More work on the Water Ballast Holes

I have been patching the holes up. First, I took a grinder and ground the area around the holes, so I could layer in fiberglass.

Next, I superglued in some fiberglass out of a 737 cabin that protects the hull from things inside the cabin. It is fine Boeing fiberglass a 1/32" thick. I put in the superglue and held the fiberglass disks down to form a smooth joint with the hull.

Then I started layering up finish fiberglass. I added a later of 8 oz cloth in for some bulk and strength and continued with some more finish cloth.

I have 5 layers of finish cloth, a layer of 8 oz cloth and the Boeing disk. This is thicker than the original hull. I will put another layer in 3 of the holes. Finally, I will fare the repairs smooth with West Systems epoxy and micro balloon faring additive.

One picture is of a gouge. I will fill all the gouges with micro ballons and then sand/fare the entire hull.

Hopefully I will be done with all the fiberglass tomorrow, so I can start sanding and faring the hull. LOL, being the lazy old man I am, this boat will have the minimum surface friction!

I have blue Awl Grip aircraft paint to make the bottom beautiful and slick as gorilla snot. Yes, I know Awl Grip is not for use underwater... But, I hope it will never be in the water for more than a couple of weeks at a time during some adventure. If I ruin it, I will have to grind the Awl Grip off. It is impossible to sand after it dries. LOL

I would really like to paint it this week while the weather is warm and dry enough.

Can I tell you how happy I am to be well enough to accomplish some things?

After I get it painted, I will turn it right side up and redo the gunnels. I tried to put in 1" lumber of the gunnels and that just didn't work out well. I am now ripping the 1" lumber in half to make the pieces much more flexible. I will only use a 1/4" in the middle over the hull, so the gunnels will extend further down than before. The main wood is Ash and I will go to the lumber store to pick out a dark wood for some contrast.

Sealing up the water ballast...

There were some holes in the bottom of the hull to fill the water ballast.  Eddie had sealed these up with little metal plates and tar.  They had leaked and the hull was full of water and sand.  I assume Mississippi River water and sand.  LOL  The sand was very, very fine.   I do not plan on sailing this boat, so really don't want to drag the 200-500 pounds of water around that would be in the water ballast.  

I flushed most of the sand out.  I now need to turn the boat over and flush out as much of the remaining sand and let it dry out.  Then I will finish patching up the holes. 

 

 

I am going to follow the West Systems Repair Manual guidelines which describe tapering the repait area back at a 12:1 ratio.  I used my calipers to measure the thickness of the fiberglass at the hole and determined it was .31"  At the recommended tapering, I need to go 12x.31", or 3.72"



As you can see in the picture below, I need a bigger taper area.  About 1.5" radius larger than I have ground so far.   BTW, I am using an angle grinder with a metal grinding disk to do this work.  I will try a flap disk for the next phase. 

There are also some various dings and gouges from previous uses  Around the metal keel stip.  I will fix them with epoxy filled with colloidal silica.  I am thinking I might fair the area between the hull and the keel.  I have decided to repaint the hull with some left over Awlgrip and thinking I might as well do the long board and complete job on the boat.  

This boat rows shockingly well.  I feel  guilty not making the hull as good as I possibly can. 

Next, I need to figure out how I want to make a backing plate.  I am going to try the method described in the manual where I will make a single layer fiberglass piece which I will cut out with some scissors or the Dremel, then bend it enough to get in the hole where I can fasten it while it is bonded to the inside of the hull. 

My boat has a foundation in history

This is an interesting article.  I note that my boat is the same ratios as this ancient boat.  :)

http://www.thevintagenews.com/2016/08/22/prirority-skuldelev-ships-5-original-viking-ships-recovered-waterway-peberrenden-skuldelev-1962/

Working on the Oars... 09/13/16

Maybe they were a little more rough shape than I thought before we sanded them. LOL. 

 

This is the oar that was broken into 3 pieces. It's epoxied back together. I think one more layup of epoxy on both sides of the blade and sanding will make it ready for the layer of fiberglass.

Note the piece on the end of the oar. That piece on the other 3 oars was knocked off during usage as is shown to the right. That oar was marked because we had the piece that needed to be re-attached. 

I used some of the trim pieces from the Ash to make new ends for the other two oars. Here is one of them epoxied up. 

This one was more complex because an end was missing from the tip of the oar. 

I will fill in the gaps with some epoxy with colloidal silica in it.

This oar was in the best shape of all. 

I've got a couple of more epoxy layups to go before they can be sanded and wrapped with fiberglass. 

I have some Kevlar I will cut and try to fit onto the ends, after they are shaped.  

The Kevlar can't be sanded, so it will need an extra layer of fiberglass over it, so I can fair it.  But that will make the oars ends very, very tough! 

Started on the masthead today

I am trying to copy this painting from Waterhouse entitled "Lady of Shalott".  The painting is from a Tennyson poem of the same name and seems to fit my goals.

Waterhouse - in the Tate Gallery in London

Tennyson- 

And down the river’s dim expanse
Like some bold seer in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance –
With glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,

My plan is to make two pieces like this.  One to be epoxied on to both sides of a bow stem that will mount to the boat.  The bow stem will be varnished and the outer pieces painted. 

I have a scroll saw I inherited that I used as a kid making swords.  I  don't know if Dad knew about that!   

Luckily we never poked anyone's eyes out sword fighting!

I had to get some new blades which that made the process go much faster. 

Next, I cut out the "feathers" for the dragon's head.  Yes, it is a stylized dragon's head in the style of a Viking ship - only my ship is 17 feet long, not 60.

This is oak, so the sanding is not going very fast.  I hope to have everything epoxied together this weekend.











Waterhouse's painting doesn't have a stern piece.  Of course, the Viking style would be the tail of the dragon.  I'll do a similar assembly for the stern, but more elongated with long flowery feathers.

The New Gunnels are mounted.

There were multiple boards on the side for support that had to be removed along with a hundred SS sheet metal screws and caulking of some sort.  Luckily the caulking came off with WD-40, some scraping, and elbow grease.  

I was worried the Ash boards would not conform to the shape of the hull.  When I got enough clamps to hold both the inside and outside boards together, they would bend to the shape pretty well. 

The next operation was epoxying the boards togehter (and to the hull), then holding them with brass wood screws.  

As of 5/25/16 I have both the inner and outer boards glued and screwed on the outside.  I still need to get in the boat to put the set of screws in from the inside.  

I will start on the masthead and tail piece (whatever it is called).  These fixtures are not on decorative, but structural and will hold the ends together.  

The Oars need some work

I bought some different sized clamps and made some more from PVC.  This oar was crushed when I was careless with it in the back of the Hee Hauler.  :(

Broken Oar Tip

It cracked along the original glue line and in a new place at the tip.

The PVC clamp does a nice job holding part of it together.

Some of the cheap clamps came from Harbor Frieght.  I really hate that place, but when I buy stuff I only expect to use once or twice, I give in to their cheap products. Given enough clamps, I'll be able to epoxy the oar back together when it warms up and stays dry long enough for the epoxy to dry.  

The good news is that the break created it's own scarf joint.  Where it broke along an existing glue line, I need ideas about how to strengthen that.  I could put a layer of glass on both sides of the joint.  I could drill some holes and use some tiny dowels or finishing nails.  

The process is to first soak the wood with neat, or unthickened epoxy.  This will saturate the wood about 1/4 to 1/2 inch and make a chemical bond foundation with the next layer of epoxy, which will contain some colloidal silica making the epoxy stronger.  I expect the oar to be as good as new when finished.

Mock up of Oak

I have more clamps to use when I glue it, but you can get the idea from this mock up.








The tips of the oars will get some protection.  I just happened to have some Kevlar I could epoxy on them.   That ought to offer some protection!

Next, I will sand all the oars in preparation for new varnish.  This will give me a chance to inspect the glue of the laminated oars.  There are some obvious failures of the glue joints which need more epoxy work.   LOL... more clamps!  

Oar Delamination