The Arctic Tern Project

Volume 4 Issue No. 12 December 2007

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Recovering from the Fiasco

Ok, first off, I resolve not to use the following two ‘V’ words in this report: “Varnish” and “Vision”. Except to say that I think I did manage to ratchet up the finish somewhat. I’m still not super thrilled with it but I’ve done the best that I can at this point in time and I’m completely burnt out about it and need to move on. I can’t even think about it without nearly weeping. In retrospect I really should have given up much sooner because the cost of all that frustration is dear. It’s a killer of momentum and enthusiasm and a builder of resentment. This month has been spent trying to recover from that.

Gluing Down Cabin Top

Finally, that Holy Grail of the previous two reports has been attained. I start by masking off the white paint where things are going to get glued down.

Then I dry fit the top again and drill for a couple of locator pins (nails) so I can get it back in the same spot easily again.

Inside, I go around with a knife and cut the tape right at the edge of all the internal structures.

Then I pop the top off again and peel off the bits of tape along the cut lines.

Then I scraped back the paint to the cut line so I could have maximum gluing surface. A word of caution, if you scrape right back to the tape (like I did) then it’ll show as a thin dark line after you glue down. I’m not sure it’s worth the extra millimetre of gluing surface.

And then all the gluing surfaces get sanded with 80-grit to make them good and rough. Of course all the mating surfaces on the cabin structure are sanded with 80-grit as well.

Then I had to figure out how I was going to get the cabin top onto the boat without making a mess of the whole darn thing. I ended up suspending it above the boat with ropes and blocks so it could be easily lowered after all the epoxy was applied.

Then I masked off all the internal structure. Initially I thought I could get away without doing this but I’m really glad that I did. It would have been a nightmare otherwise.

Then I apply unthickened epoxy to all the gluing surfaces on the cabin top and the cabin structure. I actually screwed the cabin top to the overhead rafters so it wouldn’t move around during this process.

Then it’s out with the cake decorating bags and on with the thickened epoxy. I only apply it to the cabin structure and I don’t bother spreading it around.

And, finally, on she goes! I pull the tape off the inside right away and clean up the squeeze out.

While I’m waiting for the epoxy to cure (I have a halogen light on inside the cabin to speed things up as it’s hovering near zero Celsius) I play around with the knot meter I bought what seems like eons ago. I’m not thrilled with how it looks and want to see if I can make it better by using a bronze trim ring. Here’s what it looks like.

I take it apart and pop the glass out of it.

And make up a piece of plywood to accept the glass and a bronze trim ring.

And here’s the result. Looks a lot better I think. I just have to figure out some mounting details.

Ok, so back to the cabin top. After a day and a half I pop out the temporary screws and plane down the edge. I decide I’m going to plane down the edge on each successive lamination individually rather than all together at the end in order to spread the work around a bit. It’s quite strenuous and I’m glad I did it this way.

Then it’s on to the next layer. I already have each successive layer made up and sitting in my house ready to go (and obstructing my hallway light-switch. I can’t wait to get them out of there). I brace it down along the line of the cabin top longitudinal and start screwing it down just like the first layer (this is a dry-fit of course).

This piece then also gets suspended from the rafters and I apply unthickened epoxy to both surfaces with a 9 inch roller. Then I put thickened epoxy on the lower surface and spread it around with a notched trowel just like I did for the deck.

On she goes and the next day the temporary screws come out and the edges get planed back.

Then I repeat the whole procedure with the third and final lamination.

Rounding the Edges

Next I lay out the limits of rounding (the tangents) that I’m going to do on the deckhouse corners. I’ve decided that two inches is about right as this still leaves a bit of plywood in the corners but gives a nice big radius. I also mark the limit of the radius so I know how much I can cut off with the saw.

I’ve used my cad program to lay all this out.

I cut off the excess with the saw.

I mark the center line of the radius (just to help with the rounding).

I do the initial rough rounding with an 80 grit wheel on an angle grinder and go to a rasp and hand-sanding.

I do the back corners next and then I double check everything with templates cut out of cardboard. Things look ok.

Next I fill in the temporary screw holes but before I start rounding over the cabin-top edge I trace the corners onto cardboard in case this will help me when it comes to make the half-round trim later.

Next I mark a half-inch back from the edge so I know where the limit of rounding will be. I started off using a compass to mark this but eventually made up this little tool instead. It has a small notch cut into it ½ inch back from the edge that the scriber or pencil fits in to.

I use a router with a ½ inch round-over bit on the back and front edge of the cabin followed by a rasp and sandpaper.

But the sides and corners have to be done entirely by hand using a combination of block-plane, rasp, and sandpaper.

I then put masking tape on the edges so I can better see the round-over without the plywood veneer lines getting in the way. Looks ok.

The Rudder

The next step is to glass the cabin top but since I don’t have enough cloth on hand and I’m loathe to make another trip to the city during holiday shopping season I decide to spend a bit of time laying out the rudder. I’ve increased the draught of the boat by four inches so the rudder as shown on the plans needs to be modified. Also, I want the gap between the rudder and the keel to be as small as possible. The plans show one inch by I’d like to get that down to ¼ inch if possible. I’m also thinking that I’d rather have a rounded side profile to the rudder instead of the angular one shown. This gets the maximum surface area nearer to the center of the rudder rather than near the bottom. I’m not sure if this is better but if it doesn’t work out I can always make another rudder at some later date. Again, I use my CAD program to do the layout.

Then I lay it out on a sheet of 12mm. I plan on making the rudder from two laminations of 12mm and two laminations of 9mm for a total thickness that matches the trailing edge of the keel. I make a big compass out of a piece of scrap plywood to draw the curve.

I don’t cut anything out yet because I’m not entirely sure that this is the shape I want but it is instructive to do the layout. I cut a mock-up out of doorskin so I can see how it’ll look on the boat. Note: the two pieces taped together are only because I didn’t have a piece of doorskin large enough.

About this time Christmas rolls around and, naturally, my thoughts turn to the inside of the cabin and how I can fix things up a bit to make myself feel better about it. Up until this point I’ve managed to put it out of my mind but on Christmas day I succumbed. There was a bit of squeeze-out that was bugging me and I wanted to trim it back with an exacto knife.

So I carefully went at it with the knife only to discover that, while pressing the knife into the squeeze-out, I was also pressing it into the yellow cedar trim. See the divots? Jeez. Ok, clearly I need to leave this alone for a while longer.

Coaming Trim

So I closed up the cabin once again and looked for something else to occupy my destructive nature over the holidays and decided the cockpit coaming and transom trim would be the lucky recipients of my attentions. I spent the better part of a day making up different profiles to see what would look good and feel good to the hand.

Nothing seemed to be satisfying me. Wider trim looked goofy because there was too much overhang and narrower trim didn’t feel good to the hand and also looked out of place because it was too narrow. Hmmm. Then it occurred to me that the real problem was that the cockpit coaming itself was too narrow. So I made up a second lamination out of 12mm that goes from deck level up.

Much better. The coaming structure now looks proportional to everything else (I think 18mm was too thin) and it should be straightforward to get trim proportions that both look and feel good.

Cockpit Locker Lids

The last thing I tackled this month was to lay out the cockpit locker lids and try to get a handle on the design of their scuppers.

It would be nice to have locker lid scuppers that drain at 30 degrees of heel but this seemed impractical. You either need a whole bunch of slope to the scupper or you need little drain pipes at the back corners. These little drain pipes always clog up with crap and end up useless. So I decided I’d be happy if the scuppers just drained rainwater when the boat was on an even keel and so opted for about ½ inch slope over the width of the lid. I still haven’t worked out all the details and so more on that next month.

Next Time

Cockpit locker lids and scuppers and maybe glass the cabin top and deck.