The main task of the day was to clean up the remaining sealant so that the keel bands are ready for the next stage. After 24 hours the sealant was hard enough to make the job a little easier than yesterday but even so it was not a quick job.
After nearly two hours of cutting, chiselling and sanding, all carefully, this is the result.
Nearly all of the excess squeeze out has been removed. There are a couple of bits that I can’t really get to so these were left for now and I’ll think about how to get a sharp edge into those tight spots.
The other task that has been waiting for a while is the assembly of the pulleys.
Not a difficult job, I just hadn’t gotten around to it.
That’s all for today. I’m definitely beginning to flag.
This morning started warm and very, very humid. Most uncomfortable. I took the cover off the boat and found that despite the cover, some of the hull was damp and especially in those areas where the dew that had collected on the top of the cover spilt as I removed it!
The first task after that was to remove all the screws from yesterday and then let the hull stil in the warm air to dry.
Later in the day I took a lunch break and worked on the keel bands again.
Each of the bands is now bedded in Sikaflex 291i and held in place with the correct number of correctly sized screws.
The trick with this stuff is to wear nitrile gloves and boiler suit, the sealant gets everywhere, apply the sealant as a thin bead moving slowly long the length of the section and never, never attempt to correct mistakes.
Like this. Trying to fix this will just smear the sealant all over everywhere and make a mess and won’t get the stuff off.
This is an example of where I had no choice. There was a significant gap between the bead and the stem that no amount of bending could fix, so I had to fill that gap with sealant applied with a mixing stick. As you can see, it smeared even though I was being ultra careful.
Later in the evening I set about removing the excess sealant. A sharp utility knife is run alongside the keel band cutting down, but not too hard as to damage the surface . Then a sharp chisel is run along the top of the surface to peel away the cured sealant in strips.
Finally, any remaining pieces of sealant are sanded away. Here I used 240 grit. As you can see, the result is very good. Far better than you would get if you tried to clean this stuff up when it was still sticky.
Having said that, the sealant was still a little too soft, so I stopped doing that and will carry on tomorrow.
I awoke to the sound of steady rain this morning and by the time had gotten up and done the necessary, there was no sign of the rain letting up. It was warm enough, just wet. Not that a decent soaking rain, which this was, was not welcome in a general sense, it just meant that the plans for the day had to be changed.
Work moved inside the workshop instead of outside.
The first task was to convert the three remaining ratchet straps from hooked to non-hoked.
This isn’t difficult, you just use a hacksaw to cut the hook on the strop end and bend the hook so that you can remove it, as shown.
The strops are then put onto the ratchet replacing the short strop and hook st give the desired result.
The next task I choose was to clean up the rudder gudgeon fitting prior to putting it back on the rudder stock.
I left a rough finish to give a key as this will be coated in copper epoxy.
The position of the fitting was marked by two notches in the rudder stock which made it fairly easy to get it back in the correct position.
The only issue was that I didn’t have the correct sized bronze screws to fit it together. So I put two smaller screws in to hold the fitting in place for the moment and ordered a pack of ten No.10 1″ screws. Once these had arrived I can fix the fitting in place more securely.
After that I cut up a piece of scaffold plank to make two fittings for the inversion blocks. Then I took a break.
The rain has stopped and the dark gray clouds are being slowly replaced by ones that do not look like they will drop rain everywhere.
Time for a cup of tea.
Sure enough, the weather did improve and the sun came out, so it was back to work.
The supports for the inversion blocks were taken out of the cramps and put aside until needed.
The two halves of the bobstay stem fitting were cleaned up ready to be re-attached.
The two keel bands either side of the centerplace slot were made and dry fit.
The final keel band, for the ste, was also made and dry fit.
This was a little awkward as the end was designed to fit over the top of the stem which made for a very acute angle. The band will be pulled against the stem with a line or pressed with a wooden batten but for now, we wait for the correct screws to arrive. At which point all the bands will be removed, sealant applied and squirted down the screw holes and the band refitted with all the screws, not just half of them !
With the warm and dry weather continuing to hold for the last week and for the next few days, according to the forecast, I could continue with the final underwater hull work before Shoal Waters could be turned back the right way up and put back into the hay barn.
I spent a few days during the week using the CNC Router to make these. Once assembled these will form two large bearings over which a open ended ratchet strap will run that will make the task of turning the hulls over a much easier process than is it now. More on that in a later post when the inversion is carried out. Today’s task for these bearings took a couple of hours, so..
Time for a cup of tea.
I took the stainless steel scrubbing pad to part of the copper epoxy scraping off the top layer of the epoxy and exposing some of the copper particles embedded within it. It’s not easy to see here but the slightly lighter and more metallic looking surface on the right hand side of the image is the scrubbed bit. Thankfully it is not difficult as the scrubbing pad acts like a lot of small, sharp scrapers made of stainless steel.
These are the 316 stainless steel flat bars from which the keel bands will be formed. Stainless steel, as mentioned in a previous post, instead of the expected bronze because of the staggering cost of making the bands out of bronze.
This is one completed and dry fit to one of the bilge runners. Dry fit as I don’t have the 316 stainless screws to hold the bands to the hull and have used what I do have until the proper one arrive. Hopefully that will be tomorrow.
I have only used as many screws in each band is required to hold it in place since my stock of correct length and diameter screws is limited.
That is still a lot of screws as the runner is not an even surface as you can see.
This first one took another hour and a half and, guess what?
Time for a cup of tea.
The process of making each band is tedious but straightforward. A length of stainless steel is cut, having carefully measured at least twice.
The band is marked where the screws will be places, every 150mm or 6″ more or less, and a punch used to make a small dent in the steel to guide the drill bit.
The holes are drilled and counterbored and the top “corners” of the bar chamfered using a bench grinder.
Both the top and bottom faces were abraded on the belt sander to give a good key.
All but two of the bands needed to be shaped, like the one above. This was a case of hammering the band over the horn of the anvil until the correct curve was obtained.
Then the band was dry fit.
Time for a cup of tea.
Rinse and repeat for the two bands on the skeg. Including the cup of tea.
I sanded the old bronze keel band, or what remained of it and used bronze screws to fix this to the keel.
At this point, as you can see but the spots of water on the hull, it started to rain, so work stopped until the morrow when the remaining pieces will be done. Two either side of the centerplate slot and one from the bronze above forward and up the stem to the deck.
The forecast for today was in dry with a high of around 26º C, so I decided that today was the day the final copper epoxy would be applied to the hull. Firstly I went around the hull under the waterline and had another go at hand sanding the spots that I missed previously. The aim is for there to be no glossy, shiny bits. Impossible to do in practice, well it is for me, but I gave it a good go.
Then I mixed up 1.5 kg of the C-Guard Liquid Copper that I have used on Naiad previously and set to. This is a great product but it takes some getting used to since the first coat does not seem to cover particularly well. Hardly at all in fact. It even mentions this in the data sheet, but you should not go over and over the application trying to get a good coverage the first time. After about 15 minutes it looks a lot better.
The is the first coat about 30 minutes after application. As you can see, it looks quite good, but you can see through the coat in places. This is normal. You should also go round the hull with a brush and fill in the bits that the roller could not get to.
You could just do the whole thing with a brush, but that takes a long time, also meaning that you need to mix up small batches. The epoxy has a pot life of around an hour, but that is only just enough time with a roller. As it was I mixed up too much really and should have used two batches of 750g.
Still I did manage to get everything coated before the epoxy started to gel.
From a different angle with the sun shining on the hull from a different angle and hence the vastly different colour.
It was whilst I was having my cup of tea after cleaning up that I remembered the rudder stock. That has antifouling on the lower part, so that needed to be scraped away, sanded and then coated with copper epoxy.
I had done no work on this part of the stock at all, so scraped off the loose and flaky paint before realising that I needed to remove the gudgeon fitting. One of the six screws came out easily, the rest did not. Four of the remaining had been brass and one was stainless steel. I had to resort to drilling them out as none of those five could be removed using a screwdriver. Still, it all came apart eventually and I was able to sand off the remaining antifouling paint.
Since the fitting has to go back in the same place, I needed to plug the holes such that new screws could be put in to hold the fitting in place. I opened the holes out to 10mm and them plugged them with pieces of Ash arrow shafts that I have.
These are three of the recalcitrant screws and, as you can see they did not want to come out easily at all.
This is how the rudder stock looks right now with three wooden plugs being glued in on one side…
…and three on the other.
I’ll give these plugs about an hour to set, cut them off flush with the stock and then coat them with the copper epoxy.
Time for a cup of tea.
Actually, whilst I drink my tea I need to mention something about the C-Guard Liquid Copper product. When I first purchased this stuff back in 2018, it came in a pack that contained the resin, hardeners, copper powder, plastic gloves mixing sticks, stainless steel scrubbing pad and instructions. You can’t get it like this right now as the price of copper powder varies pretty much from day to day. But the very kind Gentleman that runs the company, Tony Grimes, will sell you everything else and leave you to source the copper powder. He even suggested where to get it at the best price.
This was ideal for me since I had nearly 3 kg of copper powder already and this meant that I did not end up with a whole lot more and was able to purchase just the extra that I needed.
Here is the second and last coat and with the masking tape removed.
It doesn’t stay this colour. Once this has hardened properly, at least 24 hours, then you use the stainless steel scouring pad to remove the very top layer of the epoxy exposing the copper to the air and, eventually, the water. At this point it goes green.
I’m not finished with the underside of the hull yet, there’s the keel band to put in place and I also need to do some tidying up in the keel slot which will have to wait until I have the boat on its side so that I can access the slot.
However, I have the last of the major epoxy work done.
The rudder stock also has two coats, so once that has hardened i can complete the remaining work on that.
I am not a fan of sanding, never have been but I realise that it is a necessary part of making just about anything in wood. This is a common sentiment amongst makers although I do know one or two who quite enjoy it.
Before the hull is turned back up the right way, I have to sand the hull under the waterline and complete the copper epoxy work.
I won’t bore you with the details, suffice it to say that this is not a difficult or time consuming task as this is just to provide a key for the next coat. So, lightly sanding is the requirement, not removal of material. Mind you there were one or two places that needed to be sanded away a little harder, but on the whole this one side took two or three hours to get to the stage you see here. Sanded, swept, air blasted and wiped with a cloth soaked in Acetone. I will need to go over a few spots where the epoxy is still shiny by hand but I’ll do that after I’ve sanded the other side.
Next task, the transom.
Sanded, coated with neat epoxy, fibreglass laid on and then coated with epoxy. I didn’t get the sanding quite right on the far side, the copper epoxy will protrude above the white boot top, but I’m not going to try and fix what is a cosmetic error now.
Second coat, applied with a brush and not a roller so that I don’t need to mix up as much epoxy. Although the rollers are only 4″ long, they really soak up a lot of epoxy which is then wasted.
Note the rubber glove over the stern navigation light to stop drops of epoxy dripping on it !!
Time for a cup of tea.
Having taken a break I started sanding the second side of the hull and was surprised to find that it took around half the time for the first side. Not sure why.
I marked the location of the upper edge of the boot top and then taped it.
This was carried around the transom.
The remainder of the touching up sanding I’ll do tomorrow and then decided whether or not to add the final two copper epoxy coats to the underwater hull or wait until next weekend.
I had a lazy start to the day, to be honest, so it was was after lunch before I started any work on the boat. The first thing I needed to do was trim the skeg.
This involves running a utility knife carefully along the bottom of the skeg, cutting off the excess fibreglass and epoxy. The result is a clean edge to the timber and it is now ready to be glued to the boat.
The next task was to fibreglass the centerline. I used two pieces of 100mm wide fibreglass tape from the stern forward until the point where the keel reinforcement timbers narrow, something that is easy to see in the above photo. Then I used a single width of the tape.
Before I could get started on the epoxy work, however, had to sand the timber and the copper epoxy either side of the keel or the new epoxy would not adhere to the surface. I also precoated the area to be glassed as there was quite a gusty wind blowing and I had no other way to hold the tape down. Precoating the keel and hull gave me something sticky on which to place the tape and that held it down until I was able to roll on more epoxy to coat the cloth.
After an hour or so the epoxy was slightly tacky and I was able to put on the second coat. I did have to set up a way of sheltering the centerline of the boat from the rain which started just before I wanted to apply the second coat. I could see the forecast rain shower approaching, so put together something to keep the rain off.
With the majority of the hull now coated in epoxy I only needed to cover the centerline and thus I put together a few things from the workshop that would hold the tarp off the epoxy where I needed it covered.
It is not elegant but it does the trick. The shower came and went and I was then able to move the tarp to one side and apply the second coat of epoxy. The tarp came back into position before the next lot of rain descended. Not having to cover the entire boat is a bonus.
That was it for the day, hopefully, the skeg will be epoxied in place tomorrow and I’ll make a start on the transom preparation. There are several runs of epoxy that need to be removed which will also mean restaining several areas before fibreglass and epoxy is applied.
I have to say that, although it was satisfying getting the sheathing done, by the time I finished I was pretty sick of mixing up and applying epoxy. Yet there is still more to do. Just not so much.
After a few days of rest from the fairly exhaustive effort of the last five and a half weeks, and since work could not continue on Shoal Waters herself due to the rain, I decided that the next task was the skeg. This is small enough to be done in the workshop and it is still warm enough to use the special epoxy. The first part of this task was to cut the concave curve into the bottom of the skeg to match that of the keel. It doesn’t have to be an exact fit since it will be secured in place with thickened epoxy which will fill any gaps. It just needs to be stable on the keel and upright.
Both ends were cut to an angle of about 4º, that being the angle between the keel and the transom.
The offcut from the aft end of the skeg shows how well the two pieces were laminated together showing no signs of voids along the glue line.
All the edges bar those touching the keel were rounded over, on the bench router, using the largest roundover router bit I have and then sanded.
The result is good enough to allow the fibreglass cloth to sit flat on the wood and not lift as it goes over the edges.
I mixed up the 105/207 epoxy mix but before applying it I took a small amount, added some thickener and used that to fill in the small knot on one side of the skeg.
Then it was back to applying epoxy, this time with a brush, not a roller. Once this has become tacky I shall apply a second coat which will complete this stage of the skeg work.
The next task will be fiberglassing the surface of the keel using a heavier weight cloth. I have a small roll of 200gsm weight that is100mm wide for this purpose.
By the weekend of 22 & 23 August, the forecast is getting more certain that several days of rain could be expected from Wednesday 26th onwards which really meant that I had to try to get the sheathing done before then. The trouble being that the temperature is still a little high for epoxy work in large amounts, so work had to be confined to small batches.
The tent idea turned out to be a flop. The hull, as you can see here, was damp due to the heavy dew the previous night not being kept away. So I took it down and once the hull had dried carried on as before.
The next task in the list was to do some filling and continue the work on the runner, followed by sanding.
This is the runner with the wooden battens removed. It needs to be sanded down and then the top covered with the thickened epoxy and then filed down once it has cured.
The epoxy in the slot between the two keel reinforcements came out quite well.
Next up was a rounded fillet along each side of the keel pieces. This is not structural, it is there to aid the fibreglass sheathing, which doesn’t like sharp corners, and to fill a few gaps.
Both sides were filleted, covered with peel ply and then given a good coat of neat epoxy.
The same was done for both the bilge runners.
I was pleased to be able to get the keel and both runners done in one day. Having curing epoxy on the hull can stop other work from being done, at least until the epoxy is not longer green.
A bit later in the day I put some epoxy on the top of the badly damaged runner, and leveled it off with a thin piece of plywood.
I had some neat epoxy left over so I put it on the transom where I had pulled off the outer veneer in one section.
By yesterday morning I had everything pretty much ready to go. The fillet, repairs and various other parts sanded and I made a start on the sheathing as soon as the hull was dry. The fibreglass cloth was carefully laid in place and smoothed down. Cuts were made for the runner and chainplates.
Then work began.
I used West System Epoxy 1-5 resin with the 207 special clear hardener. It’s a lot more expensive that the other hardeners but it does not produce the amine blush and is designed for tasks like this. This is the first coat over the fibreglass and took about an hour. The epoxy was applied with a small roller and touched up where required with a brush.
An hour or so later the epoxy had cured sufficiently for the next coat, again applied with a roller, but only took about 20 minutes. The first coat soaked into the wood of the hull so a lot more epoxy needed to be used to ensure that the fibreglass was covered. That meant going back over the hull a few times and re-covering the fibreglass where the wood had soaked up all of the epoxy. This coat was over a hard, non-porous surface, so not only was much less epoxy required, but it took far less time.
Then an hour or so later the last epoxy coat under the waterline, this time with added copper powder as antifouling.
Today was a repeat of yesterday and this is the result. Both sides of the hull are sheathed.
The keel has not be done yet as I want to put a heavier fibreglass cloth along this. But the hull sheathing has been done before the rain arrives.
Of course, that means that the rain won’t arrive, or not until I decide to do the keel.
The hull, now shiny, will be sanded all over. The copper needs to be exposed and the topsides need to be sanded down so that the paint has something to attach so that it doesn’t fall off the shiny surface.
As with all the operations involving epoxy, no photos get taken unless there is someone else not involved to take them. The combination of nitrile gloves and epoxy getting everywhere make the taking of photos slightly problematic. Problematic meaning that getting epoxy of mobile phones is not easy. So, it wasn’t until yesterday morning that I took photos of the work of the previous evening.
This is a combination of West System epoxy, those bits with the peel ply and penetrating epoxy, those without.
The penetrating epoxy was used in areas where there were significant cracks or areas that needed the epoxy to soak in. This crack already had some filler in, but it had pulled away from the sides of the crack it was trying to fill.
Whilst the dents and major damaged sections were filled with thickened epoxy and peel ply put on over the top.
The spots on the hull in this photo and the prior one are not splashed about epoxy, but rain drops which inconveniently started just as I started taking the photos. So I had to stop and put the cover back on.
Later in the day I was able to remove the cover and then the peel ply.
This meant getting on with the remaining scraping and sanding. No photos of the sanded hull, it’s just more of the same.
The bilge runner on this side was considerably damaged and the repaired with something white and brittle. Unfortunately, it didn’t stick very well to the wood and came off with only a little effort.
This morning, before the rain started, I clamped two piece of thin plywood covered in plastic file either side of the runner and filled the gap with thickened epoxy.
I also filled the forward gape between the two keep reinforcements. I had previously thought that I would fill this gap with a spline of wood glued into place as I did for the aft section, but the bottom of the slot was very irregular which would make the construction of the spline difficult and after some thought, which is why it has taken so long to get around to doing the task, I decided that filling the slot with thickened epoxy was easier and would give a better result.
I noticed in places, whilst I was filling the slot, that you could see a gap between the hull planks right through down to the underside of the hog on the inside. I made sure that in these areas the epoxy was squished down well so that the gap was sealed.
No sooner had I taken these photos than it began to rain again and this time, quite hard. So, the cover went on again quite hurriedly. It was only later whilst watching the rain from the kitchen that I realised that the cover was resting on the uncured epoxy. I rather hurriedly went back to the workshop, retrieved two baulks of timber and slid these under the tarpaulin either side of the epoxy. this lifted the tarp off the epoxy.
Time for a cup of tea.
Shortly after taking the last photo, it started raining. Not hard but enough to stop work.
It was a stark reminder that things really have to get moving or I’ll be stuck trying to get the work done between rain showers. The long range forecast, although not that accurate, seems to show that cooler and wetter weather is heading our way and whilst we desperately need a few days tof steady soaking rain in a general sense, I need it to stay dry as long as possible.
I thought about trying a tent over the boat so that work could be carried out during the light rain showers, so I decided to give it a ry.
Not very elegant and wouldn’t stand up to even moderate winds, but worth a try.
I had to be a bit careful of the epoxy currently curing on the bilge runner, but there is enough space to work under the tarp.
