Painted

Here are the latest progress pictures.

Freshly painted here prior to the non-skid going on.

And a shot here of the non-skid which was just applied and still wet in this photo.

It was good to have a nice dry spell of weather to do all the painting. The paint seemed to go on a little better than last time, and I got some better rollers which helped also.

Made to measure

Time for the tricky business of getting the beams mounted. I don't think any amount of accurate measuring during construction could allow for the beams to simply slot in without some tweaking along the way. With the beams at almost 3.5 metres long, being only a millimetre out with the mounting points, would be a problem.

Since I have the hulls aligned exactly, here is some of the process I have been going through to get the beams precisely located.

Good old laser level lined up with the centre location.

Easy to see where the cuts need to be made, before gluing the mounts in place

One of the few times I resort to using a hand tool here. With the other beam holders I used a scroll saw to cut them out. Anyway this little coping saw was surprisingly quick at getting through the Mahogany.



Here is the aft beam, checking clearances before epoxy bedding.

And here is the beam in place with the epoxy mixture setting.

So the beams now rest nice and snug in their mounts.

It's actually this big.

Here it is with the hulls at the correct spacing, showing how big the boat really is. Too big for this photo even. The starboard bow has to go on the other side of a pillar in my garage.

In the photo I am part way through making fine adjustments to the position of the starboard hull, once again the laser level comes into it's own here to help me get the two hulls as close to parallel as possible before I finish the beam mounts.

Fairing + Beams

Fairing is now complete for the starboard hull.

 

Also I now have both beams. As you can see in the picture below. One of these beams is not like the other. One is some aluminium section I managed to get hold of early on in the build. But when I tried to get more it proved difficult so I researched other options and settled on a carbon fibre section made locally, it is still wrapped in plastic here, the finish is so nice I might just keep it wrapped up for a while. It is customised for the boat with extra reinforcing at the ends where the hull mounts are. It looks great and is much lighter than the alloy section. The alloy section is round, it looks a bit strange in the photo because I have cut an angle off at the end which will later allow securing to the beam mount.





 

Cabin 2 glassed and Hatch

The starboard cabin is now all glassed.
A few photos here showing the sequence.

Extra time taken here to get it all smooth is more than made up for by reducing the amount of fairing needed.

I did the cabin and decks in 4 stages. I have found working by myself it is best to do the glassing in smaller areas at a time.

Here also is the starboard hatch being enlarged. Made from two layers of ply with a curve as cut out from the roof, this one actually had a small amount of twist in it at the stage you see in the photo. What I did to fix it was when I put the fibreglass cloth on, while it was curing I supported the two corners that were low and placed weights on the corners that were high. I thought it was worth a shot and it paid off! the hatch now has no twist.

I'm getting low on Epoxy now, hopefully I have enough left to finish the boat. It will be close but it looks like I will have used very close to the designers estimated Epoxy amount by the time I'm finished.

Back to the grind

After a short holiday break it is back to the grind here literally.

Again some hard work for the router swinging the big 50mm bit.

Here you can see the rather complicated looking aft beam area. I decided not to box it in. Instead I beefed it up a bit and went for an open style which seemed like a good idea at the time, mostly to match the port hull which is open to help with the outboard bracket. We'll see, it should make beam fastening a bit simpler at least.

The holes are all filled and faired.
Ready now for fibreglass.

The last panel

Making this boat is a bit like making a giant jigsaw puzzle where you make the pieces as you go. Here the last piece of the starboard hull has been made and put in place.

Simply showing the radius added to the edge.

And the finished panel.

Another big milestone is made. Both hulls are now structurally complete!
Still a bit to do to protect the wood and add some paint but a pretty good stage to be at.