The beginning of a new boat.

whacker1982

ive been doing some pondering about that one too fergal, ill say ill go with the first idea, cut strips to make a template. ive not measured it yet but looking at it id say its only 1" wide and 1 1/2" deep. it seems very small

fergal.b

Here are some ways you can do it.
With this one use a bit of cardboard to get the curve of the bow then mark it out on a board and screw some blocks along the line you can cover this in cling film to stop your part from sticking to it. Next glue up your strips I like to coat them and let it soak in and while its still tacky coat again and clamp in place.






Another way is to use the cardboard to mark out a pice of 1" ply and drill some holes to take your clamps.



If you are having trouble bending them you can use one of these, I can't remember what it's called but you can find them in most houses, I think girls use them to flatten their hair or something

whacker1982

oh so many questions here for you now,
ill go with the first idea the strips seems simple to do.
where do you get the strips from?
are they laminated?
are they hardwood or soft wood?
when you were using that foreign object that i have no idea what they are called, did you soak the timber first to bend or just slap on the heat?

also ive been thinking about the keel how important is it for it to be made of hardwood? i was gonna use white oak, but for love nor money i cant get into limerick on time to pick some up due to work. would an normal piece of 2x4 timber from the local hardware store be ok?
ive seen on done deal alot of new moulded boats for sale where there was no timber put into the keel or the stem, it was just left hollow?

thanks fergal for all this, its very much appreciated. i hope im not been too much of a burdon on you here.

fergal.b

1) I cut my strips from full planks of iroko or mahogany, I have seen 2" strips of hardwood in woodies in the molding section that might be worth a look you could also get away with strips of marine ply.

2) There is a steam button on the ting that I think is used for removing black heads it also works to soften the wood.

3) If you can't get hardwood you might get away with pressure treated timber used for decking or again marine ply as long as it's coated in epoxy.

4) I don't know the design of your mold or how strong your keel is but the timber acts like a shocker absorber to stop the fiberglass giving way if you hit a rock, it is also used to stiffen the structure of the boat often in boats without wood in the keel you will find a stainless steal strip on the outside to protect it along with very thick fiberglass.Also in the stem you may need a fixing point for a bow eye,seat or again for structural support.

5) Ask all the questions you like, I'm not a professional at this I have just made a lot of mistakes and learned a bit from them I also have a bit of a sickness when it comes to boats :pac:




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breghall

great thread whacker , v informative from both you and fergal, and I do believe the piece of equipment is called a hairdryer ...... i am open to correction on this as I am not fully sure... looks like a hoover but as far as I know the lead is not long enough so therefore it's a hairdryer.....

good work Whacker , keep it up it's a good read.

whacker1982

cheers breghall, im here till the end.

whacker1982

finally i got my iroko, its 1x9" x 15'
it cost me a small fortune. but it looks nice.:)

fergal.b

Ooooo nice:) your lucky I had to buy 20 of them :eek: There two things you have to look out for with iroko one is the sawdust when cutting and sanding can irritate the skin and eyes so wear protection and if you can do it in a well ventilated area.The other is it can change colour when its sanded and look yellowish but will go dark again after a day or two in daylight.

whacker1982

cheers fergal, went at it today, and after setting up all the gear and straight edges ready, i found that my skill saw blade is well passed throwing it in over a ditch, so next week now before i can get my hands on another,

would i need to wait for it to go back to its normal colour after sanding before glassing it in?

fergal.b

Only if you want it dark for decoration if it's not visible it won't make any difference. It might even darken under the epoxy as it has very little UV protection.

whacker1982

do you think i sould cover the keel in epoxy as well??

fergal.b

I think so to make it watertight, if the keel ever got holed on the outside the water still won't enter the boat or any water thats in the boat won't be left sitting on the timber. You might have to leave it a bit short or taper it at the stern if your fitting a bung plug so here I would put in extra fiberglass to thicken the keel and make it stronger. I don't know the design of your hull so I'm only guessing here :eek: maybe someone with more experience in lake boats will come in with other ideas.:)

whacker1982

excellent logic, cheers fergal, i wont be putting in a bung hole so the keel will run right to the transom, but the keel will need more fiberglass your right and well spotted. i forgot that it only got three layers of glass, as the last two will run over the keel and stem. so thats gonna give me something to do while im waiting on my skill saw blade.

whacker1982

ok since im waiting on a blade for my saw might as well start something else,
so i popped all the clamps off the blocks and transom and all was well.
plenty of fiberglass made the blocks rock solid.
said i would put the final two layers of 450gsm chopped strand in. worked a treat and did it in no time getting the hang of this im thinking!



popped it out in the sun today turning it every half hour to let the sun get to all the places that was still wet. i could not believe how fast it took to cure with the sun. proberly one hour where ever the sun was shining on the boat. this saves some time again. compared to 3 to 4 days curing in a shed with a heater blowing. the magic is in the sun.

ok since it dried in no time at all, i decided the time was now to pop it out of the mould. got out the rubber hammer and gave it alot of bangs proberly in every inch of the mould could hear lots of noise between the mould and boat cracking and all sorts of giving out. but im boss and its coming out.
turned it right way up again and gave it a pull up alot of suction there but it was free. this was it now lifted it up and away from the mould and sat it down on the grass, and turned her hull to the sky. the rest is history.







i cant put into words how happy i am with the turn out of the hull. it works it achually works. long time coming ha ha, :D:D

fergal.b

:D

Jack_regan

Wow it looks fantastic, no wonder you're pleased, brilliant work! It's great to see it out of the mould. I suppose all the earlier preparation work has paid off for you.

popped it out in the sun today turning it every half hour to let the sun get to all the places that was still wet. i could not believe how fast it took to cure with the sun. probably one hour where ever the sun was shining on the boat. this saves some time again. compared to 3 to 4 days curing in a shed with a heater blowing. the magic is in the sun.

I'm surprised with your drying times in the shed, especially with a heater. Were you definitely using the correct amount of catalyst. I mean I'm only new to this myself so I'm no expert but any of the fibreglass repairs I've been doing on my boat have been fully cured within a couple of hours. I think you're supposed to add 2% catalyst to the resin. You can definitely vary the curing times by adding extra catalyst. Anyway I'm sure somebody with more experience will be able to advise you better.

Well done and looking forward to seeing the continued progress.

whacker1982

cheers fergal, jack regan.
yea took forever to cure, was adding the 2% cat for every liter, not a drop more. baffled myself as why it took so long????

Jack_regan

All I can suggest is that you add a bit more catalyst to the mix if you want it to cure faster. I ordered extra catalyst when I placed my order for materials, because I didn't want to be running out. Thinking back now I probably wasn't using the catalyst too sparingly, but you're working over a bigger area than me so you'd want to be careful not to add too much extra. I think you could safely double up on the catalyst to 4% if it is taking 3 or 4 days to cure in the shed at the moment with the 2% mix. Maybe see if anyone else has advice on the subject before going ahead and increasing the catalyst.

fergal.b

I'm not sure about the hardener you are using but you can get different speeds, I use west systems 205 for quick setting and 206/207 for slow. Thicker resin will also set quicker then when its spread out thin also mixing is very important if it's not mixed enough you can get parts that will take longer or not set at all.
The epoxy heats up as it sets through chemical reaction and the sunlight might be helping this along.

whacker1982

think if too much is added its cures to fast causing the structure to weaken and too little the same, it says on the bottle max cat to use 2% per liter.
but it might balence out if 4% was added because it takes so long to cure.
any advice people?

whacker1982

im not sure what kind of hardener i have for it. but i was keeping an eye out to see had i it mixed properly. when it did start to cure it cured evenly across the boat. i knew then that i was mixing it enough.

whacker1982

who is your supplier fergal. i go with mbfg.co.uk?

just checked there its polycraft that makes the resin and hardener

fergal.b

I get it from http://www.marineparts.ie/ they do me a good deal because I buy so bloody much of it it's not cheep and more for DIY, you would be better buying yours in the big drums like you have and I don't think they do them.
You could try http://www.grs.ie/ or http://www.fibreglasssales.com/
I have a friend in Dublin that builds and races offshore powerboats http://www.powermarine.ie/welcome.htm if you give him a ring he might put in touch with his supplier.

Jack_regan

Here is a link to the technical sheet on mbfg.co.uk website. I'm sure you've read it before but just in case you haven't. They are talking about the resin taking 24 hours to cure at 20 degrees Celsius.

http://www.mbfgfiles.co.uk/docs/446pa_tech.pdf

Before I started buying the fibreglass supplies off mbfg, I got some via my dad from a guy up in Meath who works with fibreglass making box vans etc.(quite a lot more expensive than mbfg) It was this guy who said that it was okay to add a little extra catalyst to speed up the curing time, but again these kinds of things can get lost in translation.

Although saying that I just had a look on one of the websites that fergal recommended; www.grs.ie and on the homepage it states:

Catalyst should be added at between 1% and 4% by weight depending on ambient conditions and cure time required. The standard addition rate is 2% (=20gm catalyst per kg of resin)
The ratio applies to all polyester resins, gelcoats, flowcoats etc. unless otherwise specified. Too much or too little catalyst will inhibit cure, while gel time is adversely affected by high humidity and low temperature.

Anyway sure I think a little experimentation with the catalyst may be in order to speed up your drying times if required.

Have fun!

whacker1982

had a look there jack regan, might do a bit of experimenting on the side i think before i start a new one, take lots of notes. oh the joys

breghall

great job whacker.... kudos...

whacker1982

right so made a start to the gunnels, did this by a means called lofting, i mentioned it in a previous thread and said id explain how its done.
when i first bough the mould i had some 1/8inch mdf plywood. just cut out two strips about a foot wide.
what i then did was place the plywood on top of the mould where the gunnels would be, and got a maker and drew the inside line of the top of the mould where the mould meets the plywood.
this gave me the natural curve of the gunnel.
this was done four times due to not having long enough ply. boat is over ten foot in lenght.

i popped one of these lengths on the table and got normal tracing paper, and rolled it over the ply so it shows the marker line.



had some pin nails and every six inches or so popped a nail on the line did this till i had the marker line covered.




next job was to get a small stirp of moulding and press it against the nails and nail it into place making sure that all outside nails are touching your strip of moulding.


all thats done now is to draw a line on your tracing with a pencil, the moulding strip acts as a guide to copy your original marker line onto the tracing paper.
take away the strip and moulds and the line has been copied.
now pop the tracing paper with the copied line onto your sheet of plywood im using 1inch ply.
pop all those little pin nails into the holes that you have already made on the tracing paper again.

now take away the tracing paper while leaving the nails be gentle the paper will be used again.

whacker1982

secure the moulding strip in again and draw the line again on the outside of the moulding strip to put your desired line down on the ply. take away the strip and nails and hey presto you got your line down where you want it. and the way you wanted it.


i repeated this again 3 inches below the line again to get my gunnels size.



cut them out and layed them up on the boat looks the part and fits like a glove.
this method is called lofting and is used to make wooden boats. really enjoyed doing this.

whacker1982

i forgot to mention ive put in the seat supports alot of measuring and leveling to get it right. also you might remember that i soaked the supports it water about 4 days did the job these were 2x1 timbers. popped them in the microwave on full power for 5 minutes, got to be quick to get the bend in the timber. worked nicely too. handy trick microwave steam bending!

fergal.b

Who's the man, she's coming together now. I see you have one of those hair straightener things in the corner

Aa I hate that when a post starts a new page:(





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