Glassing the central sole

Just one hour today to fiberglass the central sole panel, which will be the cockpit floor.
Here we are cutting the fg to size

and here is the finished product

One thing: make sure that the surface is CLEAN before laying the cloth on it. Every little thing will stand out proud after wetting the cloth, even the smallest wood chip or brush bristle, and removing it is a hassle.

Total work time to date: 285 hours.

Short circuit and appendages

Last saturday we were unable to open the garage door, due to a short circuit which destroyed the fridge (so no cold beer anymore for now). The power was put on again in the afternoon.

Late this afternoon we spent two hours to cut the various plywood layers to laminate the centerboard and the rudder. They are pretty large indeed: the daggerboard is 40x120 cm, the rudder about 30x125 cm, both 3.5 cm thick. We'll laminate two 15 mm layers with a 6 mm core.

Total work time to date: 284 hours

Daggerboard trunk done, and more

Four hours of work today. First of all we attached 4 plywood pads at the hull sides to provide glueing surface for the support of the transverse sole stiffeners. The picture below shows two of those pads. The daggerboard will be placed between those two vertical side stiffeners, of course along the hull centerline.

We then closed the daggerboard trunk, attaching the other side with epoxy and bronze ring nails. Here's Cinzia epoxy filleting the corner at the newly glued side.

We then glued the two reinforcement cleats at the top, which will be supporting the sole panel.

We then gave two coats of resin to the bottom side of the sole panels.

Total work time to date: 282 hours

Tids and bits

Four hours today, to work on things that are not specifically mentioned on the plans. We cut, glued and screwed 8 additional supports for the sole panels at the bulkheads corners. Two of those are visible in the photo below

We had prepared the daggerboard trunk for the glue up but the resin went off in a very short time so we had to throw away a fairly sized blob. Next time...

Total work time to date: 278 hours

Daggerboard trunk glassing

May 1st is a holiday over here so we could work (a bit) also on friday morning. We spent 4 hours between friday and saturday to glue the trunk spacers and to glass both faces.

Here's Cinzia cutting the fiberglass cloth (160 grams per square meter) to size with special fiberglass scissors.

Here's the first side glassed. There's one single piece of fg going all the way from the top of one spacer to the top of the other. That's why the upper corner is rounded, while we made a fillet on the other. Other then glued, the trunk sides are also nailed to the spacers with bronze ring nails.

And here's the other side glassed as well. We also glued the extension to the forward sole (which as you know came out short due to an error in the plans).

Total work time to date: 274 hours.