Catching up

There's been about a years break in my blogging to this blog. Today the weather is bad and I have some time update my blogs. During this summer I didn't have much time to work on my BP but after my vacation and visiting Hanko Sea Kayak Gathering I finally found again a lot of motivation to go further with my project.

I have now sanded and fiberglassed the outside of the hull and started working on the deck. At the time the deck strips have been stapled into station molds and the deck waits for a bit warmer weather to be glued together with epoxy. Here are some pics about the boat and progress I've made.

Mid and bow sections

Hull after fiberglassing

Stern view

Adjusting back deck strips

Cernter strip

Bow to stern view

Me working on the deck

Stapled deck

Final adjustments

Now the weather has beed too cold for working with epoxy but as soon as the weather allows I'll glue together the strips. After that it's easier to continue with sanding again.

Outer stems

Finally things are moving along a bit with my boat after almost a year of quietness. I've done only small sanding jobs this summer, but during the weekend I finally glued the outer stems to my BP :) The bow is also sanded and the but stern still requires some hours of work.

After that the I have just some small adjustments to do on the outer hull side and then it's ready for fiber glassing. I have the epoxy but I'm not sure am I able to get the fiber glass cloth this autumn.

Some pics also about the latest progress (taken by phone camera):

Sand, sand and sand :)

Hull is glued together and now I'm in the hull sanding phase which means lots of sanding. The progress is rather slow as I don't also have too much time to spend for sanding, Still I hope to get it ready during July. If I have time and possibilities some pics will also come soon.

Epoxy :P

Got the long awaited epoxy now. I'll use West System 105 resin with 206 hardener (slow). The 'kicking' time should be 20-30min at 18 C. Now I have probably have to wait for the weekend to start gluing.

Planking

It looks like that I don't have any pictures of first planking steps - installing the sheer and keel strips, but as the boat started to look more and more like a boat I have taken more pics of the WIP.The bow and stern were the hardest parts. I had to struggled some time to get them look nice enough. Still at the end I think I got them to acceptable level.





Finally even the bow looks more or less OK :)


So the next step will be doing some final touches for getting everything as smooth as possible and gluing with epoxy. I also have to get some epoxy for that :)

Strongback with station molds

By the time posting this entry about a months has passed from actually building the strongback and aligning the station molds. Aligning the molds was quite tricky, first it was hard to get even a flat surface but also 3D alignment was difficult and took about a day for a beginner like me. At the end I just took a spirit level and aligned the molds one-by-one based on design waterline marks and by eye at other directions. Here's some pics also.

Molds

Finally molds are all cut out:) The quality is...the best I can do at the moment ;) Still they look symmetrical enough plus the strips bend will probably correct some of the unevenness.

Aft molds...
and front molds. Sad thing is that on Sunday its impossible to get planks for the strongback, so next steps have to wait...