Daggerboard Case

The daggerboard case got framed up today. Inside of the case will be lined with outdoor carpet to make the board slide with slight friction. The hope is that the board will stay at any height you put it and that the carpet will protect the daggerboard finish. I mocked it all up on the bench first, with oversize spacers then took a bit off the spacers until the friction felt about right. Don't know how this will behave once wet and after the carpet ages a bit but I'm planning on gluing the carpet in only at the top and bottom so that it can be cut/chiseled/beaten out of the daggerboard case if tweaks are needed.

Test fit to get the inside clearance for the daggerboard just right.

Closeup of the carpet.

Daggerboard case interior framing.

Total time to date: 229hrs

Cleaning up the bottom

Now that the bottom is on, we turned the boat over again and trimmed the bottom to the hull sides then rounded the chine to a nice radius.  The hull is starting to get a bit to heavy for Kristi to turn over in the air so we carry it into the yard set it in the grass then roll.  It's still pretty easy for the two of us to carry around.  The bottom trimming and rounding took a good bit longer than planned, yeah I know what's new.  First of all, I could not find my laminate trimming bit for the router so instead of stopping and going to the store for another one I decided to just man up and hand plane the bottom to size.  In retrospect this was a mistake as it took way to long.  And by the time I got the the last mm, where you have to be a bit careful to not gouge the hull sides, serious fatigue was setting in.  Fortunately Sanding Queen (queue ABBA) had just gotten back from a Christmas party (no spouses yey) so she was able to come in and help finish the job :-)

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life

See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the sanding queen, oh yeah.....

Hull bottom trimmed, sanded and ready for epoxy coat.

Closeup of radiused chine.  I find it tricky to hand sand a nice even radius in solid wood but it's a lot easier in ply as the layers act like gages.  If the lines formed by the ply layers are parallel and not wavy then the radius is reasonably constant.

First coat of epoxy is on.  Only one coat for now.  I wanted to have the wood sealed so that it would be ding resistant. Plus I can work on the boat outside and not worry about a lttle water splashning on it.  The last two coats will go on at the same time as the chines get fiberglass tape.

Total time to date: 225hrs

The bottom goes on

The bottom panel butt splice epoxy cured overnight.  Today we cut and installed the bottom panel but first I had to cut limber holes in two bulkheads.

Clamped on a piece of scrap ply with a pilot hole in it to guide the hole saw.

Cutting limber hole.

All done, just a bit of sanding to clean it up.

Marking out the hull profile on the bottom panel.

Taking a break while the hull bottom outline is lofted.

Hull bottom cut out.

Hull and bottom ready for dry fit.

We propped the bottom up over the hull before applying the epoxy in an attempt to keep as much of the goo from getting all over the bottom, while positioning.  We started screwing down at the bow and proceeded to the stern removing the supports as we went.  This worked well.

Bottom is on.

Excess epoxy squozeout got cleaned up to minimize sanding later.

Through the transom.

A glimpse into the skunk..er..gerbilworks.

Total time to date:  217hrs

Craack!

So you remember that little crack that formed in one of the chinelogs as we were assembling the hull?  Well it got bigger.  I think it happened as we were flipping the hull, since it gets stressed in different directions when you do that.  This crack growing may actually be a good thing as it allowed me to fix a little unfairness that crept into the bow area.  The side of the hull that had the intact chinelog had a bit of a kink where the stem ended and the chinelog began but the cracked side is beautifully fair.  Since I like the fair side better I induced the same crack in the intact chinelog and now both sides look great.  A big dollop of epoxy makes it all OK.

All of this is a result of me thinking I was being clever and not following the plans.  Michael Storer, the designer, specifies that the chinelogs should end 50mm short of the bow-end of the hull sides.  But I noticed that the stem is significantly less deep than that so you end up with a gap.  Silly designer, says I, I'm going to extend the chinelogs all the way to the stem and make it all pretty.  Well, if you do that what happens is that the two chinelog ends hit each other as you bend the hull sides around the first bulkhead, doh! 

I took the pull saw and viciously hacked away chunks of the offending chine logs.  THAT will teach them and nobody will see the butchery since all this is inside the floatation chamber.  The hull went together beautifully.  Except now with the chinelogs not touching each other the hull sides are not quite fair just aft of the bow and the gap between the chinelogs allowed the chinelog to split away from the hull side.  How much do you want to bet that if I had cut the chinelogs 50mm from the hull end, as instructed, they would have come together and just touched thereby preventing that slightly unfair hollow and since they would be touching each other they could not separate from the ply.  Silly builder. 

BTW, the chinelog that pulled away from the hull side was a secondary joint since that hull side was epoxy coated all over, without masking the joint areas.  The epoxy was well sanded with 60 grit, in the glue joint.  It looks like it's mostly the wood and not the epoxy that failed but it's a little hard to tell.  The side which did not fail had the joint areas masked before epoxy coating so that joint is wood to wood.  Coincidence or is that side a stronger joint?  You decide.

The chinelog on the left has separated from the hull side while the one on the right has only a bit of a crack. It is mostly hanging on but is causing an unfair hollow just aft of the stem.

So the solution is to separate the other chinelog from the hull side by the same amount.  I used a small steel scraper, as a wedge, to shear the cedar away from the hull side.

I taped the underside with some packing tape to form a dam and filled all of the cracks with slightly thickend epoxy.  It's ugly but stout.

Total time to date: 207hrs