ONLY 12 Days left to win some Emirates Team New Zealand gear

Hi everyone

Two weeks to win some genuine Emirates Team New Zealand Gear. 

Emirates Team New Zealand have kindly donated a team shirt (size large) and hat for my monthly prize draw. 

Proceeds will help me on my way to represent New Zealand at the Noumea Optimist Sailing Nationals in December this year.

Just "ChipIn" any amount on my website www.maddogsailing.com  Winning  donation drawn end of August.  This awesome gear could be yours. 

Good Luck!

Patrick Haybittle

Mocking up keel

Spent earlier in day sanding boat bottom... Dusty.

This afternoon finished mocking up keel and stem cap. Will epoxy up spacers that go around centreboard hole tonight.

Big chunks of Kwilla

Stem cap came out pretty good. Will scarf to keel. Most excess epoxy will get faired in shortly.

Laminating bow cap.

The bow has a lot of exposed plywood if not capped. I ripped some kwila into thin planks so they bend easier. Marked a template of the bow, transfered the shape to some 18mm MDF and screwed on 2"x2" blocks. Wet out kwilla and then glued with thickened epoxy. All clamped. Should work well.

Template

Wet out wood first with raw epoxy and then trowl on thickened epoxy.

Profile

Clamps

Lots of clamps.

Epoxy coated and Amine blush washed off

I was away for a couple of days. My darling wife painted on raw epoxy onto the side planks. This is in preparation for Altex primer and two pack brushable polyurethane.

A good job for a young helper was to wash the amine blush off. This is a by product of epoxy as it hardens. It is water  soluble. We use some warm soapy water and a scotch brite pad.

Me and Dad

Scrubbing time

Fibreglassing

Long boarded lap joints to smooth. After discussion on the JW site, talking to Davie Norris and my experience with plywood jetboats we decideded to cover the boat with two layers of 200gm boat cloth. Hopefully will hack a bit more abrasion on beaches etc. 


Bevan at Davie Norris boat builders suggested laying glass across ways and cutting as this is more economical. Seemed to work well. The bow is fore/aft. All went on well. We added a layer of raw epoxy about two hours after as per the Gougeon Brothers West System book to fill the weave. We have done this before and works well. The last layer we added a mix of micro balloons to add some sandable bulk.


I'm glad Kelly was somewhat over her bronchitis and able to help for a couple of hours.

"This is how you long board Patrick"

Pretty quick and smooth.

Ready to glass.

I love fibreglassing

Two layers of glass. I'm hard on equipment!

Glassed to the first clinker panel

Chief Inspector. 

Yep. Good enough.

Glassing plank joins and a bit of bogging.

Scalloped butt joins, filled joint and then 3 layers of glass covered in peel ply. It is somewhat common for unglassed joints to crack over time thus exposing the end grain. Hopefully three layers of 200gm glass will cure this. Also did as much general filling of hull. A few more days work yet before painting. I also spent a bit of time yesterday using a syringe of raw epoxy to fill any pin hole gaps in the planks.

Scalloped wood and also added filler (not shown). 

Easier to wet out 3 layers of glass on plastic and cut into strips

Peel ply on

A syringe of raw epoxy used to get into joins works well.

Boat flipped! Yay!!

A few mates, a feed of Pizza, a couple of beers, watch "Smashed em Bro!" on 'Crowd goes Wild' (Kiwi Sports Program) then flipped boat.Went pretty well. Probably took 20-30 minutes. resting on some tires at the moment.

Earlier in the day I planed and sanded deck flush with sides.

"Strops look good enough eh Silver Fox"!

Building jig out. A few dogs around to watch.

Levitating Pathfinder.

Over she goes.

No worries Matey's

Job done.

Thanks for your help dudes.

Wahoo! Deck On!!!

Clark came around to help Kelly and I get the top deck on. The planks and top deck go on much better with three people. Holding, clamping, mixing etc. Patrick took most of the pics tonight. The bow planks, side planks were all rough cut today. Front doublers made. Everything rough sanded then pre-coated in raw epoxy. Then thickened epoxy added to frame tops and king plank top. Bow planks went on reasonably well. Some screws did 'thread' themselves. Simply drilled new hole beside and inserted bigger screws. Kelly and Clark did a great job. Especially cleaning up the excess epoxy.
Hopefully tomorrow we will trim deck. I hope to flip boat upside down tomorrow evening. Pizza and beers at my house.

Deck dry fitted

Pre-coating underneath of deck

Is this epoxy glue or something else? Let me taste to make sure! Mmmm!

Spreading epoxy glue around

Deck going on

I is 'Sailor Boy' and 'Big Daddy'

A lot of bend on front deck plank. 

Really we are hot and bothered...

But we'll smile for your stupid photo!!

Wipping up excess epoxy glue.

Slow Progress for a few weeks...

Hi. Sorry for the lack of updates. I caught a cold with the rest of family. Couldn't be bothered with sanding and associated dust.. But alas all better know so back into it.
Was filleting frames, stringers etc. Not many pictures but labour intensive. Slowly getting the knack for a good job.  Filleting is generally easy. I have been making thickened West System and micro balloons in a zip-loc bag and applying. Then using a rounded mixing stick to radius. It is just hard to make the corners look right. Often it looks like a botch job. They are hard to sand to get a nice looking finish. I can see why guys take a week or two to get right. I'm fast getting to the stage the as long as they look reasonable lets just finish them up and get some paint on.  I went to the Auckland Maritime Museum and looked at the New Peter Blake exhibit. There is a bunch of classic racing plywood dinghys. I sussed out their fillets. Some are good and some very average. Does it matter? I'm tending to think let's get the boat completed and in the water.
So at this stage I am doing a combination of sanding fillets and getting on with next step of deck construction. I want the boat upside down within a week or so to paint. When it is upright we will tidy up the odd fillet and paint interior.

Great work! An awesome wife who knows how to mix micro balloons

Agh! Fillets

Thinline MDF for a bow sheet template. Also stringer mocked up

Deck stringers mocked up. Will glue up tomorrow. Deck on the day after.

Putting together a Pathfinder is like doing a Puzzle!!!

Seats tops in

This morning I washed the amine blush off the underside of the seat tops using detergent and a scotch pad. Also attacked the inside planks of the boat with my new orbital sander. Does the job great. Glad I followed John's advice and got a 125mm sander rather than a 150mm sander. Gets into smaller areas between stringers well. Even Patrick had a go with it today. He enjoyed it.
After dinner we put the seat tops in. First we wet out the bare wood, end-grain etc. with raw epoxy. Then we mixed up ziplock bags of thickened epoxy and colloidal silica. Gladwrap bags work well for applying mix like a cake decorator. Then we put seat tops in. Kelly stood on them to hold down while I drilled and screwed them down. Boat looks tidier now. I can see the next few days will be spend filleting and sanding. Hopefully no more than a week. I do have to work this week a bit.

Introduce them young to power tools I say! 

Seats are scarfed together using glass to form one large seat top. The tops are 18mm Gaboon as it seemed stiff but light. I wanted something a little stronger as I am at the top range of a "Finn's Ideal Weight". The seat tops have two layers of 200gm boat cloth on for abrasion resistance. The same as the floorboards.

Thickened epoxy on top of frames. All interiors have 2-3 coats of raw epoxy. I figure if I ever need to epoxy something in the future or do a repair it will only need a quick sand with 60-80 grit and get into it.

Seats in. Yay

Peel ply left on seat tops for now. Lots of filleting and sanding to go

A bit of detail. Half round Vitex (New Guinean Teak) glued to Gaboon Ply to protect edges. I routered 20mm X 100mm plank and then trimmed of hald round and glued on)