Rdubs

Hey all Glassed the inside seams and now have to do the outside seams. Had a question though concerning the keel installation. Do you glass the bottom centerline seam prior to installing the keel, or do you install the keel first and then glass the keel in place? Asking because if you glass the centerline seam, the keel will be mounted to a surface that has cured resin on it and it may not grab as well as if it were the wood. The instructions say to use screws to hold the keel in place so maybe placing the keel down on top of cured glass doesn't matter much. Thanks, 'Dubs

You guys are the best, thanks. Edit: Ignore my silly question about the rigging. Just checked the B&B site and it says the mast kit is only like $160. If that includes the boom then that's definitely the way to go, I will ask Carla.

Hi gents and ladies, Finally making progress on my 10N again after a long break. Thanks to some help and encouragement from Graham, I finally epoxy'd the seams and will glass the seams shortly. However I was looking at the instructions for the interior since that will be next and had a big question about the mast collar piece and the forward bulkhead. (The plans say "see the companion CD for lots of photos" but I never received said companion CD so have tried to use Google image search a lot). It looks like there is a "beam" installed forward of the forward bulkhead, as you can see here (Edit: this is not my boat, just an imagine I found on the web. Wish my construction looked as good as this): But from the drawings I can't tell if the mast collar sits on top of the upper edge of the forward bulkhead/beam, and then there is supporting wood on either side onto which the forward seat/deck is placed, or if one is supposed to cut out a notch in the forward bulkhead/beam for the mast collar to slip into. It looks like that is what this guy did: The directions don't say anything about cutting a notch, but I also don't see measurements for pieces of wood which go on either side of the collar if the collar just lies on top. Any ideas? Thanks 'Dubs

Hi all, Have been stuck on my Spindrift 10N for some time now because I am at the stage where everything is wired, the breastplate and knees are epoxy'd in and the next step is to make the seams permanent by fiberglassing it in. However the directions say "be sure to check for twist at this point" and I read a forum that showed a fellow using a level to check the front and rear angles to see if they were the same. On mine if I set the stern level, the level shows that the bow is tilted, one side seems to be higher than the other. Problem is, I don't know how to make any adjustments to try to get it back to level. So two questions: 1) What's a good way to remove this twist? I imagine some of it has to do with loosening the copper ties, but not sure how to adjust it from there. 2) Is there a good way to mount or hold the hull while you try to adjust it? Many thanks, I've been stuck for a while trying to figure this out. 'Dubs

Thanks much Steve and folks for the helpful replies. This little tidbit makes a lot of sense. I think I'm going to gear mine towards sailing/rowing as the default configuration and then adjust if I want to try to mess with the outboard. On the rowing, I read a while back some folks had modified their Spindrift seating design to make it better for rowing. Something about how the changed the main athwartships seat to be more fore-and-aft oriented, so you can sit more further or backwards to position yourself best to row, as opposed to being locked into one spot to sit. But I can't find the thread/s which talked about this. Has anyone made modifications to the design like this? (A bunch of replies said don't mess with the designer's design, but I am curious).

Hi all, Finally making progress again on my Spindrift 10N. Unfolded and stitched up the sides to the bottom. But have two questions: 1) Having trouble envisioning how, on the sailing setup, the outboard would be mounted. I see on the plan diagram it shows how the outboard pad can be offset to clear the rudder pintles, but it doesn't look like it would be enough. I have looked at dozens of pictures of the transom online but looks like everyone just uses the baseline stiffener/pad. Does anyone have a picture of how the transom looks when the sailing version can accept an outboard, maybe a picture of the sailing version with a small outboard on the back? 2) The main nesting bulkhead fit into place without a lot of drama, but I am having a tough time with the smaller forward bulkhead. I know there is a little note in the plans saying you might have to trim it but before I start cutting at it I want to make sure I'm not missing something. The upper outboard edges really seem to be at a sharp angle compared with where the sides want to sit, and I almost feel like the sharp angles of the bulkhead at the top are trying to punch a hole through the side. Any thoughts? Thanks. 'Dubs

Scratch that, re-read the instructions for the 10th time and looks like you drill the holes to mate the side with bottom during the unfolding. Have a question about setting up the fiberglass reinforcements on the bow prior to unfolding. It looks like the instructions are to set up the fiberglass then clamp all four pieces together while the epoxy cures (using plastic to separate the two halves). But, how do you get the glass on when you only have access to one of the four sides? If you clamp down the pieces on the bottom to keep them from moving, you can't get under them to put the glass on, but if you don't clamp them down they will move around ruining the quality of your glassed joint. It seems more logical to do the two halves separately, so then you have easy access to the face which is up, so only have to figure out the bottom face, but if you stack both halves on top of each other you have four glass joints at play you have to glass and set. Thanks for any tips.

Hey everyone, I'm making progress on the build but have two questions, somewhat related. Right now I have the major section pieces cut out and the nesting bulkheads built, and am ready to put the sides and bottoms together to form the two wings. I have not yet drilled the holes which the stitches will go through. The questions: 1) When is the best time to drill the holes for the stitches for the bottom pieces which hold the two bottom pieces together? Should I do it right now with the bottom pieces free (just lay them on top one other and drill)? Or wait until later? Also, what about the holes along the outside of the bottom pieces which stitch to the sides? 2) When is the best time to drill the holes on the side pieces which stitch to the bottom piece? My fear of drilling them prior to unfolding and going 3D would be that they wouldn't line up, but it also seems harder to drill the holes with the boat 3D while you are trying to get the hull to form up and not have these huge wings out to the sides. Thanks 'Dubs

Update, in case it helps future scarfers. I bit the bullet and went out and bought a used belt sander off Craigslist. Picked up a beast, a Makita 9924B, running 7.8 Amps. Think the sandpaper was 50 grit. Holy crap. That thing was removing material like a possessed beast. It probably took me 15 minutes to make 4" of extremely flat scarf angles across two board pieces. The neatest thing was how once I started making progress, the different layers of the plywood began to serve as guidelines. When sanded at that shallow angle, those vertical ply demarcations begin to show up along intervals horizontally. So when you had a good angle, I would see about 6 different parallel lines running across the scarf mating surface, they looked like swim lanes, and after a while I began to just look at the swim lanes to see where I needed to remove material. Once all the swim lanes were running at equal spacing, the angle was perfect. Looking back on it that makes perfect sense, I just hadn't thought about it in advance. A neat little trick. The blow picture isn't perfect but you see the concept. The only problem now is since it is night and I had to work in the garage with the door closed there is now a layer of sawdust covering the wife's car. That heavy-duty belt sander removes material, and places it anywhere it wants.

Thanks Steve. Very curious...did you use fiberglass cloth to reinforce the seam, or did you just go au naturel with just the epoxy? Some joining things I read said that if you want to do a butt, you have to also have a backing plate, or I guess the fiberglass cloth acts as that. If I could just put the sheets end to end and use epoxy without glass, that would be sweet because it would avoid having that lump in the lines where the glass cloth is.

Hi Peter, Thanks for the tip, I was thinking Join, I incorrectly applied the term Scarf. I set up everything to start creating the first scarf, by trying to sand using a 1/3 sheet finishing sander (the vibrating kind). 60 grit sandpaper. Despite the coarseness of that paper, it was going impossibly slow. Researching around I read that a planer or a belt sander should work. Kind of sucks that I have to go out and buy one of those (even if used) just to form the scarfs, and only use it once. But using a table saw would be kind of dangerous with those tall flimsy boards, and using a circular saw (which I don't have either) requires crafting some special jigs.

Hi gents, Have another question, not relating to the fold. What is the best way to scarf the 4' plywood halves onto the two 8' sheets in order to make the length needed for the 10' boat? I'm thinking there are three options: 1) Just do a simple end-to-end join, but then you'd need some fiberglass across the seam to give it strength 2) Join it at an angle (I think I would need like a 2" mating surface on the angle), and 3) Lap it via cutting off one veneer face on one piece, then on the other piece remove the veneer plus the core Any thoughts? The main cutting tools I have are a table saw (hard to work with big plywood sheets on), saber saw and a hand saw. Thanks Dubs

JP, Hirilonde - Sorry, not following what you are talking about re: anti-crack blocks. What do they do, and have you come across a picture of them? Are they something you clamp to that glassed meeting section at the bow to provide extra support during unfolding?

Ken - thanks very much for that photo, it explains what I was missing. I thought there would be a definite angle where the side and bottom meet, but it's clear that up at the bow because of the curves the union of those piece should be flat, and only about a foot after that do the sides and bottom really start to come into their own. It makes perfect sense now. Hat tip. Alan thanks for the videos, I watched the first one a few times before posting but now that I know what to look for thanks to Ken it stands out. The second video also shows the same feature, thanks. Designer! Honored for your comments. Thanks much for the tips, that is a great idea. I thought about trying to set up a humidifier or something to help add a little flexibility but your idea sounds better. I will let you all know how it goes. Thanks again! 'Dubs

Hi all, I bought the plans for a Spindrift 10 Nesting to serve as a tender / knockabout for a 33' sailboat. Reading through the plans, it says to fiberglass the front/bow of the side and bottom pieces, then wait for it to harden. Once it is hard, open up the butterfly like in the video. I think it says to glass/epoxy both sides of where the two pieces come together at the bow. My question is, if the glass/epoxy has hardened, won't unfolding it crack and break the joint all to heck? I don't understand why where these two pieces come together it isn't just stitched together prior to unfolding, since having it stitched would allow it flexibility. Glassing the joint would seem to want to lock it in. I am clearly missing something. Thanks. 'Dubs