The Gleda Project » Housekeeping

That’s Better!

Neil — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:41:47 +0000

Well I spent another four hours today ‘pushin broom’ and now have a build site I’m not ashamed of. To be fair it’s about six months since my last major clean out so it was well overdue and although I still have the tool store and store cupboard to go through I can do that as I go along because now I’m eager to get back to some actual build time.

My plan of action is to methodically work my way through the inside of each hull from stem to stern completing all the strenghtening and filleting as I go. I’ll first decide where the larger bits of interior fitting go so that I don’t put fillets where I don’t want them. Then I’ll do all the sanding back and prep, clean up, form the fillets and then clean up again. This will leave each compartment ready to start additional fitting out and finishing.

To assist those not familiar with epoxy filleting it is simply the process of applying and forming a filled epoxy mix in the corner joint between two pieces of wood thus dramatically increasing the strength. There are miles and miles of these on a Tiki 38!

Here’s a photo that should make things clearer ( Specially for you Fredrik!)

Housework

Neil — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:31:13 +0000

A really dull day today. Temperature just above freezing, cold breeze, heavy cloud and steady rain, made me wish the snow was back! I was back at the barn to continue my mega clean-up and in an effort to escape the weather I decided to move inside the hulls and give them their first big cleanup in ages. The cabins were full of dust, leaves and general debris from when they were open and from fitting the decks and cabin tops. I deployed my recently acquired bag-less vacuum along with dustpan and brush and some three hours later I had nice clean cabins ready to work.

It was quite nice working inside the boat and the warm air blowing out of the vacuum actually made it quite cosy, on the down side though it did bring home just how much filleting there is to do but hey ho that’s the joy of building your own Wharram! Anyway I’ll carry on with the barn cleanup tomorrow and then make a start.

Signs Of Growth

Neil — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:23:34 +0000

It’s been a busy business week this week so I was eager to get some build time in today. My intention was to crack on with the other two cabin roof/tumblehome strips. As we’ve had a couple of days of torrential rain here the outside edges of the barn were, as usual after a rainy spell, pretty wet, so I opted to start on the driest side first i.e. the starboard hull. After about 5 minutes I realised that I was getting more and more annoyed as my head kept coming into contact with the heavy polythene ‘inner roof’ I put up back in July 2007 (I can’t believe that!) Realising that I was in any case going to have to do something about it before I could continue building up the starboard hull cabin top I decided to bite the bullet and do it then and there.

So instead of spending 5 hours building I spent five hours clearing all the stuff from that side of the barn, unfixing the polythene, lifting it further up, re-fastening it and then putting all the stuff back again. It was quite a tough job as there is a fair weight of polythene up there and raising it involved much pulling on ropes, climbing up barn sides and balancing on the very top of ladders about 20ft up.

I have a slight pang of regret that I didn’t make any progress on the boat today but it was a job that was going to have to be done at some point and I know have plenty of space to bring the hulls up to full height and work on deck when the time comes.

The Problem

Down It Comes

Up It Goes

That's Better

Six Hours Of Pushin Broom………..

Neil — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:16:02 +0000

Well it’s been a long long time folks but this time I’m back for good!

I hope you all like the new site, please let me have your comments good or bad I’d really like to hear what you think. I had a tough task extracting all the journal entries from my old site as they were locked into a subscription server with no easy way of removing them. Luckily I was able to employ a programming wizard from Vietnam who did a fine job of getting them out and onto this new site. I was desperate to save all those precious journal entries and happy to pay the $200 it cost me. I get great satisfaction from posting all this information and hopefully helping others planning or building their own boats. Now I have full control over this site I want to build it into something of value to others so again, please let me have any thoughts or ideas.

Today I’ve spent a large chunk of the day clearing and cleaning the barn from one end to the other in readiness to re-start the build, it was hard graft but it felt immensely satisfying to finally get back in there and I’m super excited about the progress I’m going to make this year. Did you notice the countdown to launch over on the left hand side of this page? I decided that I wasn’t prepared to leave this project open ended and I needed a real target to aim for, so there it is ….. no excuses!

I put together a little video today after I’d finished just to refresh everyone’s memory (including my own!) of where I am in the build. I plan to include far more video updates so if there is anything in particular you’d like a closer look at just ask.

To watch the video on You Tube CLICK HERE