Starting Main Hull Assembly

Instead of working on the boat over the holiday break between Christmas and New Year's I took my family to Orlando, FL, to visit theme parks and the Kennedy Space Center. So, nothing was done, with the exception of ordering fiberglass tubing from Nimbus Paddles in Canada, and getting another gallon of resin and half gallon of hardener.

I still have over half a gallon of resin + hardener from the original order, but the next couple of stages will use a lot - and I don't want to run out in the middle of a lay up.

The fiberglass tubes are for several things:
1. 1 inch OD by 0.75 inch ID by 64 inches for the stuffing box. This will allow a prop shaft of up to 0.5 inches diameter, with allowances for sleeve style teflon, nylon or oiled bronze bearings.
2. 1.375 inch ID with 0.1 inch wall by 3 feet for mounting the akas. This will be cut into several pieces, with two short lengths on the amas and an 11 inch piece to mount on the hull to anchor the akas. The extra length will be used as part of the dipping rudder mechanism or grab tube steering.
3. 1.375 inch OD by 1.25 inch ID by 3 feet by two pieces for the akas.
4. An extra 1.375 inch OD by 1.25 inch ID by 3 feet piece for use as a grab tube, part of the dipping rudder mechanism, etc.

I also got a couple of stainless steel push buttons to be used for quick securing or removal of the akas. Some stainless spring ball pins will be used to secure the akas to the stabilizers/amas. This will be just like the stabilizers used on the Cadence, so the stabilizer angle of attack can be easily adjusted on the beach, and the stabilizers can be removed while on the water for docking purposes, etc.

Today I spent some quality time with my ancient Black & Decker 2-1/2 inch belt sander removing the excess resin from the scarfed joints. Apparently the cold temperature in the garage encouraged the resin to stay much thicker on the spots where pressure was not applied from the other panels, so there was a lot to remove.

In the process, however, the toothed belt driving the sander's belt finally wore out and broke, disabling the sander. Oh, well. I bought the thing maybe 25 years ago and used it on countless projects. I guess I got my money's worth out of it!

The trouble is, I haven't seen many 2-1/2 inch belt sanders for sale. The smallest one these days is 3 inches - and they are much heavier and harder to use for intricate or lighter duty tasks such as this.

Rather than give up I chose to use the Sears Professional random orbital sander I bought late last year. Lo and behold - it worked better than the belt sander!


While it took a little longer the results on sanding the resin areas were smoother and with fewer issues. The integrated vacuum pickup was much better at eliminating dust clouds in the shop, too.

The next step was to taper the tips of the bow and stern sides so that they match the bottom panel of the hull. I had concerns that the orbital sander would not be up to the task, but there was nothing to worry about. With a little care and patience it did an excellent job of sanding through the plywood at the proper taper, leaving perhaps half of the outermost ply at the very tips on each piece. Excellent!

After vacuuming and sweeping the remaining dust off the panels, I did an initial assembly of the hull bottom and sides. Paint cans were employed to keep the sides vertical, and the foam bulkheads were inserted at 1, 2, 3, 3.6, 4 and 5 meters to keep the sides from falling inward. The single interior wood bulkhead panel was also put in its place at the front side of the cockpit, but it didn't want to stay in position without assistance.

One really great feature included with these cut-out panels is the scoring done by the NC machine. The different panels are easily aligned by matching the scores on one panel with the matching score on the other. The accuracy achieved is within 0.05 inches - perfectly adequate for this sort of assembly.

The next step is to make sure the bulkheads properly match the taper of the hull form at their stations. This is easily done with a sanding block, and should take very little time.

Total time today, for the removal of excess resin, tapering the panels at the bow and stern, cleaning up from the previous work and getting the bulkheads in position: approximately 3 hours.