Justin's P19

[TomTom]

Justin - you are a wise man. If I learned anything from my C19 build it is that it is much better to get the hull as close to fair as possible before you add any glass - right now you can keep tweaking with it till its close to perfect. If you just say screw it and glass it you will have to fill those low spots with resin fiber - which I ended up doing!

Its not an exact science and I know that different woods etc bend differently aswell, but the most important parts of that planing hull are the rear 8 feet or so - try and get those perfect.

Use a straight edge on those sections and get it as close to fair as possible; then stich between the wire ties with thickened epoxy; take the ties out and have a good final go at smoothing everything out before taping and sheathing.

All the flaws get telegraphed through the layers of fiber so better to fix them at the begining.

[TomTom]

Oh - and cut out the bow mold - it won't take long and you won't be haunted by the thought that you should have done it a few months from now!

[justin_dwyer]

Thanks for the advice TomTom, are you suggesting that I cut the last 20cm or so off the bow mold so I can pull that bow in to get the required curve down towards the ground?

Did you do this for your C19?

Here are some pictures of how I suspended the bottom of the hull so I could get at the stringers to eliminate the issue.

A little bit primitive, but it worked





Just as I laid the panel back down and did a quick check it started to rain, so I threw the covers back on and it has been raining on and off since, plus work gets in the way...as it usually does, so I haven't had a chance to finish it off properly.

Will post some more when I have finished.

Cheers
Justin

[TomTom]

What I meant was that I used the bow mold - I think Jacques says its optional - but I used everything that I could to try and get the hull the shape its meant to be.

Most important is to get the bottom right; there is still quite a bit of flexibility in the side panels after all the seams are taped, so you could probably pull a lot of bow droop out later if you wanted.

Just keep tweaking the panels; its frustrating but you will get there

[justin_dwyer]

OK, got it.

I hear you about getting frustrated with it, feel like I have been stitching this boat together for months

I'll get into it again on the weekend.

It is almost getting too wet here now to start thinking about fibreglassing anyway, monsoon is starting to hit Darwin, might even get a cyclone forming over the weekend.

[justin_dwyer]

I have been playing with the hull shape for what seems like for ever...but I have a shape I am happy to proceed with

I managed to get the planning edges as flat as possible, with only one slight dip in one spot that will need to be faired out, but it is near the taped edge so I am hoping that it will raised a little with the tape, even so it is only a mm or two so not that worried.

I have started to glue it up now, I feel happy that soon the hull shape will be locked in place.

It has definately been harder than I imagine as I think I was a little crude with the jig and frames.

The next time I build a boat (and there will be more ) I will make sure I spend a lot more time on the jig and making sure the panels are cut as perfectly as possible and that the stringers don't come anywhere near the top of the frames...lessons learned for next time.

The only problem that I have is that Darwin is about 34-35 degrees (C) everyday and about 70 - 90% humidity, so the epoxy has a very short working time. I tried the method of putting the putty mix in a bag to pipe into teh joints, but just the ambient heat and the heat from my hands set the epoxy off in about 3-4 minutes, so I quickly stopped that method and just used a small spatula and the cup I mixed the epoxy in to fill the joints, this gave me about 10 minutes. I think I will have to buy some extra slow hardener.

Doing the taping and the cloth will be interesting...

I feel like I may be able to get some traction with the boat now, it has been a slow process up until now.







Cheers
Justin

[pee wee]

Looks good Justin! That has to be one of the most fun steps in boat building, the moment (okay, not exactly just a moment) the panels become a hull. You'll be glad you spent the extra time with this stage, I think.

[justin_dwyer]

No more zip ties...Yeehah!!!

I'll finish the patching and start sanding this weekend.









Cheers
Justin

[peter-curacao]

Sweet! looking good

[bigtalljv]

I'd check with the bosses here but I think some people have resorted to refrigerating the resins to get a bit more working time. You might so a search here.

Progress looks great.

Jason