Core Sound 20 Hull #102

[Craig]

I like those roller covers for enamel topsides paint.  Like you say, smooth as silk!

[wkisting]

Got my rigging package for the CS20 today... masts, blocks, 3 sails, lines, battens, sail track, etc.... the whole lot came in from Graham and Carla neatly packaged and labeled. And the price was so much better than what I could have gotten elsewhere. What a wonderful deal, and Graham and Carla were really kind to label everything and bag the blocks in ziploc bags labeled for each portion of the rigging. It will save me a ton of time and re-measuring when it comes time to rig. Thanks Graham and Carla!

[wkisting]

Finally got the rudder finished and assembled. She's ready for paint, once I rough up the finish a bit. Seems a shame to paint it, but I don't want the maintenance involved with a varnished rudder assembly. The tiller will be mahogany, though, so that will be nice and will break up the all-white look (everything else on the rudder is getting painted white).

[Garry]

What is Joe into these days? It doesn't look like he's helping much. Is he intimidated by the size of the boat? I'll bet he could come in handy finishing inside the lockers. Matbe he's sulking a little. Did he ever take his boat sailing?

[wkisting]

Well, Joe is a bit of a wild card, so it's probably safer if he's not allowed to post. 

Seriously, Frank may have banned him (you?) if the account was inactive for awhile. I do that on my forum because inactive accounts often turn out to be "bots" fishing for e-mail addresses or programmed to post spam, etc.

I'll see if I can coax Joe into posing for the camera sometime soon.

I'm prepping to paint the hull tomorrow. I'm going to take a stab at it with the HVLP sprayer, but I'll practice by painting the rudder housing first  (and maybe some scrap wood before that). I'm using the Interlux VC Performance bottom paint (epoxy & teflon only, no chemical anti-foul or ablative properties), but thinking I might spray the entire hull with it to avoid any color/shade mismatch between the VC Performance (white) and the Systems 3 WR-LPU (Whidbey White) that I was planning to use topsides. I may just reserve the Systems 3 for the interior and the spars, as I think I have enough VC to coat the entire hull 3 or 4 times and the VC should have superior scuff/stain resistance according to the reports I've heard from others who have used it. Only downside I can see is that the VC will be a bit more expensive to repair if any serious damage occurs or extensive recoating is ever needed.

Temperature is dangerously close to the max 95 deg F that Interlux specs for spraying VC, but I think I'll be all right if I confine my spraying to morning and evening hours (recoat window is 4-24 hours).

Any tips on spraying from anyone who has used HVLP to paint a boat?

[wkisting]

Arrrrrgh, hit a snag today while painting. The HVLP works a treat and was going without a hitch. First coat looked great. Second coat also looked great, but suddenly revealed pin holes in the epoxy... and quite a few of them. I'm not sure how that happened (they weren't visible on the darker wood, but obviously must have been there). I did 5 thin fill coats of epoxy prior to painting, so I'm surprised that any could have remained unfilled, but there they are...

Anyway, the bottom paint is flawless until the seam (chine) where it meets the hull sides. So I'll leave the bottom/keel paint alone but sand the rest of the paint off. Then I'll fill the pinholes with epoxy again and get everything ship-shape before wasting more paint. I think I'll still have enough left in my 2-gallon kit to put on three more coats, so hopefully I can get by without purchasing more paint. We'll see....

I'm very aggravated nonetheless because now I'm in for a labor-intensive weekend of sanding. Ugh. It's 97 degrees in GA all week.

[tom151]

but suddenly revealed pin holes in the epoxy... and quite a few of them. I'm not sure how that happened (they weren't visible on the darker wood, but obviously must have been there). I did 5 thin fill coats of epoxy prior to painting, so I'm surprised that any could have remained unfilled, but there they are...

Ugh. It's 97 degrees in GA all week.

Until you mentioned the 97 degs...

it has been said that pinholes (the result of sanding a surface that is populated with small bubbles) can result from the temperature buildup in plywood (any wood I guess) that causes outgasing during the curing of the epoxy.  The 'rule of thumb' is to not start any epoxy coating until after ambient temperatures have started to fall and never do coating when the plywood is exposed to sunlight.

Thereafter I tried to make it a practice to do all surface coating and f-glass sheathing jobs in the late afternoon/early evening and no longer had problems. YMMV

[wkisting]

Good thinking, Tom... I had the same thought. I actually accounted for the heat/sun by erecting an awning that blocks the sunlight and by applying my fill coats in the evening (weather was in the mid-80s back when I did the fill coats), but the very last coat was indeed put on early one morning before work and that day was HOT. So, on a hunch, I went back out after posting that last message and tried sanding through the paint and into the epoxy, JUST enough to eliminate the pin holes.

Sure enough, the pin holes were only in that last (top) coating of epoxy (hooray!), which meant that I was able to eliminate virtually all of them without any need for filler. [Edit to add: Actually, on second thought, I think it wasn't the temperature, but rather the thinness of the final fill-coat that caused the bubbles. I suspect I under-saturated the foam roller and actually rolled air bubbles into the epoxy due to the pores in the semi-dry foam roller core.]

Anyway, since I was still within my permissible paint-recoat window, I wiped everything down with reducer solvent (the same kind used to thin the paint) and went back to spraying. Took a little "finessing" to match the (dark) sanded areas to the (white) painted areas, but the HVLP sprayer is awesome and with a steady hand, it's quite easy to "blend" the paint (which means it should also make for easy repairs later, which is encouraging... I don't think I'll ever paint a boat by brush/roller again, if I can help it. Spraying is SO convenient, quick, and controllable. No runs, no sags, no drips. Very nice.)

To avoid putting the paint on too thick, I didn't try to fully blank out the darker sanded areas with this coat, but it's close. Another coat tomorrow morning will restore everything to a perfectly consistent, fully-covered finish. Then I'll add one last coat to allow for sanding, and that should be the end of the paint! I'm so glad this turned out to be an easy fix. In fact, I think the final finish may now come out a bit nicer, since I also stumbled across one little run of fiberglass overlap that was telegraphing through the paint at the transom. Since I was already sanding, I sanded that down, too. So, after all my panicking, it turned out all right.

[Charlie Jones]

10-4 on the spraying- here's a shot of me doing a CS17

[wkisting]

Okay, we're back in business and the finish is coming out great now. It's not perfect, and the HVLP application sprays in such thin coats that it's very intolerant of surface imperfections, but the flaws are so slight (and won't affect performance) that I think I'll leave them. They may even vanish into the last coat. Pretty impressive for a no-primer paint application (Interlux doesn't make a primer for VC Performance.)

In any case, this finish is already worlds better than we were able to achieve on our last boat, and I credit most of that success to the HVLP gun. I'm using the $90 Kobalt HVLP gun sold at Lowe's, and a very small compressor (1.7hp, 20-gallon). The compressor works hard, but only has to run hard for about 20 minutes per coat, so I think it'll take the abuse. I spray one side of the boat, then let the compressor "catch its breath" for about 5-10 minutes, drink a glass of water, then spray the other side of the boat.

If anyone else is thinking of trying the same set-up/paint, I found that a setting of 50-55 psi at the compressor and 42 psi at the gun seems to yield best paint atomization (provided the material flow and spray pattern settings are tweaked to minimize droplet size). The Kobalt manual specifies 29 psi at the gun (gun-mounted regulator is included), so I'm probably getting more overspray with my setting, but the 29 psi had a slight tendency to splatter occasionally. Of course, settings may vary for folks in different climates, or spraying different paints.

See pics below... First pic is me starting the first coat (I started on the rudder blade and housing first); Second pic is the finish after of the fourth coat which I applied this morning. Can't see the areas I blended, so I'm very pleased with it. One last (semi-thick) coat tonight to allow for sanding. The 2-gallon kit of VC proved to be just enough, and most folks hopefully won't have to waste any paint on pinhole problems like those I encountered, so should be plenty for a CS20. A lot of folks might also only coat below the waterline, in which case the 2-gallon kit would probably be enough for 6 or 7 coats (assuming you spray them lightly and evenly, not hastily or thickly).

[Hirilonde]

Seems a shame to paint it, but I don't want the maintenance involved with a varnished rudder assembly.

I appreciate your point on the maintenance, but a varnished rudder or housing isn't really an issue.  The only things I varnished on my Spindrift were removable parts.  They don't suffer the exposure to UV the rest of the boat does.

On the other hand, I added bright work where there was none on my Renegade  :

[wkisting]

Started wet-sanding the paint today. The VC Performance paint is awesome. Sanded with 220-, 400-, then 600-grit. By the time we got to 600, most folks would not be able to distinguish this paint from a factory-applied gelcoat hull. It looks terrific.

My helpful wife Anna got a bit overzealous in a few areas and took off too much paint (can see a little color variation through the paint), so I'll need to do a bit of touch-up, but it'll be very little work and there's a spot on the rudder housing that needs touching up also. I think I'll wait until after flipping the hull, in case we scuff the finish elsewhere while turning her back over.

Really glad I coated the entire hull in VC instead of just below the waterline. It's a very nice paint, and will look very nice in contrast with the wood deck. Can't decide if we want to sand any finer than 600-grit. She's already got quite a shine, and we don't want the hull to be too glossy, as I prefer the semi-gloss look since it hides scuffs and dirt a bit better.

[wkisting]

Can't remember which thread, but I promised to post a picture of my outboard bracket. I have yet to attach it to the boat, but it's fabricated now.

The plate on the left bolts inside the aft compartment, with the round "receiver" sticking through the transom. The long arm and outboard mounting plate are removable by pulling out the pin which holds it in the receiver. The removable arm is also 'keyed' to a slot in the receiver to prevent the whole assembly from rotating, and to keep the rotational strain off of the (1/4" dia.) pin.

I'll post pics when I have it mounted next week. I think it's going to work very well. If not, I'll have a 2-1/4" dia. hole in the transom to patch. 

Whole assembly (in stainless steel) weighs about 12-14 lbs., which isn't bad based on commercially-available brackets I looked at. The advantage of my custom design is the discrete footprint it leaves behind when the bracket is removed. I almost bought one of the commercial folding brackets, but we don't plan to use our outboard a lot, so I hated to have one permanently mounted and upsetting the looks.

[wkisting]

Outboard bracket is installed. Works great, and is fairly discrete with the bracket removed. Next time I touch up the paint, I'll probably rough up the bolt heads and paint them white to conceal them. Maybe not.

Also threw in a pic of the stainless rub strip we attached to the keel.

[wkisting]

Been dreaming up the design for this tiller for quite awhile now. Finally got around to building it out of a beautiful piece of clear-grained mahogany. Came out very well. I think it will look even better with some varnish and some natural darkening in the sunlight.

I'm sure the pros know how to do this, but if any newbies are wondering how to make a tiller, it's quite easy. Just rip a board into 1/8" or 1/4" strips (tighter radius curves need thinner strips) and then glue the strips back together while clamped to a piece of plywood that has been cut to the profile shape you want. (Coat the plywood with packing tape to prevent gluing it to the strips.) Then I used a 3/4" router bit to bore out a slot to fit over the rudder stock. To get a perfect fit, I coated the rudder stock in packing tape (to prevent epoxy adhesion), filled the routered slot with some thickened epoxy, and pressed it into place. When I pulled it off later, I had a perfectly molded slot in the bottom of my tiller handle that was a friction fit on the rudder stock! The last picture here shows the lamination process. I like the looks of this custom tiller much better than the straight stick shown in the plans.

[Garry]

Beautiful tiller! I am a little concerned that the aft end will be catching the loose mizzen sheet when you tack or jibe.

[wkisting]

Yeah, Garry, I worry about that too. Worst case scenario, I can cut it off to a nicely rounded shape. But we'll see. I like the styling for now, so I'll wait and hopefully it won't become a problem. Does the mizzen sheet normally drift that far back while tacking?

Ray, I think I might laminate a tiller extension handle that has a slight curve to it also, to match the existing tiller. Not sure how well you can tell from the pictures, but one reason I didn't create a perfectly symmetrical arc is so that the last two feet of the tiller would have very little curve to it, so the tiller extension will be able to sit reasonably flat. Shouldn't take much to put a slight curve in it to match and stow nicely.

Right now, my tiller is about 16" longer than the one spec'd in the plans, but I really like how it fits when I sit in place, so I may leave the extra length. Only downside is that it sweeps a wider arc when turning, so may get in the way if the boat is packed with many people. (Probably won't be an issue though--I hope). Again, if it turns out too long, I can cut it off.

[Randy C.]

Wes,

Nice job! If my boat turns out as nice as yours I'll be tickled pink.

[Gordy Hill]

I made a ladder-type tiller of mahogany with walnut spacing blocks. It turned out to be more than strong enough. I used a 3/8 inch stainless bolt with a wing nut to attach it to the rudder. This worked out very well. For example I could easily stand when sailing in really shallow water and see what I was getting into. More importantly, when I was anchored or tied at a dock I would point it straight up and have the use of the full cockpit.

I didn't like to leave the rudder mounted when trailering and it was far easier to stow disassembled. There was a stop on the rudder head to keep the tiller from sitting too low. I never has a problem with the tiller becoming loose while sailing. It always felt solidly connected.

On my next boat I wouldn't consider a fixed tiller.

[wkisting]

Thanks Randy. I'm sure yours will come out very well if you take your time. Just be careful not to get into a rush or to let "builder's burnout" get the better of you. That's when you start to cut corners and regret it later. Frankly, I've got builder's burnout now myself because I've been plugging away at this build for hours a day, every day, for 2-1/2 months, but I can't take a break at this point since there's a strong likelihood we have to move to a new house in July/early August. We don't want to move sheets of plywood and other stuff like that, or create sawdust in a new house. So we're hoping to finish before then, but we're taking care not to shortchange any part of the boat.

Gordy, I thought of making a tiller that would pivot up as well, but I settled on this fixed design because I like the looks of the double-bolted head on the rudder stock. However, I gave it a beefy cross-section that will allow me to install a hinge in the middle later, if desired (so only the front half of the tiller would fold out the way). I suspect it won't be necessary, as we took careful measurements when designing our tiller. The front handle falls exactly at the height of my hand with my elbow resting on my knee (a comfortable steering position) and dips low enough that when we stand near it, it doesn't feel in the way (not banging our knees or anything like that). I think camping on the boat might be the only scenario where we would like to have the extra room allowed by folding up the tiller, but we'll wait to try it out first. We also made sure we could cut a foot off the tiller later if we wanted, so I didn't do too much "rounding" yet. One rule I've learned in boat-building is not to commit too far to anything until you've tested it out. 

[Edit to add question:

Does anyone have an UPhaul on their rudder? The plans only show a downhaul, unless I'm mistaken. What keeps the blade up when backing the trailer into the water? (to keep it from snagging the ramp).]