In the future I’ll probably write more about progress on the boat, but for now, I’ll just write a quick catch up to bring my notes up to speed on where I am today. There are some pictures of the hulls available at http://picasaweb.google.com/romanycatamaran
It’s cold out. Very very cold. Epoxy doesn’t like to work in the cold and neither do I, so for now, boat building is on hold. I got started pretty late (august I think) in 2007, but I made some decent progress.
I acquired the supplies I’d need for building the hulls and the cuddy. This is just from quick memory, but 40 + sheets of core-cell 12 mm foam, 90 gallons of epoxy, 70 sheets of okume bs1088 (the good stuff) plywood 4 rolls of fiberglass and a bunch of random epoxy fillers and other supplies. The hardest part of this process was deciding what hull material to use. I ended up going with core-cell because I could avoid the internal stringers and it also lent itself to bending for the round bilge version of the boat.
I opted to build the hulls a half at a time with a female mold. This (hopefully) makes glassing the inside significantly easier. As of today, I’ve built 2 half hulls, and it’s gone fine. I’m hoping joining them together goes smoothly. I wanted to get to it before the weather was too cold to work, but it wasn’t meant to be. It’s been weighing on my mind all winter, and I’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll probably get going with it sometime around june, when it’s warm enough up at the shop.
Until then, I’ve been working on the cuddy in my garage. After it was too cold to work at the shop on the hulls, I got a good start on it. I built and glassed the base and installed the mast beam. Eventually, it was also too cold to keep the garage up to temp, so I called it quits for the winter. We had some early cold, so I was done by December 1.
My goals for this up coming season are to finish the cuddy in the spring when it warms up around here. By the time spring hits the boat shop up north (where the hulls are), I hope to be mostly done with the cuddy. Or at least have it structurally complete. Once that’s done, I want to get as far on the hulls as possible. It’d be great to have them decked over by the time winter 08 hits, as it’d be easy to heat the inside and keep working on the finish work over the winter. This is all speculation. I have no idea where I’ll be when the snow flies next year.
For now, I’m researching and buying galley equipment and looking forward to warmer weather, not just for boat building reasons. It’s cold cold cold.
June 15, 2008 at 1:04 pm |
I finally got around to checking out your Romany building site.
Very nice!I like the travelling to the boat garage idea and the freedom of working late at night.We worked until 10pm some nights in 80F humid weather drinking Gatorade,and crawling up to the house to shower with water and VINEGAR….exhausted.
So I read beteew the lines and smiled and enjoyed the site alot…Happy Fathers day.
I’m taking energy from your enthusiasm and getting going myself,thats another story for another web page some day….soon?
Jim up on Lake Ontario Canada……
June 15, 2008 at 3:17 pm |
Hey Bat,
Nice to see you finally found me here! I know you’re on the great lakes somewhere, maybe we’ll swing by when we finally launch. :-)
June 16, 2008 at 2:11 pm |
I was thinking about ,my building problems and therefor your version of my problems…oh no…..
If I was you ,I would put bulkheads in the hulls before glassing ,or am I missing something here?Most likely that is the case,I can see the exterior glassing as being difficult as gravity goes against you,it will want to fall off unless you have solutions like installing bulkheads first thereby establishing a solid hull that is almost damage proof if it is rotated on it’s side and then glassed.
I’ve seen them do this in factories ,then they glass with the help of gravity ,but you need long arms or access from both sides and long squeegees….?
Just thought I’d add that .
Some people have built a wheel around the hull and rolled it on it’s side or what ever way that pleases…..A fair bit of work ,but the outside glass is critical.
June 16, 2008 at 2:27 pm |
Bat,
I’ll be installing much of the interior before I take the first hull off the frames. I’m not sure how far I’ll go with it, but I’ll at least put in most of the bulkheads. After I feel I’ve got enough of that done, I’ll flip the hull upside down and glass the outside. The first move will take a good sized crew, but after that, I think I can do most of the flipping with all the beams in the ceiling and some straps. I’ve done most of the moving single handed so far. I needed help from Heather on of of the lifts; I couldn’t support the hull and more the friction knot up at the same time. I’m not yet sure how we’ll do the glassing on the outside, but it’ll likely involve some scaffolding.
June 17, 2008 at 12:42 pm |
We used a chain hoist and straps for towing cars ,it’s fairly light now with foam /glass only so a chain hoist is good in center of the boatsince you have roof beams….strong enough?I have old chain hoist ,not needed here ,but postage is similar to cost…?
I’m glad you are going that way,adding BH’s then glassing upside down,with small benches and 2 by 8′s or what ever.
We managed full length glass on the outside ,trimed it and glassed in a team of two or sometimes three ,one mixes and runs for epoxy (me) in gallon batches minimum…(1.5) and also squeegees and pours it along the glass (and his legs)one stays in the middle and does whatever the first person (his mom) says (this person needs patience)and the first person is the inspector and chief glass layer…worked well with epoxy that had slow exothermic reaction especially when it was three and six inches deep in super size Kitty litter containers .person #1 and #3 have these ,but the goal was to pour them on the glass and start squeegeeing the goop ,once on glass (pour it on the higher side then it follows gravity and you have a minute or two to control the runs ,then you are off to the races ,”oh no person #1 yells for help,I’ve got a sag ,pull here ,now there …ok that should be good….etc etc.triple gloves on ,west sys sleeves or suits,it went ok ,but was exhausting if you did two full lengths of hull halfs in one day,or was it three?….!
see some photos below ?
http://www.themultihull.com/woods/jm2.htm
June 17, 2008 at 1:33 pm |
The overhead beams are very strong and have great attachment points. I’m sure I could support a completed hull from them.
We did the inside of one hull half (two layers 400g biax / wet on wet) in one day with two people. It was a long job, but the pace was easy (this time). Not having to be stressed and hurrying takes away a lot of pain to a job like that. We’re using Raka’s high strength 5-1 system, and it’s fairly fast so we have to mix smaller batches. It would have saved some time with a slower epoxy, but I’m happy with it. It has very good strength and high heat deflection which is so important when all the strength is in the skin.
Yeah, I’ve seen your pictures. It’s what gave me the idea that I could build a round bilge boat in core-cell!