The transom and rear frame are now all in and tagged, so my attention has moved to the front of the boat. As this boat will have a floor right to the bow, this presents the opportunity to move the front frame from adjacent to the wing bars, to under the wing bars and to actually form part of the wing mounting structure by actually poking through the deck.
So after work this afternoon I cut and fitted the front frames ( I am saving the biggest job, the centre-case for last ! ). To align the frame fore and aft, I used a combination of methods, the string-line and the trusty Laser “level”. With the frame tacked in place, I couldn’t resist taking a few artistic shots using the laser light.
So after a few weeks of no progress I managed to get a few hours in our in the shed this weekend. The flat panel that we made up has turned out a treat, and I now have most of the frames cut, fitted and or glued into place. Here is a run through of my build process.
Firstly I design the frames in the computer model, then I print out a template full size. This step isn’t really necessary, but as I have access to the model, it saves a lot of time trying to work out the exact frame shape. Once I have made the paper templates I transfer them to foam board that I get from an art or office supplies store. Then I trim and fit them to size and get them 90% right.
Once I have fit them, I trace around them on the flat carbon panel that we have pre-made then cut out the frames with the dremel and sand to fit. This process takes about an hour for each frame. (I have also cut the hull down between these two shots.
Once in place then I glue them in in place, with a fillet and then I will tag them in place one night this week. (And yes, I know that the centreboard case is missing )
So all in all some steady progress this weekend … next big job is the centre-case.
So real life (and a bloody cold winter) has kept me from spending nights out in the workshop, working on the new boat has not progressed much in physical form over the last few weeks. What has progressed is planning, planning and more planning.
With the shell bottom completed the next big task is to mark along the dotted line and cut the hull down. The question quickly became … where do I draw the dotted line ? This is where having a full 3D model of your boat comes in very handy …
Ok time to cut … ? Nope. Cutting down the hull presents an opportunity to leave some of the hull in place as for the wing support blocks. The fact that I am re-using my existing wing bars means that I needed to hoof down to the shed, measure my current boat and then update Johns Gilmor’s model to an accurate representation of what I actually built. This allows me to know where I should cut and where I should leave the height.
With all that planning now done, I am ready to get out the grinder this weekend and start cutting. Although I already know of a problem that needs to be solved. The bottom of my current mast stump does not touch the new floor as the floor in Teknologika is very flat. I am going to call this an opportunity, and see what I can come up with as a way to mount my control lines on the floor on the new mast stump base.
Once the hull has been cut, progress will speed back up pretty quickly. I have already templates for most of the internal frames, flat panel ready to cut them from, and thanks to Rocket Surgeon Composites, I have a centreboard case ready to put in too.
By my count, there has been 9 hull shells pulled out of the Gilmor mould with 2 still yet to be completed in to boats). On the weekend, with the help of my brother, I started making number 10.
First up was mold prep. The mould is a little worse for wear these days, than she was when she was new, and the last person to use her, cough doink, didn’t to the best job of leaving it how he found it. After a few hours of polishing and waxing, it started to look somewhat like its former glory days.
Then the preparation started.
I have come to the conclusion that boat building is a lot like making stir-fry. Most of the time will be spent in preparation for the construction. All of Friday was spent cutting cloth, foam and pre-bending foam to shape with a heat gun.
With all the foam prepared, and the cloth cut it was time for beers. Then, at about 9pm (after the kids were in bed), we set the 2 hour timer and went for it, as determined by the resin pot life and the need to have the boat under vacuum before the resin started go go off. We set a “point of no return” at 1:30 where we would assess where we were and decide to proceed with the second, inner skin as well.
In the end, we managed to get the whole thing done and in the bag in 2hours 10 mins, so we were pretty happy with that, then we set the pump on it, oh and this is no pussy small pump let me tell you …
We recorded the whole thing on video, so here is how to build a shell in 8 mins …
So with all this talk of Monsters and Rocket Surgeons, one could think that there is a lot going on. And there is.
But there are more builds coming. Next week I am heading north, to invade my brother’s workshop and start working on my next Moth (4th one I will have built, 6th moth in total). So here is my radical new design ….
Well, no actually It’s exactly the same as my current boat. My new hull is designed to be an evolution of my current boat, which is now going really well, and is bloody fast. Not Mach 2 fast, but is definitely capable of keeping up with any Bladerider or Prowler if the skipper has a clue (which I don’t obviously).
So why a new boat? Well being a development class there are developments that I want to try to keep moving forwards, and I have learnt a ton in the last 2 years about building things out of carbon, which I want to embody in my new hull.
At this stage, I am currently planning to move the wings, rig and foils to my new hull and sell off the hull with my first generation square foils very cheaply (around the $2K) mark after a tidy up. If someone wants the wings, better centreboard and Ilett rudder, then they could be included to, but the price will go up accordingly. At any rate, the boat won’t be sold until the new one is on the water, and I make it look pretty again, as it has been a tough season on the old girl.
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