The resin cured ok overnight but my fears were confirmed: the panels were indeed glued to the table because some resin seeped through the butt joints, some screw holes and here and there under the panel profile. Also, removing the screws was a nightmare because several of those broke and I should find a way to take them off.
Anyway, with some brute force and some lever, I literally ripped one of the panels off the table completely (no damage) while another one is still bonded to the table around the rear butt block. Luckily enough the particle board is tender and does not hold forever, but for sure next time I won't neglect the designer's suggestion to spray the screw box with some WD40, nor I'll make without a plastic sheet under the panels... Oh well...
Total work time to date: 54 hours
Diary on the construction of a Seaclipper 20, a plywood trimaran designed by Jim Brown and John Marples. Our boat's Sail No. is 50. The boat has been named GEODETICA and was launched on september 28th, 2024.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Assembling the hull panels (3)
Three hours of work today to glue up the two floats outboard hull panels. Here's a view of the table ready for the glue
We glued the vertical stiffeners first, and then the longitudinal stringers. We used about 700 g of resin thickened with microfibers (about 15% in volume). Here's me spreading the glue for the stringers
And here's a view at the end of the session. Let's hope that the panels won't be glued forever to the table! Stay tuned...
Total work time to date: 52 hours
We glued the vertical stiffeners first, and then the longitudinal stringers. We used about 700 g of resin thickened with microfibers (about 15% in volume). Here's me spreading the glue for the stringers
And here's a view at the end of the session. Let's hope that the panels won't be glued forever to the table! Stay tuned...
Total work time to date: 52 hours
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Assembling the hull panels (2)
We had to work 4 more hours today to have the panels ready for the glue. One problem we discovered was that the pre-drilled holes in the stringers were not (as specified) large enough not to offer a grip to the drywall screws. So we had to remove the stringers, drill again the holes with a larger bit such that the screw grips only through the underlying plywood and particle board (hence working as a clamp), and screw them down again. Also, we cut to length the remaining stiffeners and pre-bored all the stiffeners and the buttblocks. Here's a view of the shop in the middle of the day
We had to think a little bit about the meaning of a note in the drawings regarding the bulkhead landing stringers on the butt blocks. The note says: 1" set back (outboard side only). By cross checking different drawings, we concluded that this means that the stringer should be cut 1 inch shorter on the keel side to leave room for the limber hole in the bulkhead corner...
Here's a view at the end of the day, with everything ready for the glue
And finally, here's a view of the section at the transom end. These are the outboard ama panels: on the left is the deck side (note the bevel), on the right the keel side.
Next week end we'll glue up everything and cross our fingers (please do the same).
Total work time to date: 49 hours.
We had to think a little bit about the meaning of a note in the drawings regarding the bulkhead landing stringers on the butt blocks. The note says: 1" set back (outboard side only). By cross checking different drawings, we concluded that this means that the stringer should be cut 1 inch shorter on the keel side to leave room for the limber hole in the bulkhead corner...
Here's a view at the end of the day, with everything ready for the glue
And finally, here's a view of the section at the transom end. These are the outboard ama panels: on the left is the deck side (note the bevel), on the right the keel side.
Next week end we'll glue up everything and cross our fingers (please do the same).
Total work time to date: 49 hours.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
Assembling the hull panels (1)
On friday evening we worked 1.5 hours to glue the scarf joint for the thicker planks and to fill the voids in the other scarf joints. The things improved but we're still quite far from perfection when it comes to scarfing. Here's a view:
Total work time to date: 45 hours
Today we worked 5.5 hours as we started to assemble the hull panels. First thing was cutting the stock for the butt blocks: 20 cm wide strips of 19 mm thick plywood. While cutting, I started to see more and more sparks generated in the motor of the circular saw: I suspect that this is not a good sign...
Anyway, here's a view of the butt block material:
We decided to assemble first the ama panels two at a time using the correspondent ones from each hull which are mirror images of each other.
The panels were aligned and screwed on the table, followed by the precut stringers. Bending those in place proved easier than expected
Then we fitted the plywood butt blocks between the stringers. This is not difficult but requires quite a bit of adjustments. The butt blocks are beefy indeed, but this is because they are placed where akas are connected with the hulls, i.e. high stress areas.
Then we started to cut and fit the vertical stringers. At the beginning this is slow, but after some cuts one becomes more efficient
We're almost ready to glue now! The impression is that this boat is built like a tank: it won't be light but will certainly be extremely strong and take a lot of abuse.
Total work time to date: 45 hours
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