The keel plug

I am using a pink "Owen" insulation foam I found at my local hardware store for the keel plug.




I bought a block which is just 5cm thick which is perfect for all sections except the first 4 which needs to be 2,5 cm. For those thinner sections I used a thinner foam sheet which I glued in layers until I got approximatly the desired thickness.





Please refer to Kevin's (PipeDream) great post on keel plug building on the forum under Building > Foils > "Keel bulbs...info and how-to's".
There you will also find a pdf from Chad Knot racing which clearly shows what are the 20 section. If you are not carefull you will end up with 19......just like I did !


Cutting the pieces out was really extremely straight forward.

First I cut out the templates I had printed one by one. I then used a marker to mark the contour of each piece on the foam blank. I marked the wide point line on each piece which gave me a usefull reference to align all pieces later. I used my jigsaw with a longer blade and cutted all pieces. Used a block sander to do minor adjustments since the pieces were cutted pretty precisely with the jigsaw.

Piece of cake !






Than just to make sure they were perfectly aligned I pulled a string above the keel plug, across two screws that were placed at both ends of the plug.
Then looking straight down from above I align the widest point marks with the string. Not rocket science but it is simple and it works.





And just as a teaser of what's coming next, I dry fitted the cockpit sides. Those were cutted from o cardboard template I made but that is a story for future posts.




I am off to Brazil for 2 weeks of vacation....so the build is on hold until I come back !

More kevlar !

I was not really in the mood lately for doing more lamination , but today I woke up feeling like messing up a bit with kevlar...!

As s matter of fact, I still had to work on the forward bunk support / stringers and decided to reinforce them with kevlar , just as I did all the others.

Except that this time I was a bit more carefull cutting the strips... It is important to note that I am not working with tape, but I am simply cutting strips of cloth out of a large roll.......and that can be very messy if you are not very cautious ! Kevlar cannot be compared to fiberglass, which is a pleasure to work with ,or with carbon which is simply the best and easiest I have worked so far.

The kevlar cloth I have is dificult to cut, dificult to handle and dificult to laminate.

So this time my strips were cut very straight, carefully following the thread, and I had very few loose strings. That made a big difference !

I laminated the kevlar directly on the stringers, layed on top another 6 ounce fiber glass tape, and finished it off with a strip of plastic film (the same stuff I used for my keel). Squeege once again came to the rescue to make everything smooth, flat and without any excess.

The end result was very good, much better than before. The edges of the kevlar are thin and flat, no bumps, no loose strings.

This result got me motivated to use kevlar on the sheer clamps and the hull's center seam. This was actually the reason why I bought kevlar in the first place, but I ended up kind of changing my mind after the initial hard experiences I had laminating the stuff.

I guess now I am learning how to deal with it and I should be able to do allright on the hull without massive fairing afterwards.

We will see....

Larger glueing surface for cockpit

After Ben's long description on his blog of how it felt diving into the interior of the beast to glue the cockpit floor, I have been having nightmares.......Well , almost !


But there is NO WAY I will dare try to tape from underneath. Hey, this building should pleasurable and since I am a bit claustrophobic, that is simply out of the question !


So I decided to increase the bonding area of all frames to cockpit junction. I did just like Jeff of Alchemy and epoxied a 2cm x2cm split in half wherever needed AND on both sides of the frame.



So in total I will have 2cm (cleat on one side) +0,6 cm (ply of frame) + 2cm (cleat on other side) =4,6 cm.















That is almost 2 inches of bonding area. Should be enough and no matter what, it sure beats taping from underneath..........AAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Are you good at Trigonometry ?

I am not !


But it sure looks like some kind of a dificult trigonometry experiment...

Actually, I just applied wht Josh-Shazza told me to do to find the exact location of the chainplates. It works perfectly. Thanks dude.

Ben-Booger also helped me out with another way of finding the angle but since I am going for the same alu rig as the Aussies, I decided to got with the exact same angle for the chain plates and therefore the same method to place them.

If you carefully look at the picture , you will get what this method is all about. It is really straightforward for a 22,5 degrees angle.






First of all you should have a staight and plumbed F89 set at 90 angle from your boat CL. Thanks God mine was...!


1-I placed a string across the boat from stem to stern.That is the pink string on the photo.

2-I dropped a plumb right in the center of F89 where the compression post will be. That gave me an intersection with the pink center line string.

3-From that intersection (which was squared vertically, plumb /CL) I projected a 90 degree angle onto the side of the boat. That hit the inner edge of F89. I marked that point and measured the distance to the center line string.

4-I measured the exact same distance from the intersection point on my CL string. By doing so I was now with 2 sides of a perfectly leveled square.

5-I then pulled a string from those two points to "draw" a 90 degree triangle.

6-Marked that string right at its center and pulled another string from the squared angle, passing on that mark ang going all the way to the sheer clamp. My 90 degree angle triangle was now divided into 2 equals 45 degree triangles.

7-I divided that triangle once more using the same method, pulled it all the way the the sheer clamp and ended up with a line at exactly 22,5 degrees from compression post.

Et voila !

I now it sounds a bit complicated but that is because I suck at explaining ! Josh email to me was much clearer.
Anyways, it is easy and since a picture is worth a thousand words, I will say no more....






















Maybe just a last one : I did exactly the same thing for the other side. Then, just to check how symetrical my hull is, I measured the distance from bow to chain plate gusset mark on on side and compared it to the distance on the other side. Spot on ! I could not be happier !!!

Keel Odyssey 4 - The Sleeve

I am so happy tonight you guys have no idea!

Last night I laminated the sleeve on my recently finished keel. That is a delicate step of the building process but the end result was all worth it : I am now the proud owner of a beautiful keel and a perfectly fitted composite sleeve !

Check it out.

This is the layup I used:

1-first layer of plastic film to protect the finished keel from resin. Ben used a vapor barrier plastic film for laying down wooden floors. I could not get the stuff here in Turkey but found a rather thick plastic film that looked just fine. And indeed it worked great.

2-thin (0,5 -1,0) foam film to create a thin space between the keel and sleeve and avoid any problem since I still have to put at least another layer of Brightside on the keel. This foam is used in kitchen drawers. Bought it at my local supermarket. That is the colourfull green stuff on the pictures.

3-another layer of plastic film to make sure the epoxied cloth would not glue to the foam.

4-1st fiber layer = 6 ounce fiberglass

5-2nd fiber layer= heavy aramid cloth

6-3rd fiber layer= 6 ounce fiberglass

7-4th layer= heavy carbon fiber mainly for the looks.

8-final plastic layer on top of carbon for enhanced post cure looks

Again I really used my squeege against that plastic film to fully wet out the fibers and drain all that excess resin out.

The final product is really thin, light, stiff and pretty good looking. And the best of all is that it came out so easily of the keel. I had no issue whatsoever. The plastic film worked wonders and as soon as I pulled on it, the sleeve came out. What a relief...! You guys who have been through it know what I am talking about.......and future builders will sooner or later understand my comments.

That was indeed a keel Odyssey.............but I can!t wait for the next challenge.

And as my fellow builder Josh 'the Shazza' says, "bring it on big fellow !!!"

Keel Odyssey 3

.....and than came the primer......... Well, whoever reads the i550 forum knows what happened to me : I had the toughest time with the PreKote primer.
Hey, the stuff is great I am sure , but it is not supposed to be applied onto epoxi surfaces.....And than it also needs to be thin .... and of course I did not know any of that stuff before...!


So I did it all wrong and the first coat of primer took forever to dry. The pros who advised me on what to do thought about amine blush problem but thank to the 'Angel Guard 'of first time builders, my problem was mainly due to a thicker than normal layer.


It ended up drying eventually and I sanded it, applied a second layer and sanded it, and a third layer, which by that time was correctly thinned. What a difference ! Went on much better, was smooth as a baby's butt and sanded like a dream.

By the way, I have to mention the really outstanding customer service I got from Jay from Interlux. I send the company a note to describe my misery and Jay immediately replied with some sound advice. Really felt good not to be left alone by the company who manufactures the product. They know their stuff and they are here to help builders. Thumbs up to them !


So after all I got my keel primed and sanded allright.















I was happy with the primed surface therefore I decided to apply the first coat of Brightside, properly thinned to 10%. It is a beautifull product and applies really easily. When I came back the next morning to see how that first coat was looking I was really surprised with how smooth and shinny that Brightside looks. It is not a 2 part paint but it does the job well.

I sanded that first coat and applied a second one. The end result was of course even better than before.





















So I still have to apply at least another coat but I will leave that for later, mainly after I get the bulb molded and fixed.

Right now the keel is good enough for me to do the keel sleeve...Ahhh! Took me forever to get here.....I feel I am not too far from closing that keel box :)

Keel Odyssey 2

After fairing the keel, which took me a great amount of time, I built a jig to make laminating the keel a bit easier. Tim Ford did the same and the Swift Solo web site has a tutorial that describes that jig.



I just tweaked it a little bit so I could take the keel in and out of the rig by myself. That was important because I did all the sanding on my working table and all the laminating and painting on the jig. Coul not have done it without the jig. Great stuff.Here is a shot of it.

Lamination was pretty straightforward. 2 layers of 6 ounce fibercloth took care of the job. I cutted all my cloth layers before hand and marked the center line (that is the purple marks you can see on the leading edge in some pictures. Marking that center line was important to make sure the cloth was applied correctly, as measured during the dry run.

I also used the squeegee more than ever before to make sure the lamination was lighter. The result was good with no dry spots.

After the keel was laminated and cured , I gave it a quick sand and added a thin layer of thickened epoxy. This assured me a very smooth surface without any thread of the cloth to be seen. Of course that final surface was sanded as well before I moved ahead and gave it its first layer of primer......and THAT is another story !