A Declaration

After yesterday's deck and spar work, I was pretty motivated today.  For starters, I trimmed the decks to fit the hull, and sanded them smooth.  Then we set sawhorses under the hull and flipped it over, to begin work on the exterior. The goal is to "radius" the seams - that is, to turn them from angular meetings of two sheets of plywood, to gently curved transitions that can be smoothly covered with glass tape.

Using my trusty 4-in-hand file, some 60-grit sandpaper, and the block plane, I proceeded to radius the entire length of all three seams in about an hour and a half.  It went much faster than anticipated, but I suspect I'm going to be really, really sore tomorrow.

Soon - maybe even later today - I'll make a small batch of filleting epoxy and touch up the gaps in the seams.  Then it will be time to glass 'em, and do the final epoxy-coating of the exterior.

Translation:  I'm within sight of completing the hull.  Emboldened by this realization, I've decided to state publicly that I will launch this boat in June. 

There, I said it.  And now it remains to be seen whether I can put my money where my mouth is.  Stay tuned....

Decks On! And Sail Test-Fit to Spars

With a bit of time this morning, I glued and nailed the fore & aft decks onto the hull.  This is another milestone moment, at it indicates we're pretty much done with the right-side-up segment of the build. 

The decks were cut pretty accurately to the plan dimensions.  Installed, they overhang the sheer a little, which indicates that either they weren't cut as accurately as I thought, or the hull is slightly narrower than it should be.  Either way, we're talking about a relatively small discrepancy, so I won't worry about it.  I'll just cut/sand the overhang off, and nobody will ever know.

I mixed up way more epoxy/fiberglass powder glue than I needed, so after I was done nailing down the decks, I stirred some silica powder into the remaining epoxy and used it as a fairing compound to fill gaps and smooth lines around the handles and deck beams. 

Next up for the hull: we'll pull it out of the porch, invert it on saw horses, and radius the chines in preparation for the exterior glass tape.  When that step is done, it will be time for a final coat of epoxy, then paint!  

The other big news is that I scored a twelve-foot length of bamboo at the second-hand building materials shop yesterday.  Cost me all of $3.22, which is less than a tenth of what it would  elsewhere.  It's too thin to use as anything but a spar, and may not be stout enough for that, even.  But it's a thick-walled variety, and seems quite strong.  So I'm going to try it.  If it breaks in use, we'll just replace it with something else.

I fitted it to a crotch I'd cut earlier, and pinned and lashed them as per the plans.  I must say, I'm a bit nervous about that joint.  But Wharram says it will hold, so who am I to argue?

With two spars ready, and the sail more or less complete, I couldn't help arranging it in the back yard to see how it looks.  With Puff the cat supervising, I laced the sail onto the spars until I ran out of line about 3/5ths of the way around.  It looks handsome, but I must confess that my new bamboo spar may be about 6" too short. 

As disappointing as that is, I can still use it as part of my hiking platform.  It certainly won't be wasted.  But that means I need to figure out how to fit a Y-joint to the carbon fiber windsurfer mast.  I might end up using store-bought lumber to make that piece, as I can't imagine turning a chunk of found lumber into the perfectly round 1.75" dowel required to fit the inside of the mast.