Zambonidriver.com

I had a nice catch up weekend working on the hulls. I got the inner stem all glassed in and the center line reglassed. It was a lot more work without Heather to help out mixing epoxy and getting me stuff while I had myself wedged up in the hull, but I managed. I got a good start on the bulkheads (still need to scarf them to make them wider), and I’ll install them when we’re up next. Once again it’s time to shift focus to working on the cuddy. It’s been a challenge for me to work on all of these things simultaneously; it’s hard to keep momentum going on one project (not to mention the hours it takes me to pack up all my tools). Unfortunately, I have to take advantage of my vacation hours to work on the hulls since the shop is so far away.

It turns out to have been one of those bad weeks I’ve heard about in boat building. I guess I assumed I would run into one, but it was brutal. The two hull halves weren’t lined up as well as I needed them to be, and I had already glassed the center line. I had to spend 8 hours grinding 3 layers of 1708 fiberglass into dust (also known as pounds of tiny shards of glass). I’m very grateful for a hooded tyvek suit and a good respirator, but I still got a lot of it ground into my writs and a few uncovered spots on my face. I’m also grateful that Heather spent the next day with the shop vac cleaning out the shop while I continued work on the bulkheads. It all ends well; I was able to get everything all lined up and it will work fine, but it was a tiring setback. I’m going up alone this weekend to finish some of the things I was hoping to get done this past week. I usually don’t have specific goals for my weeks up at the shop, but I really want to get to the port hull on my next trip in august, so I’m going to try to crank through more of the starboard hull bulkheads. More to follow in a few days, but for now, all my tools are up at the shop and I’m taking a break.

We just spend a productive week working on the hulls. I think the pace was a little less crazy than it was during our previous trips up here, but we did do a couple very late nights. I’m not keeping a detailed hour log on this project, because it feels too much like a job, but I thought I’d try for this week, just for the sake of remembering what these fulltime weeks were like. Well, I started and by tuesday I was tired of trying to track it, so I quit. I did take pictures each day, so this will be a photo log rather than a detailed hour log.

Saturday: We got here in the early evening, and it took a few hours to unload and set stuff up. I also got the foam for the topsides cut to shape (not attached) and the knuckle strips laminated.

Sunday: I slept in a little, and then had Heather help me attach the topside foam. Then the knuckle. After I took a long epoxy curing nap, We stayed up until 6am attaching the curved strips that go from the knuckle to the keel.

Monday: Staying up all night is nice becuase Ethan is sleeping, but it kills me the next day. All I managed today was to groove and glue the joints between the strips.

Tuesday/Wednesday: Sanding sanding and more sanding. I sanded all that goop I spread into the joints of the foam strips. I also shaped the knuckle. All set for glassing.

Thursday: Did a bit of final clean up before we started glassing. It’s nice to have a clean shop before we slop epoxy everywhere. We started the glassing at 2pm and finished at 4am. ugh. what a long run. It’s nice to get it both layers of 400g biax at once though, so I don’t have to sand between layers. Wet on wet = win. When I finally woke up in the morning, Ethan climbed into bed and said my breath smelled like epoxy. No, I wasn’t drinking any of it, although it does look yummy.

Friday/Saturday: Quite a bit of sleeping on friday, and then I was off trying to muscle the two hull halves together. It took awhile, but with the help of a lot of ratcheting straps, I got them into place and they fit really well. I’ve been worried about that step for some time, and it was no problem. Heather also cleaned all the blush from the epoxy, and I spent some time sanding the keel to prep for glassing the two halves together, but that will have to wait until next time.

Sunday: Packing up and heading home.