Pylasteki Moved...

Wednesday I had Pylasteki moved from the yard she was in, over to the one where Noel lays along side to be closer to my floating work shop.

I spent yesterday afternoon blocking her up squarely as the hydraulic trailer couldn't rotate her far enough up in the bow to set her down right. This took some time...

I spent this afternoon building scaffolds to be able to work around her.

Tomorrow I have one more scaffold to build, a few saw horses to lay down the mast and a little work bench as a prep spot. My ladder is now a touch short, as the boat is now about a foot off the ground instead of 4 inches like at the other yard.

Progress!

Zach

Grinding!

Yesterday I ground the gelcoat off the top of the cabin top with an 8 inch pad sander and 40 grit. I am always surprised by the thickness of the gelcoat on Pylatesteki. She has one full coat of cream colored gel over a full thickness coat of black gel, and it is hard as nails. (though cracked and crazed like a broken egg shell...)

I have decided to leave the hatch rails in place for the moment and core the outboard sides of the top, before the rails come off. I am not sure how much influence the rails have in holding the top straight and true. There is a chance that removing them without adding back something else will warp some lumps and bumps into the top.

I ground 1 1/2 inches around the new foam, and set the foam 2 inches away from the edge of the cabin top on all sides.

This way I can bevel the foams edge, and laminate new fiberglass on to the top without grinding the sides of the cabin, which requires grinding a recess greater than the thickness of the two layers of cloth that will be going back in order to fair back smooth.

I'm going to build up the perimeter around the foam with strips of scrap fiberglass to within an 1/8th inch of the template I made of the existing corners. I'll then use some epoxy putty fairing to pull the edge into a smooth slick surface in 2 or 3 coats, using the template as my spreader. This is faster than shaping the fiberglass its self into the perfect shape with a grinder or 36 grit, with less damage to the cabin sides.

The solid fiberglass edging will keep stray anchors and heavy stuff toted on deck from crushing the top skin over the foam, which otherwise doesn't take point loading very well.

I ran out of bricks (I thought 14 would be enough...) to hold the foam down to the cabin top. I normally use a heat gun to relax the foam a bit, but forgot to bring it along.

I used some of the pre-existing holes for winches and turning blocks to jab screws into the foam to lock it in place. My drill was with my heat gun... It works fairly well to run a sheet rock screw through the foam into the glass behind it when gravity doesn't want to co-operate.

I left the screw holes open, even though some glue will drool through I did not want to bond the inner skin to the outer skin, as I'll be removing the old coring and inner skin and old balsa for more head room.

Cheers,

Zach

First nice weather weekend... In a long time!

Last weekend Leah and I pulled the small portlights out, and most of the hardware off the cabin top.

This weekend, I spent some time leveling the boat again.

I pulled the companionway sliding hatch off and laid a straight edge along the cabin top. The top is sagging, as the coring is rotten.

I am going to put a layer of divinycell foam on top of the old roof, and fiberglass it in place. I scribed the shapes of the existing corners on plywood, cut with a jig saw until it was close and then stuck a piece of 40 grit sandpaper on to each of the corners working the plywood back and forth until there was contact everywhere.

Late last night I made a post, with a 2x10 cut to the camber of the cabin top to wedge from the bilge, to hold the cabin top straight while I work on it.

Once the top is glassed in place, I will cut out the old fiberglass inner skin and remove the rotten layer of balsa wood on the inside to gain some head room, and room to glue up a false overhead to put a bit of insulation behind.

I glassed the other side of my cockpit bulkhead, that I installed straight to the back of the cabin and crooked to the rest of the world, and did a bit of work on Noel. Trying a new brand of epoxy, made by E-bond epoxies, so we will see how it goes.

Cheers,

Zach

Whoopsie.

So today I pulled off the stifflegs from the back of the bulkhead, prepared a piece of glass to skin the front side...

And then I backed up to the main bulkhead and looked at it. Something went wonky...

So I screwed my two 3 inch wide plywood straight edges together and made a go - no go gauge to go between the main bulkhead and the cockpit bulkhead.... (Straight stick 120 some inches long...)

Turns out the back wall of the cabin is out 3/4s of an inch from one side to the other, and I used the back wall of the cabin and bridge deck to align the cockpit bulkhead across the boat.

So, I cut out my perfectly flat, perfectly plumb bulkhead that was straight to the deck but not the hull. Then I cut out the bridge deck and started getting everything lined back up as it should be.

The reason for removal: The galley and cockpit are built off the hulls line, not the decks... so if I can keep it all symmetrical and be able to use a square to define fore and aft things speed up quite drastically. Noel taught me that one long ago... If its not right, pull it out or forever hold your peace...

I went ahead and ground off the tabbing to the hull, since the epoxy hadn't post cured from yesterday... The first 24 hours its easy to work with, after 3 days it gets mighty hard...

I won't be able to goof around with it anymore till tuesday night, so back to the beginning all over again.

October 23 2010

Leveled the boat...

Met a new friend named Rob today...

Fit the new Coosa bulkhead in place and tabbed it in place with two layers of 8 inch wide 1708 on the aft side, as I glassed the entire aft side, and will do the forward side... but did not want to add another sanding cycle tomorrow.

I goofed when I cut out the bulkhead... and cut the outside the line I scribed from my pattern... so it took a bit of time to fit, in addition to being 3/4s thick rather than just

I then ground out the old minibulkhead tabbing behind the rudder, and the old back stay knee...

Then I vacuumed out the interior and filled up a 6 gallon shop vac with fiberglass dust. Still have more to go but I ran out of light.

Tomorrow: Cut out the bridge deck and square the top edge of the coosa to the world... and everything. Grin.
Then, I'll take a piece of divinycell that I've already glassed, and place it on the new bulkhead leaving just a bit of the old cockpit seat as a cleat to epoxy it to. The seating height will actually be an inch higher finished, but the center of the bridge deck will go down an inch and change.

I have a piece of 4 inch wide 3/4 inch plywood that is doubled up that I use to keep things straight that take a good pull. A few screws through hold things straight, that will warp a piece of 3/4 plywood on end.

I put two pieces of 3/4 plywood 3 inches wide on the back of the coosa board to hold it flat while the glass is setting up, otherwise with foam and things glassed on only one side, it will be locked in as a potato chip. This is important if you are trying to make something that will be finished for paint, or will be a single wall thick with a door...

I was to dusty to get a picture...

Zach

Update October 22 2010

So, I tried for three days to get away from Noel at a decent hour and do some work on Pylasteki without any luck.

Today, I got away around 2:00, and worked till 7.

I took out the old bulkhead under the companionway, with a 4.5 inch metal cut off wheel on a grinder by laying it flat against the hull and grinding until I saw wood dust on both sides. Then I slid a long wood cutting sawzall under the bulkhead bending it into a j shape so it didn't dig into the hull and ran it from the bilge to the deck, and the bulkhead fell out. I ground out the old tabbing with a hitachi 7 inch grinder, and a norton 24 grit grinding disc or two. It is about the fastest way I have found to remove old tabbing...

On a fiberglass boat, it is worthwhile to remove the old tabbing as it is a secondary bond to the polyester fiberglass on the boat. Fiberglassing the new tabbing that holds the bulkhead in with epoxy, on top of a polyester tab doesn't make a whole lot of sense... while it will grab the wood, foam or coosa board better than the polyester resin would... it can also grab the hull better than the old tabbing can. So... I made a lot of dust.

After that I screwed a piece of luan to the old lip of the cockpit I left to stiffen the bridge deck while working... and used a tick stick to transfer the shape of the hull to the luan.

A tick stick is a piece of thin stuff, 1/4 inch or so by 1 1/2 wood with a few shapes cut in it. A lot of people use a tick stick with a few notches, number 1 2 3 or a b c along the notches so that it can show a long mark with a 3 and a short one with a 1.

I take my tick stick and cut a few hills and valleys, squares and rounds in it so that it can only be marked one way, and anywhere on its length is unique enough to be idiot proof. With a few V notches and a 1, 2, 3... I turn into an idiot...

With that done, I laid the luan down on a piece of junk 1/2 inch plywood, and laid my tick stick on each of the lines, marking the sharp end point with a pencil. Once the marks were there, I took a thin steel rule and used it as a batten (Traditionally a thin piece of wood with a clear straight grain and no knots so it bends uniformly...) I connected the dots, and cut it out.

Then I fit it to the bulkhead plywood to the starboard side, plumb to the world, and perpendicular the centerline of the boat. With that done I laid the starboard bulkhead on the port side, and noted the changes that needed to be made, by laying a scrap square of 3/4 inch plywood about 1 inch by 1 inch and marking the spots where it sees air.

Then I took the two bulkheads, and set them side by side in the boat, and scribed the overlap. (I purposefully left one just short of centerline, and the other real long...) and cut the overlap off the long one. I then set them together, and screwed a backer block of another piece of 1/2 inch plywood over the seam.

With that done, I took the full width plywood template out of place and laid it on top of a piece of 3/4 coosa board. Coosa board is a fiberglass filled polyurethane foam board that serves as a rot proof plywood replacement. I cut out the coosa with a jig saw, and then laid it on a piece of plastic.... on top of a piece of 3/4 plywood... on top of my table saw. (The only surface I have at the moment that is flat...)

I then cut out a piece of 1708 fiberglass, and laid it over the coosa and marked it out with a sharpie and cut it, then fiberglassed it with west systems epoxy using 60 ounces...

Tomorrow I will fit the bulkhead, relevel the boat (as it is on a sand lot and shifts with a lot of rain...) and glass it in place.

Update Oct 5 2010

Still not dead!

Friday I went over to Pylasteki and cleaned her out, and toted all the scrap bits and pieces that had piled up around her away. Took an hour or so to get reaquainted...

Saturday, I spent some time making a set of bomb proof saw horses. (2x4 I beam on top, with the legs set to no bevel... gives just about the perfect saw horse when built with 36 inch legs.)

Cruised up to see the babe for the rest of the weekend...

Tuesday night, I spent two hours digging my sheets of divinycell out from under a big pile of stuff for Noel, and went ahead and cut out my blanks for the cockpit sides. Then I sanded off the other 4x8 sheet. Since I didn't vacuum bag them, where ever there was excess resin it had to be ground off to yield a smooth surface.

I also priced out some 316L for building a new rudder. Around 250 for a half of a 4x8 sheet of 1/4 inch. The rudder shafting runs $18 bucks a foot... I now just need to test out my little TIG box and see if it up to the task.

All for now,

Zach