Midship Frame & DB

I spent an hour and 45 minutes redrawing the midship frame onto the lumber that I glued up yesterday morning. Yep, it took a while. I used a batten to draw the curved line.

Like the transom, when I glued it up, it got a little "off plane". I guess pulling on it with the small clamps did that. I don't think it will be a problem. I plan to put "doublers" over the joint. 

I also spent 5 minutes sanding off the fiberglass overlap on the daggerboard. A few imperfections that I can clean up. I think this board will be ok as well. Might not be as strong as better ply, but, again, I don't plan to abuse it. 

Here are a few pics of the board with the imperfections. Trying to glass both sides at the same time presented its challenges.

Came back this evening and cut out the midship frame and the "doublers" to cover the joint and one of those knots. The one on the left is a bit longer because it's covering that knot. They're ready to be glued up in the morning.

I also sanded out the rough spots on the daggerboard. I'll probably put a coat of epoxy on it in the morning also. 

Budget

I set a budget of $3000 for this build (the kit cost $9500). This would include everything: trailer, boat, sails, hardware, rigging, paint, epoxy etc. That was a tall order! I'm up to about $2600. Not much left to buy except rigging, hardware and "incidentals". It's going to be close. A $20 here and a $30 there: it adds up quick. Will probably go over a little bit. Who knows? With Christmas, a birthday and another Fathers' Day, I might get enough help to make it! LOL!!

Daggerboard and Midship Frame

Yesterday I started the day by drawing the midship frame on one of those junk pieces of plywood. That enabled me to see what kind of lumber I would need to fashion that frame. Turns out that a 1x6x8 would do it. I picked that up in route to church.

Last night I cut the lumber to size and it's ready for glue up this morning. I'll cut out the "dummy" frame and trace it onto the glued up lumber when it's glued and dry.

I also sanded the daggerboard and cut the fiberglass cloth which I plan to wet out this morning. It's heavy cloth so I'm hoping this will give some added strength to the poor piece of ply.

This morning I've gone ahead and glued up/wetted out yesterday's work. That piece hanging over will be coming off as will the ragged edges. I was going to lay the board on a couple nails but the kept wanting to come off on the lower side. I went and got my step ladder and suspended a board with a nail through it and hung the daggerboard. Only issue, I drilled a hole and the dust from the hole got all over the board and glass. Wiped it off as best I could. The sander will take care of most of it along with a couple more coats of epoxy and paint.

I will probably reinforce those joints on the frame with a short piece of leftover plywood (which I'll certainly have when I begin cutting up the good stuff). Guess you'd call it a "doubler". Most of those knots you see will get cut out except for one. That will certainly need a doubler. 

 

More Work on Daggerboard

I spent a couple more hours working on the daggerboard today. My efforts went into shaping it and filling needed areas with epoxy. 

The simple truth is the two pieces of plywood I bought the other day to use for the daggerboard are just JUNK. I should have known since they were off of pallets. I've put several hours into the board, so I'm going to finish. I had to fill with epoxy several places that tore out when planing and sanding. I started to trash it and start over. I'm going to coat it with fiberglass and epoxy. That will help. I don't plan on being hard on the boat so it should be ok, at least for a while. If it breaks, it won't be hard to build another one and you can sail without a board. 

I also opened an old can of Glidden Porch and Floor enamel. It had a half inch of hardened paint on the surface, but when I got that off, the rest seemed ok. I'm going to paint the daggerboard. 

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get it glassed. 

Here are two pics. The first is the whole board. You can see the beveling of the trailing edge and the rounding of the forward edge to create something of a foil shape. The second is a closeup of one of the spots with epoxy filling. 

Here are two pics of the stem. Today I just marked the lines where the approximate bevel will be. I also cut each end. The closeup is of the lower end where the garboard will hit it. It's lying on the piece of cloth that I'm going to use for the daggerboard. 

Daggerboard

I started on the daggerboard. Clint's layout on the plywood did not allow for the daggerboard. His plans suggest solid wood for plans builders. I've decided to make it out of plywood. My SD 11 was fine with box store plywood sheathed in glass. 

I bought two pieces of plywood from a guy who disassembles pallets. The sheets are not a full 4x8 and they are cheap plywood. I bought them for $15 each. One sheet of good ply would have been $50. They are not perfect by any means. I see some voids and they are just rough. I'm going to use the best one out of the two. I will not be out much if it breaks and I'll make another stronger. As little as I sail, I'm willing to give it a try. Trying to make that $3k budget.

Here is the daggerboard cut out in 2 matching pieces getting laminated together. I tried to put some weight on the 2 pieces but it wasn't enough, so I used clamps and screws. I screwed it right down to the table. It's sacrificial anyway.

A closeup of the screws through the 2 layers. I put a bunch in. I think they'll come out easily enough. I'll have to fill the screw holes with epoxy, but that's easy enough. I'll be painting the daggerboard. Of course, it gets shaped into a foil and sheathed in epoxy/fiberglass.

Inner Stem

Tonight (Saturday) I glued up the inner stem. I had a bunch of strips left over from trimming the Douglas Fir that I had used for my 2 masts. It turns out I had just enough to do the inner stem. Actually, one broke as I dry fitted it, so I had to cut another from a larger piece of left over DF. Hopefully the stem will turn out alright. It was a messy job and I mixed too much epoxy. I'm usually pretty good at estimating, but over-shot this one. 

I used the strongback with the OSB on it as the backdrop for the glueup. I laid all of the strips out side by side on another section of the strongback. Then I coated both sides of each strip with straight epoxy, coated one of each pair with thickened epoxy, put the pairs together, coated 1/2 of the pairs and put them all together in one bunch. I forgot that I wasn't supposed to coat the outside pieces. My clamps will be a bit messy though it was only straight epoxy, not the thickened stuff. 

Once they were in a bunch, I placed them near my form and slowly pulled the middle in with two strong clamps (the orange ones with the screw down ends), alternating back and forth as each one was screwed down as far as it would go. Near the end, the inside strip broke. It was pulled in so far and looked decent, so I put another clamp on the break and left it. I think it will be ok.

Here is a pic of the stem's line drawn with a batten. The second pic shows the nails offset the mark enough to allow for the thickness of the batten. The third pic shows the strips clamped down to the blocks which were set back 1 and 3/4" (which is to be the thickness of the stem) from the line. 

Here are the blocks set up for clamping.

And then the strips glued and clamped.

Update Monday night:

I removed the clamps and sanded off the squeezed out epoxy. I realized that the stem was a little short of the 1 and 3/4" that the plans called for. I actually had left out one strip because I thought it was going to be too thick, so I went back and added that last strip. Even with it, I believe I'll be maybe a 16th too thin. I'm not worrying about 16ths on this build. 

Here is the stem after taking the clamps off. You can see the squeeze out.

Here is the stem with that last strip added.

One thing I noticed: I believe the stem sprung back from the clamped shape just a little. I don't think it will make a big difference, maybe 1/2" less curve at the roundest part of the stem. The top and bottom will be on the mark. 

Here are three pics; one at each end and one in the middle of the stem showing the "fit". The first one show the top with maybe a 16th shallow.

The second shows the middle with about a 1/2" gap. 

The third shows the garboard end with a close fit. 

I think I'm going to go ahead with this as is. Clint seems to think it will not make a big difference.

Not Satisfied

For some reason mold #1 did not look right. So I redid it. Not much difference but I do like the second one better.

I still have to cut out a notch at the point. I'm guessing the stem will go into the notch.