HC14 to Sailing Trimaran!

[narfi]

Sanded all the glue lumps off from installing the cleats for bonding the top deck down to a somewhat uniform mating surface. Cut the top decks out slightly over sized and dry fit them. Removed them and laid them out upside down. Coated the undersides with epoxy, coated all remaining bare wood inside the hulls with epoxy, the cleats and chain plate mounting reinforcements. Layed out thickened epoxy on all the top mating surfaces and set the decks into place and weighted them down. My wife helped as usual with mixing and quality control.

My goal with this project is to get it done quickly and effeciently with minimal effort into looks. It is an experiment with something I don't know what I'm doing, I should keep my expectations and effort in cosmetics reasonable.

I typically struggle with paralysis by analysis as well as some missguided notion of perfectionism. I am pretty happy to announce these decks went on with lots of ugly inside and I didn't even pause... Well maybe a few minutes of regret over the epoxy runs and zero fairing compound and no paint.... But not for long, and for now at least it is sealed inside where no one can ever see it. Though I suppose if this somehow turns into an amazing craft and gets lots of use on the lake I may open up the center compartments with a hatch of some sort to store camping gear in...... Don't need to worry about that now though

[Jeff]

Really nice work Narfi!!! Jeff

[VT_Jeff]

Paralysis by analysis. Check.

What jeff said: great work!

[TomW1]

Cool Narfi

Tom

[narfi]

First cross beam glued together. It is made from 4x 1x4s 12 ft long.

I epoxy coated all the inside faces and glued in little spacers every 24 inches to hold the sides apart(building it on its side so top and bottom in the pictures)

Layed it out on and clamped to 2x 2.5" square steel tubes so it is really straight as it cures. Will see how that translates once the clamps are removed

My wife helped again, would have been really awkward balancing and holding all the slimey epoxy coated peices together by myself trying to get the clamps started.

[narfi]

Glued together the second beam. Nothing exciting there exact same process as the first.

Sanded down the mast and struggled with the idea of not fairing it at all, but just couldn't bring myself to do it, so applied one coat of filler to fill the weave, applied and scraped with a Bondo squeegee as thin as I could get it.

Rained all night and cold so as thin as it was applied it is still wet this morning. I hope it cures ok over a couple of days and the cold/humidity don't mess it up for me.

The glue and epoxy coating on the beam was thick enough I think it will do ok, probably creates a little more chemical heat that way.... I'm not sure but I do know that when I do super thin coats of filler scraped off with the squeegee they always take longer to cure.

[narfi]

Routed/sanded/shaped/radiused back the top decks I had installed oversized and then taped them down.

My math was off on amount of 6oz woven tape I ordered for the outside seams so 2nd hull got biax tape on the deck seams.

[narfi]

Was perfect conditions in the tent for working epoxy yesterday. Got up over 90 in there.
So instead of working on the outriggers we dug out the fs17 and went out on the lake for the first time this year.

Stopped at a creek and roasted sausages and s'mores while Landon and Brutus explored and got wet.
Landon was fine but with his pajamas and a huge beach towel wrapped around him Brutus still shivered the whole ride home :p

I did sneak out to the tent in the evening and filled some spots on the cross beams. Pretty much just cosmetic but will let the glass lay down nicer and better to do before I sand all the glue down than to sand down then fill then sand again before glassing. Didn't take any pictures but it wasn't very exciting either.

[Jeff]

Beautiful Place Narfi!!!! Jeff

[narfi]

Needed to clear off the table to cut some plywood. Couldn't help myself and drug all the peices out to see how they look together. That's not the mast, just the uncut boom stock roughly 1/2 the height of the mast I built, but easier to hold in place for looks.