Trying to be unemotional, but WOW! I MAY BE SAILING SOON!

[rslifkin]

Good to hear the next steps are coming along!

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Redreuben

Hey Chotu,
way to go, buy your glass guy some peel ply [emoji2]
Are the composite chainplates next ?

It’s a sail locker. Speed is where it’s at right now. That will just get painted rough someday. It won’t be for a long time either. Lowest priority to do finish work in the sail locker.

Composite chain plates are not happening because of a misunderstanding with the metals guy. I asked about pricing to compare to composite chain plates and he went ahead and made the stainless ones.

So, it’s stainless this time around. If they ever need replacing, it’ll be with composite. Not much extra work to grind them out and do composite if there is a next time.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by kayakerChuck

Nice!

I'm glad it's moving forward.

Thank you!

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by smj

Great news! Always good to have someone you can trust to do a good job on your boat.

Thank you! Definitely could not have come this far without your help.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by rslifkin

Good to hear the next steps are coming along!

And no way at all I could have come this far without yours too. Thanks for participating in all the threads. There have been plenty of things to brainstorm. Still quite a bit left. Ha ha

[Redreuben]

[QUOTE=Chotu;3588158]It’s a sail locker. Speed is where it’s at right now. That will just get painted rough someday. It won’t be for a long time either. Lowest priority to do finish work in the sail locker./QUOTE]



It’s not just about finish, it helps hold the resin in the weave. It’s tricky to tell from a picture but it looks to me you have dry spots or resin run out that is the cause of your “voids”
There’s also a big nest of it on the left hull side.
Peel ply is effective at preventing that.

[Sos]

Well done - looking forward to seeing pictures of her sailing

[GRIT]

Hurray! Good for you Chotu, a pivotal moment in your build. It certainly is a time to cheer.

The fact that your glass guy did such a good job, is a good sign for future glassing jobs. He'll get even better as time goes on.

You've certainly had your share of bad luck during this build. I'm sure we'll, one day, see your picture in a book; at the least, in the Oxford dictionary under "Perseverance". You're an inspiration.

Well done.

Cheers.
Paul and Christine.

[Chotu]

[QUOTE=Redreuben;3588174]

Originally Posted by Chotu

It’s a sail locker. Speed is where it’s at right now. That will just get painted rough someday. It won’t be for a long time either. Lowest priority to do finish work in the sail locker./QUOTE]



It’s not just about finish, it helps hold the resin in the weave. It’s tricky to tell from a picture but it looks to me you have dry spots or resin run out that is the cause of your “voids”
There’s also a big nest of it on the left hull side.
Peel ply is effective at preventing that.

I was hoping it would not turn into a negative thread like this. But I’m going to respond to this post anyway.

Resin run out? I am not sure what you normally laminate with. I have never had resin run out in my life. It doesn’t drip out of the Fiberglass. It becomes part of it. Maybe your resin was too thin? I use laminating resin that works. It has the right viscosity and it doesn’t drain out of anywhere. It doesn’t drip at all. Once you wet out the glass, it just stays there. It’s been like that since the day I started building this boat. Doesn’t matter if you are completely upside down or on a vertical surface. There’s no run out. You probably use resin that is very thin or something.

Dry spots? The guy applied this with a roller. There are no dry spots when you do that. He’s not that much of an idiot. He didn’t miss wetting out the glass.

They are voids. Can you tell from the picture? They are areas where his fillet is not shaped properly and he didn’t press the glass down and well enough to make contact. Possibly the fillet went off a little early on him or something. Preventing him from having a proper surface to lay the glass on. It’s his first big glass job, so, I expected there to be some problems. These voids are the problem. I anticipate he will improve on the next one. And, thankfully, this one isn’t bad enough that we have to grind it all out of here causing me to maybe give up on the boat entirely.

There is a big nest of what on the port side of the hull?

Peel ply is not at all necessary to do laminations. It can be useful on some occasions and I have used it plenty, especially when I did the hulls and crossbeams which are completely resin infused in one shot. I also used it for some other hand laminated areas. But to glass in a bulkhead? No thanks. There’s no point.

Putting that much resin in just to make the surface flat is a mistake. That’s how you build a heavy boat. The way to build a light boat is to squeegee all of that epoxy right back out. Everything you don’t need comes right back out of the thing you had laminated. That helps you approach a proper glass to resin ratio. Just dumping it on there and covering it with peel ply creates a resin rich environment that weighs too much and isn’t as strong. If you do it right with a squeegee, you can get closer to approaching infusion resin to glass ratios.

It’s a little more work, but filling in the weave with microballoons is how you smooth the local surface if you don’t want a heavy boat. I didn’t set out to build a resin rich heavy boat.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by Sos

Well done - looking forward to seeing pictures of her sailing

You and me both! I can’t wait to discover some of the new intricacies of sailing these types of boats. Participating in those multihull threads about VMG. Ha ha ha.

Or at least all of the other threads about getting the most you can out of these boats. It’s not soon, but at least it’s almost in sight.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by GRIT

Hurray! Good for you Chotu, a pivotal moment in your build. It certainly is a time to cheer.

The fact that your glass guy did such a good job, is a good sign for future glassing jobs. He'll get even better as time goes on.

You've certainly had your share of bad luck during this build. I'm sure we'll, one day, see your picture in a book; at the least, in the Oxford dictionary under "Perseverance". You're an inspiration.

Well done.

Cheers.
Paul and Christine.

Thanks, Paul and Christine! Yes. I think I have faced more adversity in this building anyone ever has in another build. except those people that die in the middle of one. Well, I came pretty close. Ha ha.

Looking forward to seeing you out there and may be racing a bit. It might be fun.

[GRIT]

I was never interested in racing... until we started sailing GRIT.

You're on. Get her rigged, and we'll go for a spin!

Cheers.
Paul.

[Chotu]

Originally Posted by GRIT

I was never interested in racing... until we started sailing GRIT.

You're on. Get her rigged, and we'll go for a spin!

Cheers.
Paul.

Me either. Racing never interested me at all. But having two similar boats that go pretty fast might be fun.

The best part is it’s like a class racing event. Like when all those J 24s get together and race each other.

I can predict my defeat already even though it will be fun. I don’t have the techniques down. Not only that, I don’t have new sails.

But it sure would be fun to try.

[GRIT]

If it isn't fun, it's not worth doing. It's always a learning experience though.

Cheers.
Paul.

[MicHughV]

Chotu,
Before you get too excited about writing a book about building your boat......some thoughts....
I spent about two years putting pen to paper and my wife some more time editing, etc, describing my boat build, with plans to write a second and third book about my travels.
Did the rounds of some publishers I knew, but they weren't interested..."nobody wants to read this stuff"...they told me.....
So I went the self publishing route...sold a handful of books to friends and acquaintances, but the "royalties" were just about enuff to buy a case of beer.

Ah well, my road to literary fame and fortune never materialized, but I had fun penning my memoirs.

PM me if you're interested and I'll let you know how to get a copy.