My diary had me down as spending a full day at the barn today. I did, but only got 2 hours work done on the boat as another (paying) job took up the bulk of the day. Not to worry, it was a worthwhile use of my time and I managed to get the polystyrene sandwich material glued into the port hull side decks at least. Some progress is better than no progress.

Polystyrene Sandwich Material Glued In

Once again the income generating part of the Gleda Project is demanding the greater part of my time hence the lack of update yesterday. I squeezed in a couple of hours today though and got the final upper layers of ply glued to the side decks of the starboard hull. I also took off the tumblehomes ready to  re-cut and re-fit. Workload and a long weekend trip to Falmouth mean that it’ll be next week before I do any more building now but a visit to Falmouth is always a great boost as it’s without doubt one of the finest harbours in the world and I shall be looking for lots of bluewater cruisers to photograph. It’s also the place highest on the list of possible launch locations so I’ll be keeping a weather eye out for prospective sites as well!

Getting There

Beam Trough Will Be Cut Out Later

A good work session today working on the two side decks of the starboard hull connecting the large curved forward section of main cabin roof to the small aft section. I’d successfully joined glued the four longitudinal stringers and the lower pieces of ply the other day but there was a fair bit of cleaning up to do and I spent a good deal of time check measuring and taking levels to make sure everything was right. I had to trim a couple of partial bulkhead tops to get everything spot on and then drop in two little transverse blocks next to the inboard beam trough as this will be cut out later. Then it was a case of cutting and dry fitting the polystyrene sandwich material before gluing and clamping everything together. All in all a pleasing bit of progress. Apologies for the lack of photos, I forgot to take the camera. I’ll post some tomorrow.

I was in the mood for building today, things always go so much easier when you’re in the right frame of mind don’t they? Anyway the first job was to gently prise off the second large cabin roof section and then spend some time with the grinding disc knocking off excess blobs of epoxy and generally cleaning it up a bit, then I hoofed it up on top of the starboard hull to see how it sat. as before there was a pleasing glow of satisfaction to see that it will only need minor adjustment to get it sitting pretty.

Having had that little boost I motored on with constructing the last two narrow sections of roof that sit at the stern end of the cabins, with all the practice I’ve had with the previous four big sections these seemed easy. I utilised both ends of the mould so that I could do the two together and also combined two steps into one by also gluing in the polystyrene. They’re all weighted up now and need only the last layer of ply glued on. I plan to squeeze that in tomorrow.

Glued and Ready For Weighting

Both Sections Weighted

Today I continued work on the second main cabin roof section and got the polystyrene sandwich material all glued into place and weighted. That’s broken the back of it now and I’ll try and get the final layer of ply in place before the weekend’s out

Lessons learned making the forward cabin decks are paying benefits now with the construction of the main cabin decks. I have the construction broken down into three stages.

1. Lay the first sheet of ply into the mould and glue the transverse strengtheners
2. Glue the longitudinal strengtheners and the polystyrene sandwich material – Apply Weights
3. Glue the final layer of ply – Apply Weights

I’ve completed stage 2 of the port hull main cabin deck today and hope to get stage 3 completed before we go away to Portugal .

Longitudinal strengtheners fitted & glue spread

Polystyrene In Place

Polythene, Ply & Weights Applied

An excellent work session today, one of those when the mood is good and things just flow. I needed to be confident as I’d decided on another of those ‘heart in the mouth’ jobs i.e. cutting holes in the hull to take the portlights I purchased at Beaulieu the other weekend. I decided to go with the plans and put these portlights in the places shown on the drawings of the forecabins, There are two on the outboard sides of the hulls and one on the inboard sides so a great way to use the six I’d got. Although it’s a bit early to do this job I figured that with lots of work to do inside these cabins the extra light and ventilation afforded would be very welcome. After making up a hardboard template of the cutout needed I spent quite a bit of time measuring, marking and checking to avoid any disasters and then picked up the saw and went for it! I needn’t have worried, everything went swimmingly and I soon had all six in position, held by some temporary screws. It’s strange what a difference they’ve made to the hulls. I couldn’t help wondering what sights will be seen through these new openings on the world!

View of Port Forecabin from Starboard

Four In A Row

To keep up the momentum I then started construction of the deck section for the starboard hull. As always things went quicker and easier thanks to the practice gained making the first one. I’ve got the first layer of ply in place with all the transverse and longitudinal stringers glued into place. The photo below shows a cross section of the ply/polystyrene/ply sandwich I’ve been talking about (this was the piece I cutout to make the access hatch yesterday) hopefully this makes what I’ve been doing a little clearer.

Sandwich Construction

I really really enjoyed todays work session. I’d really only planned to spend a couple of hours at the barn but once I’d started I kind of got sucked in and ended up doing far more than I’d thought I would. I’m feeling it tonight though! I think there are some very neglected boat building muscles that got a real shock today, not least from hauling all the concrete blocks I used to weigh down the glued polystyrene!

Anyway what I achieved today was cutting and fixing of the longitudinal strengtheners and glueing of the polystyrene sandwich material to the first layer of ply. It all went according to plan although its a long while since I mixed such a lot of epoxy in one day but, as has been stressed by others, it’s essential to make sure that the polystyrene is well glued.

After a bit more research and a review of the information I already had I decided to go with the easy option of using 25mm construction polystyrene as the sandwich material for the cabin tops. The decision was made easier by Jacques comment a while back 

‘If I had known before, I would have gone for regular white insulation polystyrene foam (just put a lot of glue). It worked well for Ann and Neville for 5 years and I also have seen it at a shipyard in Brittany. I would have saved a 1000$ (I used balsa) and surely some weight.’

So today I’ve been and fetched 8 sheets of polystyrene and a couple more sheets of ply for the mould and I’ve ordered up the copper nails I need for delivery this week. Tomorrow I’ll make a start finishing the mould and then the fun will start!

My Landy came into it’s own transporting my purchases back to the barn with no effort!

Boat Jumble

Landy Roof Loaded

We had a great trip to the Boat Jumble at the weekend and I landed a few bargains.

Best buy was 6 brand new fixed port lights that will fit beautifully in the hullsides, two for each sleeping cabin and two for the heads/shower compartment. I consider £10 each a good deal! (I’ll post some photos tomorrow)

Next year I will be on the lookout for deck fittings!

Another clearing and cleaning session today and I’m now happy that I’ve got the barn looking like someone owns it again and that I can work in comfortably. Next job was to take stock of my ply and timber and I was pleased to find that I’d actually got the 4mm ply needed for the cabin tops already in stock, I’d completely forgotten about it. I also spent a goodly amount of time with the plans and build instruction book refreshing my memory and clarifying what to do next and what materials I need. The next job is quite a big one – making the sandwich construction cabin roofs and decks. I want to get these made so that I can dry fit them and ensure that the cabin sides are right before gluing everything. I first need to finish making the mould and also need to decide on, and source the sandwich material. This can be Balsa, Styrofoam, Polystyrene etc, it just needs to be fairly dense, a good insulator and able to take the epoxy. I’ll get this sorted by the end of the week. It’s the big Beaulieu Boat Jumble this weekend so I’ll be heading down there to see what bargains I can pick up so that means it’ll be next week before I can start work proper…… Can’t wait!