Cockpit dry fit

Now THIS is starting to look like a boat ! All that neat work with stringers , cleats and all ,has gone underneath the cockpit sole.

Cutting out the panels was not so hard. Just took a few back and forth for minor trimming. No problem lifting a little weight around at 9:00 am with my garage steaming at about 96 F....

The first and only cardboard template I cutted was one side panel. That is it. And I actually did not use cardboard but "buttery cooking paper" . I like working with the stuff because it is transparent and molds pretty well.

So after I had cutted my cockpit side panels, I cutted the cockpit deck panels. I just placed one side panel on the boat and made sure it was nicely leaning on all frames, than placed a sheet of ply on top of the decks and use a pencil to mark the inner (against the side panel) and outer line (hull). Took the plywood sheet out and cutted along the mark. By the way, I measured panels on one side but made sure they also fitted perfectly the other side before cutting the twins. You never know !

One I had my decks cutted, I used them as templates to draw the cockpit floor curve. Indeed, the curves of the decks and the floor are the same. So I lay a plywood sheet on my working table, placed the deck panel on top and marked the curve for the right side. Flipped it around and marked the left curve. Just make sure you take the right references and place the curve where it is supposed to be.

Worked like a treat and after two liters of sweat I was finished.

By the way, my new measuring unit for boat purposes is not hours, or feet, or pounds.

It is just liters of sweat ! No pictures of that for now !!! :)

Just as an aditional detail to whoever is making a long cockpit version, my floor was made of three panels which can clearly been seen here.

Finished belly

Except for the keel box, the inside of my cockpit is finished. It has been 'almost' finished for quite some time but I finished off this morning. Well actually I still have to trim some fiberglass but that is really minor stuff.

All frames and stringers top have cleats on both sides. Speaking about stringers, I have finally glued the 4 "T" stringers that will give support to the cockpit floor as well as give me additional material to glue the cockpit floor onto.

Looks and feels really strong !

little "trick" for "cleat"

Here is a little trick to help out if you are thinking about epoxing cleats to your frames to make for a larger glueing surface for the cockpit.

I am , because I sure as hell will not tape from underneath. So my cockpit will be build monoblock and glued in a single go. That might prove to be somehow challenging with the curing time I am having here due to extreme heat : about 10 mns with Slow Hardener.....

First of all my cleats are not squared but 45 degree , just like the sheer clamps. Anyways, the trick to glue cleats on frames is to do both sides simultaneously AND to add little bits of 45 on each side for the clamp to grab onto something flat. Might be easier to understand with a picture.

And trust me, it is pretty hard to get it right without this little trick.

Mean Torpedo !

I finished shaping both halves using just one set of templates.


I cutted out 19 paper templates (keep in mind the middle one is doubled) which were used to cut a total of 40 sections, one at a time. Sounds really time taking but it is not all that bad. I would add it is a pretty good therapy on a hot Turkish night after a stressfull day at work....





On this picture you can clearly count the 20 sections and notice how the first 4 are half the thickness (2,5 cm) of all the others (5cm).

Again, if you need help on the bulb construction, please refer to Kevin's post "Kell Bulbs...Info and how to's" on the i550.org forum. You need to be a registered member to access the forum though. You will find everything you need in that thread, including a .pdf drawing with the 19 contour lines. Just read it over and over ! The reason why this bulb end up having 20 sections thing was not so easy for me to understand....
I posted a zipped xcel file on the forum with an easy to understand drawing. It is important to keep in mind that for the first half of the bulb the lines are on the AFT face of each section, while for the last half of the bulb the lines are on the FWD faces of each section. If you follow this rule you will understand why the middle section is doubled up and therefore why you end up with 20 sections.

I will sand it down and fair it if necessary. Before fairing though ,I have tested epoxi on a little pink foam leftover and it works fine. I was a little afraid that it could melt it down like some of the glues I tried on first. Even the traditional white carpenter glue did somewhat melt the foam. But not epoxi....Go figure

I got a leak

and a big one !

Came back from 2 weeks of vacation just to find out way too much water in my basement...!
My plywood sheets which were lying flat on the ground got partially wet. The berth tops as well, but at least they already had one coat of epoxi on .
Overall the dammage is not too bad. The ply seems to be holding pretty well , which is a good sign...I would have been terrified to see it delaminate.
It has been so damn hot lately in Turkey that I think they will dry up just as quickly as they got soaked.