January 05, 2005
Working on DS 1795
I've finally gotten around to doing some work on Day Sailer hull #1795. One of the primary things wrong with her is she's mushy. The poor old fiberglass just doesn't have what it ought to so that she can stem the billows, as it were... So, after much hemming and hawing (over a year's worth), I've started on it. I was hoping to use a vacuum bagging system I made to press the core down on the inside of the hull, but so far it hasn't worked. There were simply too many leaks in the vacuum bag because of running resin, and the Lord knows what else.
Instead, I ended up using good old 50 lb bags of sand, placed in Hefty trash bags atop the core while the bedding compound I'm using cured. Seems to have worked, unfortunately the only way I'll ever be able to tell for certain is when she's out working through choppy seas. If it didn't work, the core will come unbonded. I'm going to go against my nature and be optimistic and say it bonded well and that's that.
Can you tell I was filled with trepedation before I did this today? I guess that's why it took me so long to start. I had hoped to do some over Christmas week, but unfortunately the temperatures were too low to ensure a decent cure.
Today, however, I was sweating while I got my gloved hands covered in this nasty polyester resin muck. The stuff stinks to high heaven. Perhaps that's a reason I've been so slow to do it. Good excuse, I'll use it if necessary. :-)
Here's a few photos:
This is before he coring. I sanded and ground the paint and gelcoat inside down to the glass and vacuumed it out. I took some clear packaging tape and used the sticky side to pull off any other dust, by sticking it to the deck and pulling it off until all the stickiness was gone. I got a lot of dust that way. Then I wiped the hull all down with some acetone before applying the bedding compound. I mixed up 300 grams of the stuff and spread it over the area where the core was placed using a notched trowel I bought at the local home center, (where everything is coloed orange). I placed the core, pressed it into place with my hands, and then placed a layer of fiberglass cloth over it. (This is when I attempted the vacuum bag, but failed.)
After it cured, I was surprised that it seemed to have worked. I was bothered by the fact the vacuum bag didn't work and was feeling pessimistic) but this is what it looks like:
I plan to fillet the edges of the core with some triangular balsa dowel before placing a layer of stranded mat on top of what is here. That will be done after the core is placed in the entire boat, I think. The next yhing to do is to place the starboard side, and then I'll do some slight clean up work so that the next section aft will fit in nicely. I'm going to have to come up with a clamping system for the next section because the core goes up the sides of the hull and sand bags won't have much effect. I think I might try using some thin Luan or plywood placed over the core and pressed on with a large clamp I have set up as a presser bar against the centerboard.
I also did some work on the rudder head. These old O'Day rudder heads are massive. Solid fiberglass, no wood core. (The rudder is the same, and has a terrible shape, but that's another project.) I weighed the rudderhead and it tipped the scale at 7-1/2 lbs.
I think that is the weight of my entire rudder assembly on Surprise! So, I did what many other Day Sailer sailors have done - I cut a section out of the rudder head, using a few different saws and my drill press.
I'm considering using my router to clean up the edge of the cut where I removed the 2-1/2 lbs of glass, I'm not sure I want to risk damaging that bit or the rudder head on this project.
Posted by Bob at January 5, 2005 07:59 PM