Tue, 21 Aug 2001 22:53:30 +0800
G'day once again.
The boat building is now progressing quite well. The first hull has just
today had the final coating of two-pack polyurethane on top of the 3 coats of two-pack epoxy undercoat as well as the boot top being undercoated in a high copper single pack undercoat on top of the epoxy undercoat to take the anti-fouling later on. Who said anything about a budget for the finish coats. All the 'paint' has been applied by roller and then sanded, the finish is not quite yacht quality but acceptable to me.
I have only fitted top decking to the bow area as the cabin and deck module are to be a permanent fitting joined to the hull by the extra cleats fitted to the bulkheads rather than by bolts as in the plans. The cleats are made from 3/4" marine ply bolted and glued to the bulkhead and were also used to fit them to the building form which made it quite easy to square them up and hold in place. The tanks for water and grey water are being formed by the hulls being glassed in and this will help with the strength and allow access to plumbing as well as pumps.
The second hull has three days work on it and is falling together at this stage. As in the first hull the sheers and the chine logs have both been constructed from laminated wood for greater strength and the flexibility to use hard-woods to bend.
The use of the 8 foot sheets of ply ended up being quite OK but required some panels to be cut in odd lengths so as not to join at the bulkheads but no paneling was wasted as the off-cuts were used for the butt-blocks.
Geoffrey Burns
