Sunday 24 February 2013

Coaming, seats and trunk cover on

Coaming fitted and test varnish.... think will end up
varnishing rather than painting.  At the mast deck beam
are the clamps for the mast deck beam trim, made of Chinese 
Hemlock ("Tie Mu"). The port coaming is not quite fair, yet, I know!  
Needs a bit more tender-loving-trimming care....


Our little hatch, at lowest point that water will collect....
(the bit of wood with epoxy dribble is not the trunk cover, just some
scrap wood.  Since then we've made the trunk cover proper)....

... and the manual hand bilge pump, set to pump from lowest point of bilges
PS: those that are Somes Sound builders will note two scarf joints on the port coaming (the starboard has only one joint).  Reason is simple: that I only had enough wood to make a port-side coaming with two joints. The alternative was to order more marine plywood, just for one coaming, which, in Hong Kong, is quite expensive, around $HK 1,000 including delivery to us here in Discovery Bay, a car-free place, where delivery trucks have to pay $500 just to get here.  So I thought better two joints than a whole new board....
PPS: again to builders: the port coaming is not quite fair, yet, I know!  Needs a bit more tender loving trimming care....

Sunday 10 February 2013

Coaming

Arlene checking the fit of the starboard coaming.  Amazingly, the fit
was good, and all along the coaming, the heights above the deck
were as per the plans.  We'll add a nose of Ramin to the coaming
In the past week or so, we've removed the seats, all the floor beams, floor cleats and floor sole planks to smooth them out and epoxy them, then painted the interior with protective white paint to seal against rain.  We've finished off the side seats and varnished them, and got on with the Coaming.
Both Dave on his blog and the designer, John Brooks in his build instructions, have said that the coaming is the most difficult part of the build, so we approached it with some trepidation.
Having read of Dave's travails with mahogany, and his replacement with marine ply, I decided to go straight to the marine ply option, using the last of my 3/8" marine ply that I had left over from the planking.
Woops....adding back
wood, never a good thing..
We scarfed the ply to make the 12' lengths needed.  Then we made a pattern from 1/4" non-marine ply. Then lofted the plan to the pattern and dry fitted it.  Seemed to fit pretty well, aside from a bit of a gap at the bottom at the forward deck end.  I marked on the pattern that we needed to add about 1/2" at the bottom, when we transferred the pattern to the marine ply. We did this fine for the port side Coaming, but forgot to do it for the starboard side, so had to add some wood back... a touch embarrassing, but we managed it ok.
I've decided not to varnish the Coaming, but to paint it. I know this is not the traditional way, but the scarfing joints -- which are fine in strength -- will show under the varnish, and now that we have the added bit to the bottom part of the starboard coaming, that sealed the decision....


Sunbaking floor sole planks

The port floor sole planks of Douglas Fir are still wet with sap.  We've been tracking their weight in comparison with the starboard dry ones, and they're still about 10% heavier.  So we put them out in the nice Hong Kong winter sun.  It's been about 15-20 degrees C, and 60% humidity, which counts as dry here in Hong Kong.  After initially losing weight quickly, they're now losing it more slowly, which I kind of expected: decreasing marginal returns, that sort of thing.
So, we'll keep them sunning themselves for as long as we can before fitting.

Friday 1 February 2013

Decks

Decks laminated on.  Note the floor sole planks drying out.  They were
very sap-full when they arrived, fresh-cut Douglas Fir from Canada.
We laminated the decks onto the sheer yesterday afternoon.  They're made of leftover "Tie Mu", lit. "iron wood",  which I find on Google is "Chinese Hemlock".  It's a nice softwood, quite light, apparently used for boatbuilding in China.  Though it does tend to absorb a lot of epoxy...

Next job is to scarf 3/8" plywood for the Coaming, and fit it. Dave on his blog says it's the most difficult part of the build, so have to be on full alert... Dave tried the by-the-book install of mahogany, but found it split, and so changed to marine ply which worked well, so I'm going for that at the outset. We've done the pattern of 1/4" non-marine ply and fitted it, so now just to transfer the pattern to the 3/8" marine ply.

BTW, the floor sole planks that were really fresh-wet when they arrived are drying out nicely.  I thought they'd take weeks to dry out, but they seem to be losing up to 10% of their weight per day, so getting quickly to their dried weight.  They're sitting there, above, on the bow, enjoying this late winter sun of Hong Kong.