The Centre Line is complete

It looks like nothing happened this week to the unsuspecting eye but quite a lot happened (please believe me) and the backbone of the boat is now in place. We are now ready to start fitting the hull skin.....a couple of days behing schedule but not bad considering lots of encountered problems.
At the start of the week we just had the basic components but nothing secured in place or joined together. This was the difficult part to marry them together and get them glued in. It was all glued in by Thursday night and friday was spent cleaning off and then scribing for the first piece of cloth/epoxy coated foam to be fitted on the moulds on Monday.
We encountered the first problem of the week when we overbrowed the hog and so a full day was spent rectifying this by fairing a new line along it's length on one side and then transferring that line to the other side and then adapting the keel to this new width. Luckily we had plenty of width to spare.
The main problem of the week however was how to create a fair bearding line for the planking down the apron. This was overcome with most of Wednesday spent designing a crook tool which accurately allowed us to do so. I think the design went through about 7 different versions along the way until we got to the final successful one. When the apron was browed off and a battten run along the moulds it all faired in wonderfully.

The moulds are now set up.

This week we set all the moulds on the box , made the transom cradle, worked out the placing of the transom and more or less finished the male pattern of the lead ballast keel.
The job which posed the greatest problem was the positioning of the transom working off the drawings and getting the lines to fair in with the rest of the hull, particularly the on the last station. With much head scatching and referral and measuring on the plans we found the correct position but found that the bearding line for the planking needed some reworking particularly from the bilge area to the sheer line. It was all sorted by friday afternoon when we steam bent the hog around the top of the moulds. I was particularly pleased with the lead ballast keel plug which turned out beautifully after much bewilderment and confusion during it's build. We hope to begin the hull skin by next wednesday.

Week 2 - Creating Centre line Components and Hull Skin

This week we were making various components for the centre line structure and the hull skin.

At the start of the week we cleaned off our glued up transon amd marked it out for cutting and then cut to the outside face. This was left to one side and then we made a template for the transom knee and apron. The tansom knee was cut out and shaped and left to one side. A jig was then set up for our stem apron which we laminated and cleaned off leaving to one side.

The last few days of the week saw the a real flurry of activity with the help of many others. This invloved scarfing and joining together the high density foam to make 16ft x 4ft sheets. A layer of thickened epoxy and then cloth had to be bonded over all these sheets so that when they are cut into strips for the hull skin they will have a grain strength running along their length. A final layer of peel ply was added so that we have a nice finish on the inside of the hull to work on. All this was left to cure overnight before setting them to one side on friday when we turned our attention to setting the moulds on the box. We will have all the moulds set up by Tuesday.

Fnishing the Moulds & making the Centreline Structure

I started work on Tuesday morning in the workshop, straight into finishing off work on the moulds with the help of Dan who is going to be my much appreciated helper for the next while.
We needed to join the halves of the moulds together by drawing out a grid on which we laid them to bring them togther correctly. We finished this by Tueday evening. On Wednesday we got the box set up and repaired and levelled on the workshop floor on to which the moulds will be set upside down.
After lunch we collected the wood for keel, hog and apron from the woodstore and started to mark out the keel for cutting and shaping and then transferring the widths onto the moulds. By Thursday the keel was finished and then on Friday we marked out the hog and transferred the widths onto the mould stations and then cut out the notches on the moulds. By Friday afternoon the centreboard slot on the hog just had to be cut but we left this to one side to epoxy glue up the various bits of mahogany for the transom. By late friday evening it was glued and clamped up. A really good start to the build. On Monday we will finish the hog and then set up the moulds on the jig.