sexta-feira, 19 de dezembro de 2014

wingnet lashing rails

 The way I made the berth with metal tubing made it easier to anchor the straps to keep the PVC tube in place.
 Vacuum under way of 5 layers of 200gsm carbon tape. I used a T splitter to allow vacuuming on both molds. Given the temperature ( 10-16 ºC) I used a 50/50 ratio of slow and standard hardeners to decrease curing time and reduce vacuum pump consumption. It worked just fine.
 Carbon lamination done. It looks good.
Repeating the proccess on the port side. Here Fernando whose been giving me a precious hand lately is dealing with minor vacuum leaks. The port side was a lot easier and faster to make given the learning curve development. On the starbord side it took us an extra hour to deal with major leaks ( I guess some tack tape got some resin under it and just wouldn't seal. As a result we ended up having lunch way past 3 o'clock. Vacuum was a bit below optimum but enough to get a proper lamination. On the port side it was just a breeze and vacuum kicked in just a few seconds.

Progress is realy starting to show. The cabin floor and rudder mounting area is done and all of a sudden I feel I'm left with just the dagger board, rudder and rudder case ( and some other minor details) to put an end to composite production.

Things are looking good and beating the launching timeline seems more possible than ever. Will see!

quinta-feira, 11 de dezembro de 2014

Deck Hatch

 

Vaccuming the recess for the Lewmar Low Profile size 40 hatch.
 Vaccum close to maximum.
 Done.
Off-cut puzzle for the cockpit floor. Not bad. Used up much of the recoverable off-cuts, and still managed to save about 1 and 1/2 of full lenght airex foam for the settee back rests and some other details. However I feel I'm running out of epoxy and probably will have to order a few more kilos of it.

domingo, 7 de dezembro de 2014

Anchor well

 
 
 
As I promised I will try to fill in the steps I completed since july 2014.
 
Anchor well .
 
The part was laminated and trimed probably in 2012. All I had to do was to glue and tape it in place. The pictures below show the process. 
 
 


Here found a simple way to hold the part in place.

 
Precut glass and ready to laminate.
And done!


sábado, 6 de dezembro de 2014

Quick update

It has been a long time since my previous post but a lot has been going on regarding the project. In fact during the last 2 months many hours have been put in the building process.
I intend to post some stuff regarding that period.
At this stage the platform is nearly finished. Still ahead are the cockpit floor, cabin top, rudder case ( rudder and daggerboard are ready to laminate). Main hull lower end is faired and ready for epoxy skim coat ( top side still need tobe faired).
Now it's time to look for a trailer and source for mast and other rigging stuff.
Close but yet so far!
Timeline is still next summer. I hope I can make it.