Main hull form frames cut

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.