Port side float deck glued on

Another long day at work, but this evening after voting in our provincial election, I decided to make the effort to glue the port side float deck on. It is also cooler today, maybe only 12 degrees celcius tonight. I'll be leaving the straps on overnight this time.

I have noticed with a great deal of pleasure how much stiffer the whole starboard side hull is, now that the deck is in place.

I'm already thinking about getting the radius on the gunwales and getting the outer decks laminated. I have some 3" diameter ABS pipe and I will try to make a sanding board with curvature at a 1.5" radius.

Float decks all fitted - bonding begins

It took a little time to get these deck 'noodles' ready for gluing. They certainly handle like noodles. In the long dimension these structures have hardly any stiffness at all. You can see that I did make the correction and added the high density foam where indicated for the beam side bolts. In the above picture the decks are sunning themselves outside to get some extra heat into their resin..

As a final step in preparation for gluing I gave an extra coat of epoxy resin in the float interiors, especially along the keel and in the central storage areas.

Having the floats side by side gives me the opportunity to visually check their similarity. Here I am using a long level to compare the straightness of the two floats.


Convinced that everything is good enough I started mixing up the epoxy with cabosil and micro-balloons.
I was a little worried that I would run out of time doing this. It's Thanksgiving Monday here and it is a hot 30 degrees celcius. The epoxy will harden pretty darn quick even with the slow cure hardener. Another bad thought, my family had left me alone to this work this afternoon, leaving me to ponder how to get the deck 'noodle' on without making a terrible mess. It worked out somehow, phew!, and the deck slipped into place over the dowels and the side stay chain plate.


It looks like eight straps are just barely enough to get a uniform clamping force along the full float length.

Late in the day update:



The straps are off and everything looks fine. We did a quick weigh with two people, two bathroom scales and it looks like the float now weighs around 75 lbs. I still have hope that my choice of the fine weave areospace fiberglass cloth will pay off with light hulls.

F-22R cuddy cabin with cowling

Ian Farrier sent out a major release of 21 new drawings yesterday. Just in time for our Canadian thanksgiving long weekend. I now have lots of winter work (work in the basement, as if I did not have enough).

• The long dagger board rudder drawings are now here.
  
• A very good design for a flush access hatch is even included.
• Most interesting are the sail plans for the two versions of F-22. The standard and racing rig plans are now here.
  

I'm sure that every builder finishing the floats is asking themselves which version of the main hull am I going to build? The F-22R rig with the 5 foot taller carbon fiber mast looks really, well really right.

It has made me consider building the simpler, faster small cuddy cabin version. I'll wait to see how heavy my floats end up.

I have added the small line drawing profile of the F-22R with the cuddy cabin and tall rig as it now seems to be my favorite.

Oops! just caught a mistake - keep your drawings updated Grant!

Ian Farrier sent out an updated Appendix B drawing (dated June 20th 2007) which I just just realized was not in the updated printed drawing package that he distributed. It means my high density inserts where the beams are mounted are 'not quite right'. I'm thinking that I will add the small extra inserts for the outside bolts as the decks are not on yet and only the B side has been covered. Small surgery.

Other news - I just ordered the set of beam mounts today from Ian Farrier.

Fiberglass washers in the sidestay chain plates

I had a thought the other day when I was cutting off the perimeter b side laminate from the float decks. Why not use this fiberglass to make the washers for the chain plates? So I did. My washers consist of 4 layers of the 9 oz s-glass.
I made a number of these washer disks and glued them into place with some scrap pieces of foam sandwiched in, slightly compressed, clamping the two washers firmly into place. I used an epoxy resin and cabosil mixture for the glue. A couple of the extra disks are posing with the chainplate.

With the foam removed.

And now shaped with the hole for the s.s. pin carefully drilled. It also looks like I've hit the inner slot width dimension almost bang on at 17 mm. You can also see that the second length of deck has been fitted. It is upside down and really belongs to the other float, but you can see the high density core cell around the chain plate.

Access hatch and deck plate purchase

Well, I finally decided to just purchase the large access hatches for the floats. I was investigating latches for my own design when I realized I would be spending way to much time on this.

So I just ordered the following from Bomar.

6 of G824-W deck plates (screw in type with 5 3/4" diameter opening).
2 of G71317-W access hatches (with outer dimensions of 17 1/2" x 13")

It also helps that the Canadian loonie is now worth more than the American greenback! This helps but I am certain that at our 'free trade border' I will be dinged for Canadian taxes and a brokerage fee.

Float decks

Well, here it is in later September and I'm still plugging away at getting the float decks on. I never said that I would be the fastest build, I'm just trying to make steady progress.


I've worked at one of the bow caps. There is still a small amount of work to be done. I first used the planer, then sander and finally the long board. I was exceedingly cautious with this work. It seems to me if you follow the hull lines you will end up with an appropriate radius on the leading edge.

Laminated forward deck sections with the high density inserts. While the s-glass was still green I cut and removed the covering around the deck perimeter as per specification.

Here is a close up view of the 9 oz s-glass where I cut it away from the edge.


I'm fitting the deck in 3 pieces. I have 'paused to think' at the middle section where there is an option for for a large access hatch between the shroud and forward beam bulkheads for storage. There are low cost plastic hatches available that weigh 3.5 lbs, but I think that I have decided to make my own. Roger's F22 build pictures did inspire me. They will be simple light and flush with the deck.

We did weigh the floats without the decks on. At this point they both weigh about 65 lbs.