Monoblock cockpit

Finally got my cockpit all together.

It is a big piece that I can hardly move around in my garage.

With the help of my lovely wife we flipped it around and, as with many other builders, put it back upside down on the boat itself 'cause we could not fit it elsewhere !

I then:

-placed all reinforcements plates where I believe they should go. No rocket science here, rather a lot of educated guesses. Hope it works.

Those reinforcements are just small extra pieces of 6mm ply glued to the cockpit underside with Microfibers and on top of which I laminated one single layer of cloth. That is just to prevent that the bolt\washers I use to fix all hardware does not sink in the wood.

-trimmed all the bottom -to-side panels joints. I then rounded them off slightly

-laminated those smooth joints

-laid two layers of resin to seal the wood in case it ever sees any salt water.

After all that work, I flipped it back over and it still fit perfectly. I believe the whole assembly is pretty strudy and I will only glue it to the frames without any additional filet or tape. I dont want to drag myself into that 'dark coffin' between cockpit sole and hull bottom, but I think it will be alright.

Then the wole monoblock structure will be fully laminated from above anyways, so I reckon it will be solid.

Talking about trimming those cockpit joints just reminded me of how great a tool that little Multimaster is. The one I bought is Bosch, not Multifein, but it is great to work with. I use for a lot of applications including trimming all my fiber after curing, cutting holes in hard to reach places (mainly where my jigsaw will not fit). For example, I could not have trimmed my cockpit bottom-to-side panels joints without it. Great tool to have for sure for any builder.

Today is Friday night. Weather forecast indicates crappy rain and maybe even snow, so my plan for the weekend are to relax....................by working on the boat, glue down the cabin top to finish the front part of the boat, go to the wood store to purchase the Red Cedar I need for the rudder, and make a lot of noise with my planner.

Yeah....that sounds just right to me.......

I guess I know why my wife thinks I am nuts !

Cool stripes

Since the cabin was painted, I decided to paint the top cabin panels before assembling them.

I used mask tape to hide the areas that would be later epoxied to the boat frame which ended up giving a pretty cool effect.



The idea was to epoxi first on clear wood then paint it over but I liked the effect to the point where I think I will not paint them any longer.
Only the fillet themselves will be painted over. The rest of the boat will be as is, with a touch of wood just to remind me what it is made of.
It just takes some time and patience to make nice fillet in those hard to reach corner. Thanks God it is no longer super hot in Turkey. Gives my epoxi a better pot life to work with....




Then as one can see on those pictures, I also place the hatches needed for ventilation on all closed sections which includes the bow compartment and the bunks. Easier to work with the bow deck still opened. Will be a much tighter place to work in afterwards so I decided to do as much as possible before.




Then I started closing the panels starting up front with the bow. No big issue there thanks to all the previous dry fitting. I used microfibers to make sure the glueing of the panels was as strong as possible .

White cabin

First layer of paint went on the cabin. It is looking pretty cool although also I also liked the color of my clear plywood.

But since the cabin is a bit small and very little light will get through , I'd rather have it as clear and spacious as possible. White helps a great deal in that sense.

I used Brightside for the job because I had leftover from my keel job. I also used a spray gun to get some practice since I intend to paint my hull that way.

Josh was great in giving me all the hints but I have to admit that I still have a looooooonf way to go before I am satisfyed with my spraying abilities.

Some panels came out great. Some others were so terrible I had to grab my paint roll to fix it. Overall it is not too shabby but that is because the paint I am using is so good. Brightside is really nice and easy to apply.

My wife after seeing my paint job on the boat, said I could go on and paint the house..... :(

Foot Bensons or straps ?

I might just go both ways ! And so I made Bensons and also epoxied reinforcement plates underneath the cockpit sole.

The bensons were made just like Jeff and Kevin did on their blogs PipeDream and Alchemy so no need to explain the whole thing again. Check their blogs, it is well worth it and we all learned from them.

Main difference is that i did not use zip ties to hold the panel together. Since they form a 90 angle , I laid once piece flat, held the other one at 90 degrees on top of the first one with square blocks I had, applied micro filet of 10mns epoxy, removed blocks, applied normal silica filet. End of story.

Then to reinforce what will be seeing a lot of heavy feet in a few months, I glassed them with 6 once fiber cloth.

I only intend to glue them onto the cockpit floor AFTER laminating the cockpit.

Lots of sanding

After bunks were glassed, mast compression base was in place and cockpit sides were finished İ was left with a dreadfull mission. Sanding ! Countless hours sanding my cabin interior ! Not a very gratifying job, for sure, but a very important one.




İ made sure that all surfaces, all joints, all filets, all fiberglass tapes edges were smooth as baby skin. All the edges of my kevlar reinforcement strips were sanded, then faired, then sanded again.
İ can probably throw any nylon sail inside without fearing that it will tear as soon as it is pulled out, so mission accomplished.

Once it was smooth enough in every possible corner, İ wiped all surfaces with water and sponge to remove any left over amine blush. Then İ used İnternational 216 thinner to clean them even better. İ finished the prep by blowing compressed air to get rid of the last particles !
İ know it is overdone but, hey, İ enjoy the building process and İ am in no hurry to finish !


Then İ finally primed it with Epoxi Prekote. Yeap, this time İ used the right stuff for epoxy surfaces. But boy does it smell bad !!! İ am really glad İ was wearing an organic respirator for that job !



I will sand it very lightly since my objectif is not to get a mirror finish paint job, and apply Brightside which I have leftover from my keel


.

Cockpit sides

Cockpit sides were finished.


The foam was first faired wherever necessary with fairing filler (İ love working with it) then glassed from above with a large fiber tape.




Then the foam structure was reinforced from below with a long, continous tape of carbon fiber. This was done in order to give the needed strength to the foam part which will probably be abused as soon as İ start sailing the boat. İ mean knees, feet, heavy asses of all sort etc... So İ wanted to make sure this delicate part will hold. İ guess Airex foam + fiber + carbon will do the trick

And then just for fun, although most panels still need heavy trimming, İ dry fitted all of them and sat on the cockpit to check it all out from above.

Getting somewhere. İ am happy !

Bunkers and Compression post base

İ finally glassed the front bunks.

İ cutted large fiber panels and layed them from starboard to port, perpendicular to the carbon fiber İ had already used to reinforce the bottom hull seam. This will give me additional strength at the bottom of the hull.

Just before glassing İ also used fairing filler to round off the bunks edges. Took a little while to get it right but it was worth the effort. The fiber cloth wrapped nicely around those curvy angles.

Then İ moved on to the compression post base.
Not much to say about those except that İ opted for a pyramid of two blocks, glued together, and to the hull and frame, with microfibers. (The picture below shows some rough fairing filler which was then nicely sanded)



The bottom one goes from port bunk stringer to star bunk stringer. İt will help in distributing the forces on the compression mast to the whole stringer structure which was itself reinforced with kevlar.
For the upper block İ switched the grain orientation and it is placed grain up. The base of the compression post will be screwed onto this block.
And last, in order to minimize frictions and wear of F89, İ wrapped it around with a 1 mm alu sheet. So İ will have alu rubbing on alu. We will see how that works.