Chain plates in

Figuring out where to place the gussets was one thing, but actually bolting the chain plates on those gussets is a whole different story....

Days in Turkey are currently really hot, so working inside that tight cabin trying the correct way to drill those holes on the gussets as close as possible to the shear clamp was not easy !

After I had mark the precise location of the chainplates, I used my Bosh Multimaster to cutout the upper deck. That tool is just wonderful and I could not have done it without it.

The place around the gussets was so tight with the frame and decks and hull and all....that i could not fit my driller properly in order to drill the holes.

What really saved me this time is a little gizmo I bought that allows you to drill perpendicular to your driller. That is quite an advantage and I also used that gizmo to redrill some hardware hole from below deck.

The holes were then filled with thickened epoxy and the bolts were tight. I did not use any release agent on them so I hope I wont have to remove the chainplates any time soon.

I guess I could have tried to place the chain plates further towards the shear but that would have implied working even closer to that gusset-frame-hull tight corner. And that would have been simply impossible to do with the kind of straight down chain plates I made. The design of the chainplates would have to be changed.

And I leave that decision for the next builders cause I am done with my chainplates !

No matter what, the final assembly looks really sturdy and I believe the boat could easily be lifted from those chainplates. The chain plates themselves are made of 5mm stainless steel, 8cm by 17 by twenty something as I recall.....They were bolted through the gussets with 10mm stainless steel bolts.

deck faired

Deck is finally faired, sanded and ready for painting !

İ followed the exact same process as for the hull :
1-faired all cloth seams and overlaps with a thicker mixture of resin + West Microlight 410 fairing filler. İ used a medium size plastic squeegee and made sure no bumps were left behind and everything was flat to the touch.
2- after sanding the initial putty, İ applied a thickned float coat all over with an even large squeege and left a thin film of resin just enough to cover up the cloth weave. Actually İ used a large metal spatula. İ had to round off the corner of that spatula as not to leave any scratch on the fresh float coat but it worked a wonder leaving a smooth thin film of thickened epoxi.

Then came the dreaded fairing time..... Except this time İ have to admit i did not kill myself handsanding with the longboard. İnstead İ went with my large orbital sander and 80 grit dry paper ! That went fast ! But İ was carefull enough not to oversand. The main reason İ did not use the longboard is that İ did not intend to obtain such a flat surface as İ did for the hull. No need for that since most of the deck surfaces will be overpainted with Kiwi Grip which will certainly mask any imperfections. Another reason is that it is impossible to use the longboard for the cabin top or even for the cockpit floor because of the bensons İ glued.
So İ just started with the sander.....and finished the job off with it. İt looks good, no apparent flaws to the touch.

One thing İ did before fairing was to drill all the holes for the hardware placement. And to make sure İ would not loose sight of them (which apparently happened to other builders) they were all overdrilled and filled with blue colored epoxi. İ used small amounts of a special epoxi coloring agent. İt worked out great as all filled holes were still well visible after applying the float coat.

İf you zoom on the below picture you will see the blue marks for the jib rails bolts .


After sanding the float coat, İ pre-drilled all holes . Now İ am pretty sure İ will not loose them even after painting.



Next steps are primer, paint and anti slid Kiwi Grip. İ also have to repaint the interior cabin and fix the compression post but there is not much to do before İ can turn my attention to mast and sails.... :):):):)

hardware placement

Thanks to my fellow builders I finally started to have a better understanding of what kind of controls I should have.
Set up for spin and jib sheets was pretty easy and İ did exactly what Kevin did with side by side blocks . And because İ am building the long cockpit/short cabin version, İ can still seat 2 people side by side either in front of those blocks or behind. Plenty of space to move around and good access to all commands in case of solo sailing.
Most of the issues however came up with the dog house hardware placement.
Might sound easy for most of you but for a non experienced sailor such as me, it was all pretty hard to figure out.
As suggested, I bought some ropes and started playing around and simulating where all the cleats and blocks should be fixed at. The main issue I had is that the space around the cabin cutout and and mast base is very limited because I probably over cut the cabin opening. So I was left with little space to fit everything.

But I followed all the good hints and advices of what should be where , and ended up with this set up:
Port=
vang and cunningham running on the smaller external cleats . Spin tack line running on the middle large cleat. On the cabin side panel İ left a cleat eventually for a jib downhaul line

-Starboard=
vang, cunningham running on the smaller external cleats, spin halyard running on the middle large cleat.On the cabin side panel İ have the Jib furling line as İ intend to use a furler.

Cleats for Main halyard and Jib halyard will be set on mast itself to save some deck space.

Spin tack line, Jib downhaul and Jib furling run all the way to bow and are deflected and held in place with little blocks. İt looks clean and should work fine with the fixed spin pole İ will add later on.

İt seems it will work out fine so a very special thanks goes to Josh, Chad and Kevin who helped me out each with a different step of that hardware location process.

All holes have now been overdrilled and filled with blue colored epoxi silica. That should help me not loosing sight of the holes after fairing.
The hardest part was really to place patches of duck tape underneath the traveler rail holes to fill them out with epoxi putty because İ had to dive underneath the cockpit sole all the way back to f169,5...
The place is so cramped inside because of all the stringers and reinforcement that İ would bump my nose everytime İ had to turn my head from side to side. But İ managed to keep my claustrophobic attacks under control !
That is one more benefit of this whole building experience ...

İ have already started fairing and sanding and should be painting top deck in a couple of weeks.

boat is back on its feet

That is right. We flipped the boat once more today and I will finally go back to sanding and fairing some more but this time on the upper deck !

I swear I was missing that noisy and dusty action. Got bored of sniffing paint thinner.

So I just grabbed my orbital sander and went to work....My poor neighbors will need to bare with me for a couple more weeks.

I am sure they enjoyed the painting phase much more than I did though :)

And since the upper decks were sanded before I turned the dog house upside down, I actually do not have so much work to do.

If everything goes as planned, Ill be fairing before the weekend.

PS:......and just one more thing. I took my time to look at the boat tonight and I just could not believe I actually build it ! It is one amazing achievement for a first time builder and it is absolutely doable. If you are still thinking about it, just go for it and commit until the end. You wont regret it.

final look

That is it ! Hull is finished for good and I am flipping the boat tomorrow to finish off the top.

So overall I really over did it and ended up using Interprotect , VC Tar and VC Offshore . But all that should help avoiding water infiltration and osmosis. Hopefully its money well spent...

Vc Offshore is a bit weird though...First of all the can I bought was supposed to be white....

To start off when I opened the can what they call white is actually more a light beige or creme color. Than you dump 800grs of copper powder into it and you end up with something a bit purple or grey, but certainly not white ! The thing is supposed to change color after some days of immersion so I am curious to see what it will actually look like later.

And it is not an easy paint to roll mainly because it dries so fast. I did my best to avoid leaving roll marks but could not. The paint job, even after 3 coats, is pretty uggly. Seriously. Marks all over that are hard to show on the pictures...I guess this antifouling should be sprayed on instead of rolled on to get a smoother result.

But, although I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist and the results are not really what I expected, I dont really care because this whole part will be soon underwater ! Cant wait for that to happen.

keel ordeal

Keel and bulb assembly is finally finished.

Actually I had finished the keel already but a small change in my game plans sent me back to the sanding board....Initially, I had primed the keel with Primekote and painted it with white Brightside in order to build a custom sleeve around it for the keel box.

But because I will probably leave the boat in the water, I decided to apply an antifouling paint to the keel. That meant sanding off all finishing job I had done before, applying new primer and new antifouling paint. That is the reason why one can still see some darker sports on the pictures. Those are traces of the Primekote.

Anyways, the heavy bulb (80 kgs) was fixed to the oak keel with 4 stainless steel bolts, nuts and washers.

The previously drilled holes on the bulb and rudder were filled with a thick mixture of resin and silica. Then the bolts were inserted and properly tighten. And because they were slightly longer than needed, I trimmed off the ends with an all purposes hand saw.

Then everything was neatly filled with more epoxi silica putty.

Then it was time for some basic fairing , sanding, painting. Question was how to do this with a keel-bulb assembly weighting more than 100 kgs....Lay it down on my working table and do one side at a time or hang it ?

After consulting fellow builders on i550class.org I decided to hang it from the ceiling. Went to the hardware store, bought a heavy duty hook and a ready to use 8 to 1 purchase. I drilled the hole in my ceiling, screwed the hook and admire in ow my keel slowly raising from the ground.

That is one single screw holding over 100kgs ....Not too bad.

I let it hanging over night to be sure it would hold. As everything was still looking good the next day, i faired and sanded the beast.

1 coat of Interprotect followed by 1 coat of VCTar2 and 3 coats of VC Offshore later the job was finished and the keel looked like this

One thing I must say to all of the future builders who might be reading this is that you really should build a small cart to move your keel and bulb around.

I followed the advice of fellow builder Kevin and that was probably the greatest piece of advice I could ask for. Simply said, I could not have done it without that little cart.

Shinny Perfection

Getting close to finishing the paint job and I am happy with the results. The colors and scheme are not the usual thing but I am really happy with how it looks. Pretty cool for a sportboat. Now with that type of painting, that thing is better fly !

But take a look at that shine ! Interlux Perfection is indeed a glossy paint. You can even see the blue sky on the white part. Took me a little time (and money! ) to get to that point because I had to paint every color more than once and than lay a final glaze coat to protect the red from fading.

Now that the sides are done, I only need to apply VC TAr and the chosen VC Offshore antifouling on the bottom and I am done with the hull. I picked up a can of the white VC Offshore. I think it will look cool with a white bottom !

I will post a new entry as soon as I have the hull paint done with the antifouling.