Float Centre and Transom Bulkhead Deck Flanges

Look, two float hulls in the rough! They are ready for sanding the keel to shape and getting the deck on.

The form frames and the battens have been removed and stored. The battens can be re-used on the main hull but the frames I'll store for a while even though they have served their full purpose. If anyone is building or thinking of building in the area these frames are available.


Two float hulls in the garage at the same time. I plan to do as much as I can simultaneously on both floats as I move towards finishing these off. They are first mounted up in the air so that I can get access to the bulkheads for some very important taping for the deck and beam joins.

Here is a view underneath showing the taping across on the centre beam. The centre and transom bulkhead taping is now complete.

Port side float joined

Here are 3 pictures showing the port side float in the process of being joined. It looks very much like the starboard float.

Clamps galore!

I use the dowel locations to verify everthing is line up properly.

This picture shows the putty fillet and 3 in wide tape on the rear bulkhead. You can see the keel join line taped through the access hole in the bulkhead.

Port side inner float half - bow stringer and chain plate pad - for the last time

This picture is a week or so old. It shows the planking complete and sanded smooth, ready for lamination. Lamination proceeded very smoothly. I again laminated with the s-glass cloth using the wet technique that I described earlier.



Lamination has been completed and I have laid down the putty bed, ready for the bow stringer to be bonded into place.

I always place weights on the foam stringer to ensure that some bonding pressure is being applied.



Here you can see the fit of the chain plate pad to the float hull.


And here is the foam pad bedded with putty to the hull. You can also see the extra layer of cloth cut so that the s-glass fibers are at 45 degrees.

The below pictures show the stringer and chainplate pad fully covered. The port side float is now ready for joining.

New build book arrives

Canada Post took there own sweet time time as usual, but finally, today, the new build book from Ian Farrier arrived. I am very very impressed with the quality (colour laser printing) and the detail of these plans.

The new material is exceptional and in many areas the concepts are presented three dimensionally.

Hurray!, I now have the pleasure of studying new material.

Kudos to Ian for presenting his first class design so clearly.

Float port side inner half - the last one

A good start to this float half. Probably about 4 hours of effort with a little bit of extra time to wash off the sweat because of the heat.


You can see I am in no hurry to clean up the glue at the foam strip butt joints. When cured the glue is just cut off with a knife.
The deck side mold plate is off as the strips are just easier to fit constrained on the one side only, neat to the keel.

One float joined and into storage

Here I am with my first joined float. At this stage the float weighs ~60lbs.

And ready for storage under plastic and tarp. I am sure the epoxy resin is getting quite the heat treatment under the tarp.

Starboard float halves joined - looking fair

Everything was glued and taped except the forward bow bulkhead.

So to get better access to the bow bulkhead for gluing and taping I broke out the float hull from the form frame battens and removed the deck side mold plates.

With this final joining done and while the epoxy was curing I took literally 10 minutes to fair off the foam on the inner side hull with a flexible long board.


I am quite pleased how fair the foam actually looks with this small effort. The glue joints seem to be sitting slightly proud but it all seems to sand very easy. This must be an advantage of using the polyurethane glue to join the foam strips. I also roughly trimmed off the extra foam and laminate on stern inner side.

Looking forward to lifting this float hull out and getting on with the port side inner half. The last float half.