Step One- Cut and Connect the Plywood
We did this using a puzzle joint and it worked great. It took a bit of time to cut out the puzzle ends, but the finished product was fantastic. Totally smooth and very tough. Well worth the effort. This won’t ever come apart.
I would totally do the puzzle joint this again, but there was one small problem with it. You need a big solid flat place to lay the plywood on to let the joint cure. The best choice for this was the garage floor. The only issue was that the garage floor is cement and it was pretty cold, which massively extended the cure time of the epoxy. Not a huge deal, but it did mess up the construction schedule. We put the joint together at 9:00 AM and weren’t able to start working with the wood till almost 2:00, even with a heat tent. This is not a huge deal, but I would have preferred to have started the day before with this and let it set overnight.
Step Two- The Plans
After the epoxy cured I was able to draw on the plans for the hull. This was done by overlaying the paper plans and then punching holes through the paper into the wood and then connecting the dots. Went quite well actually.
Step Three- Cut it out
Cut along the lines using a jigsaw. Easy, good results. You also need to groove the plywood where you intend to fold it. I used a circular saw set so the blade only cut 1.5 mm of wood. Also filleted some of the joints so they would come together better.
Here was a good trick. Use clamps to connect the wood together with some scrap pieces when moving or flipping the wood. This helps prevent breaking the ply. We also attached some stiffening rails to the edges. These were attached with epoxy and screws which would be taken out later. We were done with this step by 5:00
Step Four- Form the Boat
Started again after dinner and began to form the boat. This was done using some water and my mom’s clothes iron (shhh, don’t tell). It went exactly as planned. It took about an hour to go from a flat piece of wood to a nice boat shape. Check it. Only 14 pounds at this point. Right where I wanted to be.
Step Five- Connect the Joints with Carbon Tape
Easy. Just apply epoxy to the wood, lay in the tape and smooth with your gloved fingers. It’s now10:00 P.M.
Now Walk Away.
Damit, I said walk away.
You just couldn’t walk away could you.
So here is where things got a bit weird. In an effort to flatten the bottom a bit before the carbon cured I put some weights in the boat help make the correct bottom shape and then went to bed. When we got up the next morning things had changed, for the worse. Over the night the weight in the boat had slowly collapsed the V bottom under the support. This looked very bad. Luckily the epoxy hadn’t totally cured and with a bit of extra tape and some heat we were able to bring it back into shape. Mostly. With a bit of fairing I could probably make it perfect again.
But now I’m at a junction. The project has actually gone quite well so far except for the one major screw up on my part and we have learned a lot. But there are already some things I would change and I need to decide if I want to just keep going with this hull or start over again and make the changes before I invest any more time and effort into this boat. At this point I only have one day, 1.5 sheets of plywood and 30ft of carbon tape invested.
What would I change? Well not that much, but it may be significant in the long run. First I’d change bottom profile of the boat. It’s not bad, but the transition from the V bottom to the flat bottom is not as good as I’d like. I’d also maybe make the bottom a bit flatter. Secondly I’d let the hull flair wider when I tape in the first joints. This is supposed to be stressed plywood and it didn’t take much stress to get it into the final shape at the end. The added stress would make the whole hull stiffer. I’d also make the stiffening rails a bit smaller to reduce weight and use some supports on the stern to keep the ply from bending too much initially. These problems combined with my screw up on hull make me want to start over completely, but it’s not that bad and I could certainly salvage what I have now and make a functioning boat.
What do YOU think? Leave a comment.
8 comments:
Keep going on this one Bob. Making compromises in building is half the joy of it! And if it's not been too hard to do this one, it shouldn't be too hard to do the next one, which will be a far better boat not only having improvements from the lessons learnt in construction of this one boat also include improvements from having actually sailed the thing.
One day... Some plywood... and some tape. I might redo it, but having a redo everytime something doesn't come out just right will cause you never sail.
The other thing to consider is having spare hulls laying about that a sibling might use, would not suck.
Wow good work. Great construction technique.
The next boat is always better.
A good boat-builder can hide his mistakes, a bad one can not.
A man that has made no mistakes has made nothing.
You will make a lot more mistakes before it is finished.
Collect the knowledge and apply it to the next version because you still have a lot of lessons to go with the building and also when you start sailing you will want to change it all as well.
etc...
Fuck it dude crack on. You will never get it perfect and if it is you will be heart broken when you crash it in to a sand bar...
Stick with it. I doubt the error will adversely affect performance, and the pursuit of a perfect boat can be a frustrating and time wasteful way of achieving your aim of going sailing. Even if you faired it you'd end up about 10 pounds lighter than a bladerider FX!!
Consider it a practice run for the boat you'll build in a few seasons when you've mastered the foiling!
Good Luck,
John Gilmour
Just checked in on the cabin and the boat again. Stick with it. It looks good, the hull will never be in the water at speed, the extra reinforcement we added is next to nothing, and it is only a few mm off. Also, it feels much stiffer now that it is fully cured. You'll be surprised.
Push on with it!
Looking great. Always wanted to do a performance foiler out of ply. Great job.
There will be many times through the build where you think oh I'd do that differently. Just write them down and keep going. The next boat will always be better! I'm on my 5th now and have already thought up how to do the next one, before finishing this one!
Best of luck with it.
Good going.
Its a shame you can not get thinner ply in the US, but that is life.
Only comment on the ply cut is that we have found the keel fairs in better if the keel line cuts are curves meeting tangential to the centre line.
I have build four boats by now and I would still do the next one differently. In my opinion it doesn't make sense to start all over again. Just work on this boat, make further mistakes, find out what works, sail your boat and enjoy your accomplishment then sell it off and finally take all your knowledge and build a new one during winter.
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