting quotes for 1,5,10 sets of parts to see if there is a price advantage to a bulk purchase. I am finding the drawings require some study before I approach any machine shop. They will ask questions, and these drawings are a bit different from what they would normally see. So, I am putting together a spreadsheet of the separate parts in each assembly. It is helping me understand the various assemblies, particularly the mast step and beam assemblies.

F-22 Construction books now complete

2008-01-16T22:47:00.000-05:00

Our Canadian snail mail finally moved and I received my copy of Plan Book 2 today. I had already seen many of the drawings in pdf format but the new information is very welcome indeed. It looks like I will be adding some more high density inserts into the float decks and I am relieved to see some more detail on the wingnet rail attachment to the beams and the main sail traveler. With Ian's email of the fabrication part drawings the design information is pretty much complete.

In my day job we design and build machine assembly and test equipment. I have access to good machine shops and fabricators. If other builders are interested in a bulk order for these machined parts they should contact me. Most of the cost of machining is in the number of set ups. So increasing the number of parts per setup can really result in savings and more than pay for the cost of shipping.

Wingnet rails and support part 2

2008-01-14T19:02:00.000-05:00

The support part for the wingnet rail turned out very nice. It will be cut into the four 3in wide pieces at a later date. The edges will also have to be trimmed. This will wait until I am fitting them on the float decks. I was surprised at how strong the part appears after two days of epoxy hardening. I suspect 7 layers of s-glass might be over-kill. Looking at how much cloth the rail will be using I decided to use 6 layers of s-glass laminate on the wingnet mold.

I cut the cloth and the 6 pieces weighed in at ~58oz. I have to say that there was about 4 hours of hard work hand laying up the cloth on the mold. One good thing about the aeropoxy resin with the 2 hour hardener is that you really have a long, long time to work on the cloth. I needed every bit of this time for this large part. This resin has an amber colour so it is interesting for me to see this resin with the fiberglass only, no foam underneath.

Two days later the part is hardened enough to remove it from the mold. The untrimmed part weighs in at 108 oz. So it looks like I have a decent epoxy to fiberglass ratio. Bordering on a rave I cannot say how much the extra plastic over the peel ply helps. The plastic allows you to get out the air, pull out the extra resin very effectively and after all this I'm sure the 6 layers of cloth are very tightly packed together. This time I used some vacuum bag plastic on top of the outer peel ply layer. It works even better as it does not stretch like the cheap home depot plastic.

Now I just have to make another one.

Wingnet rails and support

2008-01-10T17:54:00.000-05:00

Work is still proceeding on the preparation of the daggerboard for the final carbon cloth sheathing. The filling in and fairing out on top of the uni carbon fiber is going well. The board is incredibly stiff and I have this idea to get a picture of the board cantilevered horizontal out from the top while I'm standing on the tip. Hmm, as the blind man said, 'we will see'.

I've had the wood cut for the wingnet rail and support molds since the Christmas break. So I've taken some time to glue and screw it all together and get this work underway.

Above you can see the support mold compared to the full sized plan drawing. Jay, if you read this, I only changed your angles slightly. It looks close enough to me.

Above is the 7 layers of 8.9 oz s-glass laid up against the mold. Why 7 layers? Well the specification calls for 4 layers of A - spec.18oz laminate. Four layers totals 4X18=72. S-glass fiber is allowed a 15% reduction. So I require 61 oz total of s-glass laminate. To get the required number of layers, 61/8.9 = 6.9 or 7 layers. I'll be using Aeropoxy resin for these parts, as I consider them more structural and not below the waterline. As a side note I considered using carbon cloth offcuts from the daggerboard but after thinking about it, I did not want to make them that stiff.

I have not bothered with vacuum bagging this part. The cloth is very drapeable and with the use of peel ply and plastic I am quite confident in the quality of the part that I can get.

Here is the 9 foot plus mold for the wingnet rail and taped up, waxed and ready. It's all set to go as soon as cut the required cloth, peel ply and plastic.

'Doing the Uni' on the daggerboard

2008-01-01T18:50:00.000-05:00

Happy new year! Now back to work.

I could only locally source 9oz uni-directional carbon fiber, which I verified is not close enough to the required specification of 12-13 oz weight. So instead of the seven layers described in detail in the plan book I decided to lay down 10 layers using the following strategy.

lengths of unidirectional tape starting at top (in mm)
1750
1689
1600

Then going down every 34 mm
1400
1265
1130
995
860
725
600

I think this preserves the distribution of the carbon as the designer intended.

Here is a picture showing the 10 pieces of carbon uni laid out in the board rebate.

Whetted out and under peel ply and plastic.

Peel ply and plastic removed. The board weighs about 10 lbs with the uni-directional fiber in place on one side. It looks like a finished carbon F-22R daggerboard will weigh ~ 15 lbs or less. The board still looks very rough. I promise it will look better. You can see one error in the above picture, I made the mistake of rebating too deep in the lower part of the board. It means more Quick Fair putty and more weight.
One can always improve... one learns through one's mistakes ...etc etc.

Vacuum bagging the first lamination on the daggerboard.

2007-12-30T15:55:00.000-05:00

Cutting the 6oz carbon cloth and fitting it on the daggerboard. My plan was to hold the board at one end and laminate it down from the leading edge to the trailing edge.

I was not very happy with my hand lay up of the cloth. The cloth stretches very easy. However in the end we get it all in the vacuum bag. I cannot imagine getting good adhesion on a part like this without the use of vacuum.

Vacuum pump circuit with vacuum switch

Here is the daggerboard straight out of the bag with the excess cloth very roughly cut away and presented to the family on the living room floor. Not a perfect job but I can work with it. It is now on to the uni-directional carbon fiber.

At this point the daggerboard weighs in at ~ 8-9 lbs.

More daggerboard fairing and preparation for sheathing

2007-12-29T12:22:00.001-05:00

I found the templates traced and cut out from the full sized plans to be very useful. I used hardboard from one of the boy's old school projects. Above you can see that I could actually get them to all stand up on their own. At this point I was getting close to final shape.
On each side of the trailing edge I cut the foam down to the fiberglass cloth that I had laid down when gluing the two foam pieces together. I then filled up the edge with fairing putty. Same process for the other side. I thought that this worked out very well.

The rotary tool showing at the top of the picture allows me to make rebates far easier. Santa was good to me this year. The above rebate is for the carbon cloth. My 50" wide cloth will not allow covering in one piece with the fibers at +- 45 degrees. You can also see the putty on the trailing edge, the larger rebate for the uni fiber and the core still showing, wrapped with the carbon fiber.

Daggerboard fairing begins

2007-12-20T21:14:00.001-05:00

I had to think about how to position the wrapped core and keep it properly centered in the foam block. I was struggling with this and then suddenly it occurred to me that I could re-use the scrap piece of foam that I had cut off to taper the core cut out to the correct thickness. This was a scrap piece and I had to recover it from the garbage heap.. My thought was that the piece could be used as a spacer to locate the laminated core in the centre of the foam block. There would be no need to create any new spacer or other method.

You can see how much foam is actually cut off one side the core to reduce the core thickness, below. Remember that the daggerboard sections get thinner the farther you go down, and this is just one side.

Below you can see the core correctly located within the 2 inch thick foam block.

I used some polyurethane glue to lock the core into place and proceeded to machine the 4" wide rebate down the length of the core insert. I ended up using my Dremel tool with a router bit to cut the rebate. I used the inserted core as a guide to determine the correct depth of the rebate. I have since asked Santa for the proper tool.

Then the fairing begins. From the coarse we go to the fine. The initial fairing actually goes very quick. You can see above the templates of sections A-F lying on the work table. They are invaluable. With my experience of shaping the float bow caps I expect the fine touches to be interesting.

Daggerboard core lamination

2007-12-17T21:29:00.001-05:00

I am continuing to learn that much of boat building, it seems, is in the preparation of an operation. Like a doctor one must surgically prepare the 6oz. twill carbon cloth at +-45 degrees, cut the peel ply and plastic, put on the blue gloves and mix the epoxy.

Above you can see the core foam with the high density insert in the centre.

I am not a fan of wrapping fiberglass around objects. This time I decided to use the plastic over the peel ply so that I could wrap the laminate tightly with packing tape.

Note the taper in the lower foam piece. I had to carefully reduce the thickness of the pieces to a) allow for the rebate for the uni carbon fiber and b) to accommodate the reduced thickness of the daggerboard sections as you go down.

The operation went well and here are the 3 sections of the core. I'm debating whether I need to join them before inserting them into the foam. Peeling the ply was quite difficult and next time I will make sure some ply does not get saturated, to give a reasonable location to start peeling without having to dig.
Here are the inserts back in the foam block. Next step is to glue/bond them into place, cut a rough perimeter and start the fairing.

Parts from McMaster-Carr

2007-12-15T20:01:00.000-05:00

I have sourced the following parts from McMaster-Carr
Still have to do a double check on the parts and the quantities include spares.

Bow web bushing for bow pole Qnty 2

6365K321
No-Lube Fiberglass Sleeve Bearing for 1/2" Shaft Diameter, 5/8" OD, 1" Length
In stock at $5.29 Each

Bow pole bushing Qnty 4

57785K109
UHMW Bearing Flanged, for 1/2" Shaft Dia, 5/8" OD, 1/4" Length
In stock at $4.34 Each

Flanged bushings for Rudder pivot tube and gudgeon Qnty 7

2706T29
PTFE Flanged Sleeve Bearing for 1/2" Shaft Dia, 5/8" OD, 1" O'all Length
In stock at $5.21 Each (see below update)

Plastic end strip for Rudder case

8492K151
(Same as 8492K15)
Acetal Copolymer Sheet 1/2" Thick, 12" X 12", White
In stock at $34.10 Each

Nylon nuts, bolts and washers - rudder case

91244A628
Nylon Hex Head Cap Screw 3/8"-16 Thread, 1-1/2" Length
In stock at $6.67 per Pack
This product is sold in Packs of 25

94812A031
Off-White Nylon 6/6 Hex Nut 3/8"-16 Screw Size, 9/16" Width, 11/32" Height
In stock at $14.32 per Pack
This product is sold in Packs of 100

90295A170
Nylon 6/6 Flat Washer 3/8" Screw Size, .390" ID,.750" OD,.057"-.067" Thk
In stock at $6.81 per Pack
This product is sold in Packs of 100

Update
I've been reminded that the McMaster PTFE Flanged Sleeve Bearing is not equivalent to Ian Farrier's custom PETP bushing. PTFE is not strong enough for the rudder. I will not be ordering these. I can source raw stock PET-P locally from Johnston Industrial Plastics.

Starting to glue the high density inserts into place.

2007-12-09T21:27:00.001-05:00

I did my best to nest the required number of pieces. A1200 Core-Cell is not cheap!

I'm using the polyurethane glue to glue in the high density inserts. The foaming of this glue is quite amazing, it expands to fill in all the voids.

Daggerboard high density and core cut outs.

2007-12-08T15:35:00.001-05:00

I had to get a longer blade for the jigsaw but the areas for cutting out went very quick. On the left is the core piece that was cut out. I will reuse most of it except for the 16 in that need to be high density. Next step is to cut out all the pieces of high density material (I need to stack 5 layers of the 10mm thick a1200 high density foam) and fill up the holes that I have created.

The MDF on the left is soon to become the molds for the wingnet rails and supports.

I had a pleasant but short visit today from Jim and Doug MacKenzie who are building their F22 in London Ontario. They let me know that planking the main hull goes very fast. Comforting, if I can ever finish the floats and get to that point.

Daggerboard profile transferred to foam block

2007-12-07T00:08:00.001-05:00

I got to work on the living room floor tonight tracing the profile information that is available . I traced the information using carbon paper where possible and a long ruler for marking measured lengths where required.

Note that I first made a positioning error on the lower daggerboard profile.

The high density insert areas are marked out and I guess the next step is to cut them out.

Daggerboard construction starts with the construction of the basic foam block.

2007-12-05T20:51:00.000-05:00

It's too cold to work in the garage so I decided to build up the daggerboard from two layers of 25mm thick corecell A450 offcuts from Noahsmarine in the basement. The offcuts are in 46 in lengths so joining the foam sheets was the first task to complete. If you look closely below you can see that I use sharp little tooth picks to help keep the foam sheets in line while the polyurethane glue cures.

Once the foam sheets are together I've used an weak epoxy resin cabosil mixture to glue the two sheets together to get to the required 50 mm thickness for the daggerboard. You will note that I have laid down a sheet of 9 oz glass cloth down what will be the trailing edge of the board. This will be to provide extra strength in this thin section.

Then they are clamped together.

Next is the transfer of the daggerboard profile to the foam, and the areas that require high density inserts.

First float half lamination complete, hull re-oriented and quickly weighed

2007-12-02T16:53:00.000-05:00

The first float half outer hull sheathing is now complete.

And the float frames have been reversed and the float re-oriented for the next half.

We did a quick weigh with the two bathroom scales, with two people with and without holding the float. It looks like the float weighs about 90lbs with the other half and the deck still to be laminated. There is still a chance I can meet Ian's theoretical weight of 112lbs for a float ready for painting.

Laminate quality part 2

2007-11-26T20:11:00.000-05:00

Well I guess practice does make you better. I removed the peel ply tonight on section 2 for inspection and it is even better than the first section. The white peel ply and the plastic sheet really allow you to 'have at' all the problem areas. It is a combination of visibility and the freedom to work the whetted cloth without damaging it.

In terms of cloth to resin ratio I can report the following

Each layer of the 8.9 oz/sq yd cut to an area of 50" x 35" weighs about 12 oz. So with the two layers I am applying there is ~ 24 oz of cloth involved.
I mixed up about 29-30 oz of resin and there was a little left over, that I did not weigh. I am assuming I applied about 27-28 oz of resin onto the surface of the float foam and the cloth. I also suspect that with this wet technique there is alot of foam surface roughness that has to be filled up to get good adhesion.
I weighed the peel ply after removing it tonight and compared it to a similar unused sheet of the white peel ply. Unused the 3 oz peel ply weighs 4.95 oz. After peeling it with the epoxy saturating the material it weighed 7.25 oz. So there is about 2.25 oz of epoxy in the peel ply.

I can conclude that I am approaching a 1:1 resin to cloth ratio. Perhaps with vacuum bagging you can do better, but after looking at this latest result I am very very happy with what I am achieving.

It is really a huge thing for me. I was very concerned about my ability to produce a high quality outer hull laminate.

Laminate quality

2007-11-25T18:03:00.000-05:00

I'm posting a couple of pictures that show the surface features of the laminate. It is not easy to get the camera to focus at this distance. I'm interested in getting some comments on the quality of laminate that I am producing and the 'dry' or 'air bubble' features that I am seeing.

Above is a good area.

Do I need to repair an area like this? The glass is hard, well adhered to the foam and there is no obvious bubble dome. Comments?

Here is the next section with peel ply and plastic on the glass.
I've purchased some white peel ply and I have to admit I like it a lot better than than the black. Visibility as the peel ply goes transparent is obviously much better. I'm just doing one more 50" length section on the hull until I have a better handle on the technique.

Carbon fiber mast poll

2007-11-22T21:15:00.000-05:00

I've removed the poll as it was clear that there is definite interest in a group purchase of the 35' F22R carbon fiber mast. Ian Farrier has also made a comment on Nov. 10th in the yahoo F-boat forum regarding a group purchase of F22-R masts and a special Al extrusion specifically for the F22.

"If you don't need your F-22 mast immediately then I would advise holding off for a while. I will be getting to mast options soon, and with so many boats in the pipeline it may be possible to do a bulk buy on F-22R carbon masts for the benefit of all builders.

I will also be looking at designing and extruding a specific aluminum mast for the F-22, one that has the optimum properties and least amount of weight for that purpose. The numbers could be such that a container load of masts can then be shipped to major population areas keeping prices to a minimum.

I used to arrange mast group buys in Brisbane for the Trailertri series, and at that time was able to supply mast sections for around $150 each. Will not get even close to that now, but I think it will be possible to do a lot better than builders buying individually."

I for one will wait and see what he will come up with.

Starting float outside laminations

2007-11-18T12:57:00.001-05:00

It is time to start the propane heater if I am going to do any laminating in November.

The float has been sanded, filled,sanded, filled.........as much as I can. It is as prepared as I can make it.

I have decided to follow the following strategy for laminating the float exteriors.

Lay the first layer of the 8.9 oz 7781 cloth down. The bolt is 50 inches wide so I will be running a number of widths down the length of the hull. This allows the finished edges to run vertically up the hull.
I require to lay two layers of the cloth to make the specification of 16-18oz fiberglass weight. This gives me an opportunity to offset each layer 3" down the length of the hull and have only two layers of cloth everywhere. No need for rebates to compensate for extra layers of fiberglass.

Getting the two layers of cloth wetted out and lying smooth is always the hardest work. Here I have just laid out the second layer of style 7781 e-glass cloth.

After smoothing out the plastic on the peel ply I used masking tape to hold the edges of the plastic over the gunwale, keel and bow tight curves.

The temperature is about zero outside but on the plastic it looks like it is almost 15 degrees celcius. Warm enough for epoxy to cure.

Seven hours later the resin has cured sufficiently to relese the plastic. It just lifts off , no pulling or peeling, leaving a very smooth glossy peel ply and laminate. This technique certainly saturates the peel ply with excess resin.
I'll update when the peel ply comes off. I had planned to go farther down the hull in this work session. But as the fates have it I ran out of peel ply. So, if it looks as good with the peel ply off I'll be full speed ahead when I get more supplies.

Update:
Pictures with the peel ply off. Superb adhesion with no air bubbles causing the cloth to lift. There are still areas that are a bit dry. I am not expert enough to know if this is a problem.

Floats repositioned for hull lamination.

2007-11-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

I realized that the hulls should laminated before the decks so it was suddenly time to rearrange the floats in the garage. One float needs to hoisted up close to the garage ceiling and the other needs to be presented on its side. Like other builders I'm using form frames 5 and 9 to hold a float in this position.
To get the form frames into position one float had to take a break outside for an hour or so. Here is a shot of the float from above.
And from the side.
And with the new form frames in place, here is the new orientation.

This was also a good chance to give the garage a good sweep and clean up.

Further comments on the 'plastic on peel ply' technique

2007-11-10T07:53:00.000-05:00

I've covered the other bow cap now using this technique and I am noticing in some areas the plastic lifts during curing. The resulting laminate in these areas is dry. It is curious because I am sure I have the cloth and peel ply well saturated. I suspect these are areas where I have been too aggressive with pressure on the plastic. It is a powerful technique and overall I am extremely happy with the results. Wonderful adhesion with zero air bubbles. Just a few areas that I believe I can re wet out.

I am now moving on to the larger job of laminating the decks.

Results of plastic on peel ply

2007-11-08T22:37:00.001-05:00

Here is the bow cap with the plastic and peel ply off. The 2 layers of my B spec. 9 oz s-glass fiberglass cloth cannot really be seen. Only the little goatee at the keel bow curve indicates the presence of the cloth. I am actually very impressed. I will carry on with this technique. The addition of the plastic and the extra squeezing appears to really enhance the laminate quality.

The Mas epoxy seems to work OK. Curing time is shorter compared to the Aeropoxy resin and it is very clear. They advertise Mas as a good moisture barrier, which is why it is going on the outside. The Aeropoxy resin has amazing high temperature and mechanical properties which is why I have used it on the interior and structural parts of the floats.

I've been making extra efforts these days to do a little bit every day on the floats in the garage. So far a wee bit of heat from the infra red heaters is all I need. Last year I could work outside till Christmas time. I hope the weather this year is similar. I dearly want to get the outside of the floats laminated and start thinking about the main hull.

Plastic on Peel Ply

2007-11-07T19:38:00.001-05:00

Final check on the bow cap shape. The picture shows how tightly the final shape fit the template cut into plywood.

As far as the fairing and shaping goes it got to the point where I just said - enough! So I cut the cloth, peel ply and this time a 'heavy' plastic sheet from home depot.

A comment that Biol made on Jay's site led me to investigate a technique called 'poor mans vacuum bagging'. This really just consists of applying a plastic sheet over the peel ply and using the seal to push air bubbles and excess resin out of the area with a plastic squeegee. I started a discussion on this on the F22 builders group site.

Here is my first attempt. There is a shiny clear plastic sheet over the black peel ply. In application it was not such a revelation. The plastic sheet does help to hold the laminate to the foam. However, the application of the two layers of my b spec. s-glass cloth applied so smooth and bubble free that I am not sure if the plastic really is doing much. There was one area where I did note excess resin getting worked out.

I also complicated the experiment by using a different resin. Now that I am laminating the outside of these parts I used a resin that

Advertises good moisture resistance.
Was on sale at Noah's.

The epoxy is MAS low viscosity resin with the slow hardener.

First complaint. The resin and hardener are the same colour. It is not so easy to tell when it is fully mixed. If anyone has any comments or experience with this resin. Comment away please.

My work place has moved and it happens (life is strange) that I am now about a 3 minute drive to Noah's Toronto main warehouse. Very handy indeed for quick lunch break supply runs.

U-Spar estimate on the F22 carbon fiber mast

2007-11-07T14:46:00.000-05:00

I received a response from U-Spar at http://u-spar.com/ regarding my
inquiry for a carbon fiber mast for the F-22. They do not have a

section small enough for the F-22 although they would consider making
a mold for an order for 3 or more masts. They state that "Our masts

are made with alternating layers of uni-directional pre-preg,
typically with 65 - 75% of the fibres in the 0 axis, and the remainder
at + & - 45 deg. This combination gives by far the highest
longitudinal stiffiness to weight ratio, combined with high torsional
strength. Point-load areas, such as tangs, winch pads etc., and cut-
outs for halyard exits etc. are all substantially reinforced." But
they admit for a small mast they are probably not price competitive.
They estimate the price for a complete mast, including the rotator
cup, painted and ready to go, would be in the region of $8,750 Cdn,
with a 10% discount for 3 or more masts.

Full Monty on the bow shapes

2007-11-03T17:54:00.001-05:00

I'm sure I've related in earlier blogs that I have seen issues in the resulting bow sections after I joined the float halves. I addressed some of this as best I could earlier with light filler, as seen above, but it is time to pay the piper when your trying to get the bow caps shaped correctly. Root cause of the problem? I suspect there was an issue in how I laid up the foam in the frames and/or the halves twisted in storage outside.

So, how do I know I am shaping the cap correctly? Well first I used the two beam locating dowels to verify that the bow cap radius is dead ahead. Then I used a plumb bob to verify the position of the keel - bow radius. Then I used a straight edge to fair the bow cap to the shape of the float hull. This is where the use of filler comes in.

I ended up fairing the keel bow thickness down to something close to 3/8" thickness. This could be a bit sharp. At deck level the thickness at the bow is ~ 1 3/8".

Gunwales are close to finished. I found the use of the rigid long board helpful here. You can also see that my access hatches have arrived. I am actually pretty close to covering the bow caps, transoms and decks with the A spec. fiberglass. Yup, time to get the heaters out again.

Putty and cloth around the chain plates. I apply the cloth when the putty is still wet. Actually I saturate the cloth with the putty before applying it against the wet putty build. I'll clean it up when it's hard and cured.

Google group for F22 builders

2007-11-03T06:32:00.000-05:00

I've created a google group for F22 builders.

I want to get this blog back on focus as a personal build diary. The group site can be the place where questions and discussions amongst the builder community can take place.

I've made the core group of the F22 build bloggers managers of this site so that there should be no delays associated with approvals and other administrative activities. I'm listed as the owner (I am the creator - sorry a joke from work) but the site belongs to all of us. If it works for everyone - fantastic. If it doesn't, well, as a wise man once said, 'not every effort can be a cracker-jack'.

Interest in the carbon fiber mast

2007-10-30T19:24:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd be leaving the poll up for awhile before acting, but with the interest growing in the carbon mast -'me thinks'- I need to create the RFQ emails and send the mast assembly drawing out to Forte and U-Spar

I'm still spending 12 hours at work every day, so if someone else is eager to contact Forte for price and delivery information for a group purchase, please let me know. On the other hand, more requests from more people might get more attention.

Jim Buckland who is building in Australia has reported that the mast can ship in two pieces from Forte . See comments in the "More details on the Forte carbon fiber mast" blog entry. Very interesting.

Update:
Just read my email
Ed Walker is already in communication with Forte and reports an estimated cost of $6383 with all the goodies except the mast step. Shipping costs is not an issue for Ed with Forte.
Roger Bonnot is also in communication with Forte and has reported the same price without shipping and mast step.

It's all good, although I'm not sure how to share the information in my fellow builders emails to me. It would help if the blog comments were more actively used. I know they are awkward in blogger and I hate the comments 'rigor mortise' more than anyone. But, does anyone have any ideas how to more effectively share information on questions like this? Use the public Farrier forum? - ... yuk!

I like the way we are starting to organize independently.

One thing for sure, all this bodes well for a healthy evolving F22 community.

Carbon fiber mast poll

2007-10-28T06:42:00.000-05:00

I'm still sanding and filling the deck, bow and stern areas on both of the floats. I'm also noticing that the light filler is taking longer to cure with the lower temperatures. But I am getting close and soon I should have another picture or two to publish.

In the meantime I have added a poll in the right side column. I am willing to search out the best supplier and organize a group purchase for the F22R carbon fiber mast assembly. Is there interest? Certainly there should be a discount for quantity and I am prepared to purchase the mast sooner than I need it if the price and quality is right.

Feast or Famine

2007-10-26T18:15:00.000-05:00

Well, I've seen other F22 bloggers lament the time spent on their day job. Guess it is my turn. Hard to get work done on the boat when you're spending 12 hrs a day away from the house. It always seems to be this way, feast or famine, for a small engineering automation company. Tomorrow I get to say hello to the floats and finish off the bow cap shapes and gunwale sanding.
Hooray!

More details on the Forte carbon fiber mast

2007-10-18T21:04:00.000-05:00

Here is the wing mast section identified on the Forte site for Ian Farrier designs up to 31' in length, and good up to a mast height of 40'. It is ~1.3lbs/ft and is listed at $92USD per foot. Another $8/ft for sail track.

I'm not sure yet if $3500 is a good value for a carbon mast. It's still early in my investigation. Any comments from anyone?

The builders of another boat design, the resurrection of Gary Mull's 'Pocket Rocket', the Rocket 22 has offered a testimonial for Forte spars. This is a good recommendation for their product.