Frame No 3

Vacation. Finally. Frame no 3 assembled with 3 kids. Who says that boats can not be built with them :-)? The plan is to do one frame a day during the Xmas time. It is not much, but when you cook, play with kids and do everything else, it is OK. CHS Epoxy 1200, 70g/frame.

It takes 4 people to assemble Frame No3 :-) The youngest is <2 y.o. and helps driving screws!

I have also tested the okoume plywood by boiling a piece in water for 1 hour. And both the wood and the glue survived. It is just exterior B class, which I intend to use only on the inside parts of the boat: gussets, bulkheads etc. But also outside planking if I do not get marine AA in the lumberyard.

Plywood after 1 hour in boiling water

Testing fiberglass and epoxy

Today the testing fiberglassing set has arrived. I have selected Havel composites as they supply the producers of laminates and they have wide variety of epoxies. The choice is UV stable and completely transparent epoxy and hardener so that the woodwork will be well visible. The glass, epoxy, hardener, some cups, rollers and some other stuff. I will test the process as well as the components if they are good for the project.

Frame members are cut to size

Today all frame members but dashboard are cut to size. It took me almost full day.

I have first transferred all plans to Google Sketch up to identify measurements that were missing in the original plans and used it also for automatic conversion from inches to mm. Those extra measurements were very valuable when I was transferring the lines to lumber.

Now the next phase will be to complete the frames with the plywood laminations and gussets. I must say that Okume (Gabon) is very nice to work with, light, yet strong enough and very easy to fair and cut. I have decided to cut from 30mm thick lumber, a bit more than suggested in the original plans (1inch). I will also not laminate the plywood to the members, I will use the gussets technology instead.

Patterns on the cardboard

Lumber ordered. 3 pcs of Okume 40mm 22 board meters, and two plywood sheets. There is a need also to take 2 motor stringers from mahogany, delivery expected by the year end.

Lumber in the house

I have just got the lumber and some of the plywood under the roof. This evening I have spent on redrawing the plans to the plywood to later facilitate the assembly.