Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Outer Stems, Start of Scraping/Sanding Hull

I haven't posted about my progress over the last couple of weeks, mainly because I've been "head down, bum up" trying to make some. It's been the usual roller coaster ride but I'm happy to say that I have at least gotten a little bit of momentum going.

First up, I started sanding the other side of the bow with the 40 grit (which is a similar texture to asphalt). It did rip through quite fast, so I tried to maintain some sort of control with it.



It's a good thing I did, because before long I started to grind right through the hull. In the photo below, I'm pointing to the spot where it's paper thin & there's a tiny hole. At least I can fix this, since there's going to be a fillet connecting the inner stem through this area, which should reinforce it ok.



This was a serious set back. This bit was the first part where the planks were a bit staggered, forming almost a clinker finish. The stern area is much worse. I was hoping that I could sand it out, but obviously there just isn't enough meat in the hull to do that. It seems that by using the convenient (& cheaper) thinner 4 mm planks instead of 6 mm, your planking job must be that much more accurate (which mine definitely isn't). My only option now is to use fairing paste all over, meaning that I can't have a clear timber finish. Bugger! It's also going to be interesting, trying to sand the glue runs in all the stepped bits. Can you fair straight over dried glue?

Anyway, moving on, it was time to laminate up the outer stems. Below is the stern with the outer stem components laid out ready.



I glued the vertical sections first & used tape to hold them in place. Could've used an extra six pair of hands (bloody fiddly).





With that done, I then went and pulled out all of the staples (yes, there actually was about 2, 500 of them).

Once the glue had dried, I removed the tape and started fitting the longer sections of the outer stems.



I pretty much tailor fitted each long lamination in the outer stems, allowing for the different angles & bevels, striving for as perfect a fit as I could. Once again, the trusty sanding station proved it's worth it's weight in gold.



Another 10, 000 liters of glue & it was job done.



Again, I used tape to secure it all.



After it all dried, I remove the tape & trimmed the excess lengths. Note the Christmas pudding effect of the glue on my nicely sanded planking.



Next, it was time to roughly shape the new outer stems. I tried the surform & found it to be the perfect tool. It was so easy to control & I had the stems shaped down real quick. Very pleasant to use. The angle of the sun in this photo really show the extent of the edge-set of the planks in the stern.



Those jobs done, it was finally time to tackle the monotonous, mind numbing task of scraping all of those ridiculous tonnes of glue off. The shot below shows how bad it looked.



Living within my happy place, I stuck at it for days. I found a wide, flat chisel the best tool for this job, although you have to be careful not to let the blade tilt at all, causing it to gouge vast, ugly furrows into your planking, whilst in a glazed-eyed daze.

Anyway, after a couple of (long) day's work, I finally finished. Any fleeting feelings of pride & satisfaction were quickly dispelled when I suddenly realised that I now had the totally exciting prospect of commencing sanding. I set up with 80 grit paper on my orbital sander & just jumped right in. I'm currently up to about two thirds of the way down both sides (starting from the stern).

You probably can't see too much difference in the photos below, but it looks way better. There's still lots of glue runs in between the stepped plank edges (as expected), which confirms what a truly crap job I did with the planking, however, never underestimate my ability to bodge a job up so it looks good.

Starboard side from astern, before...



and after.



And the port side, before......



and after.



The photos below show the worst of the hollows & plank misalignment in the stern. I'm going to need an arse-load of fairing paste to make this lot look good again.







So, there you go. You're up to date. I've got a little bit of time off, so I'm going to try & fit as much in as I can (around the usual interruptions of course). I'm very keen to get this thing fiber-glassed & faired asap. I'll try not to leave it so long before posing next time (this lot has taken ages).

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