Fairing Round Two

I just finished applying the second round of fairing compound on the foredeck.  Once it cures up I should be reasonably close to a nice looking deck that's ready for primer.  Of course I'll have to go along the edges to clean up any ragged spots, but overall I think I've taken care of any low spots.

In any event, the non-skid I'll be applying (Kiwigrip) should hide any major sins.  I'll be working round two on the side decks over the next few days.

Chainplate Islands

For those that don't know what a chainplate island is (some call them housekeeping pads), they are nothing more than little raised areas where chainplates and other through deck hardware mount.  The idea is that since the pads raise the through deck opening up above the deck, there is less possibility of water intrusion.  Of course you still need to properly bed and seal the fittings but it seems reasonable to me and I think they look nice when made to look integral to the deck.

Originally I was going to do clay molds right on deck like what Don Casey did in Good Old Boat magazine (Issue 65 March/April 2009), but since Magic is not in the water and I know the boat is not level, I didn't want to cast pads that would be all out of level.  I also have a healthy respect/fear of my jackstands and feel no need to mess around with them unless it's absolutely necessary.  

I decided to build a mold for casting all the pads at once and came up with a design that would satisfy my requirements.   I decided on a 2"x2-3/4" pad with 15 degree bevels on 2 sides (the 2" fore and aft side). Using the miter saw I cut a bunch of beveled blocks 2-3/4" long out of 1/2" birch plywood and then cut 2 straight pieces to run the length of the mold from the same material.

Next I cut out a base plate that would serve as the bottom of the mold and be the interface where the chainplates slide through.  This whole mold building task was due in part to me wanting to put my new to me bandsaw to good use.  The bandsaw didn't disappoint.  I found it on Craigslist and paid $75 dollars for it.  The previous owner had bought a new one because he never had much luck getting this one to track straight without drift.  It was an old Reliant 14" that was just under 200 pounds and I knew I could get it working better than he did.  I replaced the top and bottom guide blocks, got a new Timberwolf blade and trued the wheels.  Now this thing is amazing.  I can cut a perfect line or curve in 5/4 rock maple without it even flinching.  Quite a bargain.  

Anyway, I used the bandsaw to cut out the slots for the chainplates in the bottom plate and a guide plate that would serve as part of the base of the mold.  I put clear packing tape on all the surfaces of the blocks and side rails and then laid down a piece of plastic sheet for the bottom and cut holes for the chainplate openings.  Then I cut out the base pieces with some old pine stock I had and assembled everything together.

I taped up all of the chainplates with masking tape and a layer of packing tape.  The combination gave me a little more than 1/16" on all sides of each chainplate so the fit would be too tight and I would be able to fit sealant into the pad when I rebedded the chainplates.  When I fitted the chainplates into the mold I pressed a little modeling clay around the edges where it goes through so no epoxy would drain out of the mold when I cast everything up.

Once I was satisfied with the setup I mixed up the epoxy, added enough Aerosil to thicken the mixture up to runny mayo consistency and then poured/slopped it in.  I filled each mold roughly 3/16" deep and called it a night.  When I came back the next morning everything appeared to have hardened up nicely so I took apart the mold, but when I tried to extract the first chainplate from the center of the pad, it cracked.  Damn it!




After instructing the kids that sailors have to talk funny and to not tell mom about my funny words,  I spent the next 30 minutes pulling out all but one of the chainplates with the same results.

Epic Fail....

2nd try = Much Better

After consulting the Plastic Classic Forum I came to the conclusion that I had probably mix up a hardener rich batch of epoxy that overheated and caused the brittleness.  I had eyeballed the mix because I did this in my shop and not in the boatshed where I have the proper volumetric measuring cups.  So I cleaned up the mold and coated everything with a paste wax to further aide in release (the chainplates were stubborn when pulling them out of the pads on the first round).  I also added some 'milled' fibers (1/8" fibers cut from 1708 fabric).  I'm going to leave the mold to set for at least 2 days to ensure a proper cure this time and hope I have better results.  I spent way too much time on this project and I hope I don't have to scrap the whole thing.

Update: I couldn't wait any longer.  I unscrewed the blocks from the mold just to get a feel for how things are setting up and I'm happy to report that all the pads popped out of the mold this time with no trouble.  I'll chalk it up to lesson learned: ALWAYS MEASURE YOUR EPOXY RATIOS....

A Long Time Coming

It was late January 2010 when I first plunged the circular saw into my squishy old decks on Magic, and as of 8pm last night I can finally say that I have finished recoring the decks.  Of course the project started long before that first cut, and will continue long after today, but this is a milestone I hope to never achieve again (at least not with Magic).  Given the ridiculous schedule our family is on right now with a myriad of school related activities and shuttling all over New Hampshire, I pretty amazed that I've gotten this far without throwing in the towel. 

Early on in this project I found myself getting overwhelmed with everything that needed (and still needs) to be done, but I found that by just focusing on the task at hand and working that to completion, I could manage and move forward without wanting to cry (at least during the day).  A few months back I found a quote from Mark Twain that absolutely floored me and literally gave the project a new lease on life.

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.”

Simple and obvious, but it has become my mantra.  I have thrown away my big list because it's too big, and now just focus on the immediate task and those right after.

Anyway, here are a few pictures of the aft deck that I completed last night.  I may jump right into the fairing this afternoon while the aft deck is still green and I can avoid sanding, but that will depend on whether the edges of the glass are flat enough and don't need any cleanup.  After that, the boat and shed are in dire need of a top to bottom cleaning before I start the bulk of the fairing.

Aft deck pre-faired and ready for glass.

Glass cut and ready for lamination.

 

Aft deck laminated, bagged, and tucked in for the night.

Looks like the first picture above but now has 3 layers of glass.

Sloppy

Over the last week I was able to tackle the port sidedeck and the areas adjacent to the cockpit but I found myself rushing just to get it done and as a result, I was a bit sloppy.  For the port sidedeck I used my standard technique of pre-fairing followed by sanding and then lamination of the third layer on top of the pre-faired area, but this time I decided to do 3 adjacent laminations together instead of one at a time.

So the process goes like this:
1. Cut and fit all the biaxial glass for each section to be laminated (50" sections).  Remove and set aside.
2. Mix up 16 oz of epoxy and spread a thin coating on the deck where one of the 50" sections of glass will be laminated.
3. Set the glass in place and wet it out.
4. Cover section with plastic sheeting and then put sandbags on top.
5. Move to next section and repeat steps 2-4.

Stoopidhead

It all seems reasonable, but when your rushing you make mistakes.  The mistake I made was on step #4 of the first lamination.  Nothing huge, but enough to be annoyed with myself for rushing.  I laid down the plastic but failed to see that I overlapped about an inch of the plastic into the next lamination area.  So when I moved onto the next step I set the glass in place but didn't see that there was plastic on the deck and as a result, I laminated about an inch of glass on top of sheet plastic.  Ooops.  I'll have to cut out that seam and redo before I fair the decks.  Oh well, one more thing to do...On the bright side, the rest of the lamination looks good.

Add caption

Over the weekend I tackled the forward part of the decks adjacent to the cockpit and changed my technique a bit.  Normally I have been pre-fairing and letting it cure before sanding it down in preparation for the top layer of glass, but I decided it mostly at the same time.  First I prepped the decks by sanding and wiping down with acetone, then I cut all the glass to fit the areas to laminate.  Next I mixed up 24 oz of epoxy (thickened to mayo) and pre-faired both sides of the decks adjacent to the cockpit.  I leveled it out as best I could and then let it sit for about 2 hours.  That gave it enough time to harden up but it was still somewhat malleable if you worked it. 

After I was convinced it was hard enough to proceed, I mixed up another 24 oz of un-thickened epoxy and spread it out over the still tacky pre-faired layer.  Then I laid down the cloth and wetted it out.  I finished up by covering with plastic and weighting down with sandbags (I was much more careful this time).
I'll post a few more pictures when I pull the sandbags off today.  I hope this new (for me) technique works out; I have no desire to do any more sanding than I have to and if I can eliminate any along the way, I won't be disappointed.

Am I done yet?

Um... NO!  Not even close.  I ordered another 12 yards of 1708 biax cloth (from ebay) for the final layer yesterday.  It should be here sometime late this week, so in the meantime I decided to start cleaning up the existing layers of glass so that the third layer lays flat and will minimize the amount of fairing at the end.  I started up forward and found that there was a lot of resin lumped up in ridges from where I put the plastic and sandbags when I did the lamination.  It was clear that I wasted a lot of epoxy here and consequently, I needed to do a bunch of sanding.  I only had 15 - 60 grit sanding disks for my 5" DeWalt (my 6" Rigid is still in for repairs) so I was only able to adequately sand about 3 feet from the bow before I ran out of disks.

Since there were a fair amount of imperfections in the form of little valleys caused by laying down the plastic and sandbags when the layup was done, I vacuumed everything up and wiped it down with acetone and the mixed up a 12 oz batch of epoxy and thickened with a 50-50 mix of Aerosil and glass microspheres.  This mix should provide much better sandability (is that a word?) to the job once it cures.  I troweled it out on the prepped area and spread a thin layer over everything to fill in the bumps and valleys and called it a day.

Hopefully the 6" Rigid will be fixed soon (especially since I have over $100 in sandpaper sitting on my bench), but in the meantime I will need to purchase large quantities of 5" 60 grit disks.  The glass job gets better as I go aft (on the job training, I can see my improvements), but there are still a few resin ridges here and there.  As much as I despise it, it might make sense to break out the angle grinder for the really high spots so I don't spend a fortune on sandpaper.

Just keep on movin on...

Bad picture, but the white section is actually fairly flat.  Flat enough for the third section of glass anyway.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

My slow plod toward the finish line helped me complete a big milestone this past weekend.  As of 6:30 last night I officially sealed the entire deck from the elements for a long time to come.  The last push began late last week when I sanded and prepped the aft and starboard side decks adjacent to the cockpit.

On Friday afternoon I cut and laminated biax glass for the pushpit mounting points and the backstay (4 layers for each).  I followed up with thickend epoxy to level it to the surrounding core and let that cure overnight. 

The next day I started by cutting and fitting glass for the aft deck area. At this point my 1708 biax cloth supply was running very low so I opted to gather up all the remnants from previous layups and use them for the first layer.  The first layer looked like quite the jigsaw puzzle, and combined with all the edges and odd corners on the aft deck, there was a lot of extra fitting work before I even began the layup.


For the second layer I used part of my remaining supply of 50" cloth to keep the seams to a minumum.  Once I had everything cut and fitted I layed both layers up at once with 3 - 16 ounce batches of epoxy.  I had a little leftover once everything was saturated so I thickened it up with aerosil and leveled out a few low spots (the previously laminated pushpit mounting points).  I covered everything up with plastic and sandbags and came back the next morning to find a nicely cured aft deck.


Prior to the first lamination of the pushpit and chainplate mounting points, I wrapped the backstay chainplate with a few layers of blue painters tape, followed by a layer of clear packing tape. This allowed for roughly 1/16" tolerance around the chainplate so once I re-bed it, the chainplate won't cause excessive loading on the deck when the rig is strained. I'll pack the area around the chainplate with butyl tape and chainplate cover to keep the water out. Once everything cured, it was a bit of a job freeing up the chainplate, but I'm really happy with the result.

With the aft deck complete, I only had about 7 feet of starboard side deck to complete and I had enough free time to tackle it yesterday. It was a fairly straight forward lamination except I added an additional layer of biax cloth to the already solid glass winch pad area because even with 6 layers it was still a little below the surrounding core. I let that kick for a few hours then did the final layup yesterday afternoon in 2 sections (more jigsaw patterns for the first layer). Again I had some leftover epoxy that I thickened up to level out a few low spots. I sand bagged the area and let it set up.


I know I'm no where near completed, but this is a big time milestone in my head at least.  Next steps are to start sanding the new sections flush to the old decks and to fill in any low spots so the final layer will sit flat and minimize the amount of fairing needed.  Of course all of my estimates for time are off, but I'm getting there.  So far I've used a little over 14 gallons of epoxy and gone through 30 yards of 1708 biaxial glass.  I know I could have gotten by with a lot less of both if I were more efficient, but it's a learning process.

I ordered another 12 yards of biaxial cloth today and will get started prepping for the final layer.  I'm looking forward to this because once the prep work is finished, the last lamination(s) will go fast comparatively.

Woohoo, decks.

A bit dirty eh?

Gone Sailing!

Time for a sail in my other boat (the one that actually sails right now).  Nice crispy new Intensity sails to bomb around on Somes Sound for a week.  Be back soon...

Someone's Already Been Here

I had a few hours tonight and decided that instead of grinding bevels in the remaining side deck in preparation for the new core, I would get started cutting out the decks adjacent and aft of the cockpit.  My reasoning is that I just don't think I have it in me to do more than one full shed vacuum before I finish the core job.  So I am going to cut out all the remaining deck area at once and just have one big marathon bevel grinding session and accompanying cleanup.  Then I'll cut and install the rest of the core.

So I broke out the skill saw and vibrating cutter and got started. It's a little tight in the areas adjacent and aft of the cockpit so it was fairly slow going.  The bright side was that having the cockpit to work from and stand up in was much easier than crawling around the foredeck.  I cut out a little less than half the remaining deck before light started to get scarce and pulled up the top skin only to find... plywood.  It dawned on me that the previous owner had told me that he had re-cored some of the aft deck, but I didn't realize the extent that was done.  I haven't gotten to the starboard side yet, but the port side ran all the way aft from the winch pad location.

Mmmmm, old smelly plywood.

Halfway there!

Unfortunately, all of the plywood core was soaking wet and poorly adhered to both the top and bottom skins.  In other words; junk.  It looked like the previous owner had not taken too much care to over-drill deck hardware holes in the stern rail, winch pad and a number of other items.  The result was not good.  Oddly enough, the plywood didn't hold up as well as most of the balsa that was at least 25 years older.

Next up... the starboard side where I expect much the same.  Then onto the dreaded bevel hell.

Starboard Sidedeck

It seems like whenever I estimate time for a particular segment of this boat project I am WAYYYY off. Even when I estimate how long it will take, double it, and then add a 50% overage factor, I still seem to be wrong. If this were my business, I think I would quickly go bankrupt. Anyway, true to form, my estimate was off again, but the starboard side deck project actually took less time than expected even though I almost blew it by laying up the epoxy when it was too cold.

I started Friday afternoon and used the same approach as the foredeck. Cut out 2 layers of biaxial cloth, the first covering just the balsa core and the second covering the core and the beveled taper along the cabin and edge of the deck. The only notable difference from the foredeck section was the chainplate cuts. I wrapped each chainplate with 3 or 4 turns of clear packing tape and set them about 2" in their holes.

Layer 1

Layer 2

It was about 4:30 by the time I got everything ready to go and didn't have anything else going on so I decided I would do the layup right then.  The only problem was that it was cold; probably in the low 50's by the time I started.  Because of the cold I wasn't worried about anything kicking too quickly so I mixed up 2-24 oz batches of epoxy (16 resin, 8 hardener) and got to work.  I got the first layer and part of the second wetted out and in place before I ran out of epoxy.  By that time I was really feeling the cold and decided that I would finish in the morning because the epoxy was getting pretty thick (not from hardening, but from the cold).   When I got up Saturday morning it was about 35 degrees and no more than 40 degrees in the shed.  The layup was hardening up, but Very slowly.  I had hoped to finish the layup right away since it was still very green, but it was clear that an amine blush was starting to form (the surface felt greasy).  This worried me enough to post to the Plastic Classic Forum to see if I should proceed prior to washing the surface and removing the blush.  I'm glad I did because Tim thought that it would be best to get the blush off before I continued even though the epoxy was still green.  I put 3-100 watt work lamps close to the layup and left it to warm up for a few hours.  When I came back everything had hardened up more and I was able to wipe the blush off with some soapy water and a sponge.  I put the lamps back on and let everything dry for a few hours and then finished the layup.

I ran the 100 watt lamps all night last night and it hardened up nicely. Still green but on it's way. I'll probably keep the lamps on again tonight to make sure everything cures properly. It's certainly not perfect, there are a few bubbles that I would rather not see, but all and all I am happy with my progress. Below is a photo of one of the chainplate holes. I think it looks pretty clean. Note that you can still see the solid glass plug underneath (6 layers of biaxial, no balsa).

Given how cold it is starting to get (and no warm days forecast for the next 10 days), this may be my last layup for the season. I'd really like to finish up what I've done by getting all 3 layers of biaxial down, but I might be pushing my luck at this point.