Monday 31 October 2011

Looking goat shaped

The bottom of the hull has been epoxied in place and then tripped to size.   A radius has been planed and sanded to the chine between hull sides and bottom and a layer of glass tape epoxied in place, not the neatest glassing job I have done but it will be cleaned up and painted over so not the end of the world.   I also used up the last of the West epoxy on the bottom and am not going to move to another brand that (hopefully) doesn’t suffer the extensive amine blush that West seems to leave behind after curing.

The pic blow shows the hull now turned the correct way up and I plan to finish the inside seating, structure and in/outwales before flipping back over to finish the bottom.  It’s all looking rather boat shaped.


Wednesday 12 October 2011

The goat goes 3D

It has been almost a month since updating this, partly down to work and partly down to not doing much building.  However there has been some progress over the past few weeks as follows.

The daggerboard case had been completed, the front and back of the slot have been lined with thick rubber to protect the daggerboard from damage after the inevitable groundings.  With the case sealed up the outside has had three coats of epoxy to match the rest of the hull.

The inner gunwales on the Goat are set on blocks of wood that not only create a stiffer structure but also allow water to drain out easily when the hull is flipped over.  While they won’t be fitted for a while I have made up all the little blocks from Cedar, rounded the ends to make them look nice and epoxied the end grain.  Two of the blocks are a little larger and will be fitted 300mm aft of the seat to accommodate the rowlocks.

Lastly, the Goat had finally gone 3D.  The hull was dry-fitted together initially to make sure it all looks good and fair.  The chinelogs needed trimming where they come together at the bow but this appears to be a common fix that is needed to stop the ply pulling itself apart.  Next was the messy and sticky job of gluing it all together, this was started at the stem and I worked aft pulling out and then refitting each bulkhead in turn finishing at the transom.  When completed the hull sides had a nice fair curve and having taken some measurements it was all strait and square – Amazing!

Lastly I have added a small piece of oak to the outer stem as this area is likely to suffer knocks and the oak will take far more abuse that the Plywood and cedar stem.  Not it’s fitted I’m tempted to leave the oak stem on show as it will match the oak trim on the outer gunwales.