Saturday, September 17, 2011

Laying it up

Sunday morning... I love the morning light, even if I hate mornings.



Every thing's laid out and ready for a long day. 




A VERY important step: protect the hull with sheets of plastic. 




IAW the book "Advanced composite techniques" a slurry of 1:1 epoxy-micro balloons is mixed



And applied to the hull and the foam, then the foam is pressed into place. In retrospect, I made the horizontal pieces too long and should have tapered them into the hull more.I also wish I had known about vacuum bagging back then.



As planned some slurry expanded into the holes I poked. The brown is West Systems 405 fillet blend. It worked ok but after the first pass I stayed with plain microballoons. 



Fillet strips are applied to the sides and center. 




The main pieces are prepped by applying a layer of slurry, then sandwiching it inside 2 sheets of 3 mil plastic sheeting.

 

After which the excess slurry is pressed out.

 
 

 



****note******
Adding the reinforcing rails was another one of those times where I should not have believed everything I read on the web. DO NOT add them, they're in the way of the hull/frame mate and also totally unnecessary. I've left this entry in the blog for history, and to warn others not to repeat my mistakes.

The next day I tackled the screwup with the reinforcing rails. 


When I started on the bottom the extent of the poor glasswork became obvious. I decided to just take all the edge glass off.


And with a bunch of scrap foam I filled in the gap.






"You ok in there Steve? Just checking."



 
 


Using scrap cloth I laid up all 4 at once, but tried something different. This time after applying/squeezing out  the slurry I cut them into pieces and stripped off one layer. Then I used the other side as an applique. Thanks again to "Advanced composite techniques" for the idea.




The next morning I drilled and dremeled out the bilge drain holes. 

 




Then applied a layer of resin to waterproof them.





Since I had the resin out I also drilled and filled the mounts for the rudder pedal springs. 


I think summer is over...



More prep: the part of the cockpit that won't get carpet gets painted with Brightsides Hatteras off-white. 



And prepping a place for the bilge pump mount plate to screw into.I'll smooth it out tomorrow.


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