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Action Tiger builds sailboat. With epoxy!


Action Tiger

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  • 1 month later...

Whoo. Okay, I'm back at it. I had to take a break and help the kids rebuild their boat, and build a new one with them. Oh, me we made a few paddles, too...

Sooo, back to the "big" boat again, finally. The bottom got a good bath with the green scrubby and some water, even though this is a non blushing epoxy. Still. I gave it a good bath with lots of clean water and a scrubby. The over laps and edges are getting some sanding, and then a scuff sand everywhere to get the final layer of bottom glass a little tooth.

I would have liked to have a good chemical bond, but this is just kind of for extra protection on the bottom, and if it scrapes off a little easier than the layer stuck to wood, more's the better, I guess.

I will start to post some pictures again soon, as soon as something changes. Hehe:)

Peace,

Robert

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I'm a bit on the sceptical side of the BPA being terribly harmful debate. I've seen the data and I'm just not convinced, though to error on the side of caution, babies, pregnant women and folks with respiratory issues, should avoid prolonged exposure to BPA's. The problem is, the widespread use of BPA's in just about everything. I think they've stop making disposable baby bottle liners out of it and this sort of thing, which seems sensible enough. Sometimes, I think someone just gets a bug up their butt and runs enough lab mice through hell, to prove their pet project and the crap hits the fan. 

 

I'll give you a classic example. I'm conducting some materials testing and have built a rapid environmental accelerator machine, designed to mimic conditions in the sub tropics over the course of a year, in just 2 months. Sounds fancy, but it's really a box, with some UV lights, some glass and a dribble hose along the top. Samples can be put in it and in 60 days, I can show what happens to a new varnish, after a year in Florida sunshine. Well, I always conduct a baseline, for the actual time and invariably the base line shows different results than the accelerated machine time. Is it my calibrations on the machine or is it much like the poor lab rats that get force fed BPA's for a year or two? Simply put, if these lab rats were given a regular diet of stuff they usually eat, but occasional doses of BPA, much like real world exposures, I'll bet they don't develop the diseases or medical issues they do in the force fed cages. 

 

Given your precautions, I'm sure you'll have no problems, two headed babies or any of the issues associated with BPA.

I worked in the Whirlpool KitchenAid labs for over ten years, doing a lot of accelerated life testing, prior to retirement. I would invent ways to accomplish the testing on a variety of portable appliances. This is a lot of fun for me to create test fixtures. I like your method of simulating the tropical environment. I did something similar for stand mixers using Plexiglas to identify a component problem on a circuit board, for instance.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Somewhere on this forum I wrote about how I would never build a stitch and glue boat again, never work with epoxy and glass again. I don't know, some other lies, probably.

Let's just say, I keep finding reasons to use my other boats, paint on the kayak some more, ride bikes with the little one (who ain't so little anymore), collect p cans what for making pie...

The workout from the longboard is nice, sort of, but goodness gracious, do I hate exercising with a respirator on. No y'all, I ain't trying to breathe no sanded glass particles. :)

I may actually have a white boat, soon. Well, white primer. This sucker is going to be so yellow Don will be green with envy. Heheh.

Peace,

Robert

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   You'll only sand until you can't stand it any more and then you'll give up and paint.  The sooner you surrender, the sooner you sail. :)  Don't listen to my advice, though - I build ugly boats knowing that I won't be able to see the paint while I'm sailing.

   And yes, in my opinion yellow is the only proper color for a yacht.  Unless it's yellow with light blue accents.

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I do the same thing in initial fairing operations and the best rattle can primers (for this) are usually fast drying lacquer. These can be applied to find unfairness, then wiped off with thinner, if an area needs to be filled. I use a couple of colors (gray and black) so the contrast can tell me how close I am to flattening out a surface. Once the rattle can has defined most of the attention needing areas and the low spot filling is about done, I'll switch to an epoxy primer, knowing I can fine tune and concentrate on smoothing. The epoxy primer I use goes on with a slight shine and changes color slightly when sanded, so if I missed a spot, it can still be identified. System Three's yacht primer does this as well, though I don't use it often, a lot of folks do. Finally, yes, I "dust" the whole boat with the rattle cans, knowing I'll knock off 90% of it with the long board or wipe the surface with thinner. Fairing a smoothing is about technique, not tools. The average shade tree guy will make a career out of trying to get a surface fair. Eventually they'll give up, call it done and wish they'd put even more time into the process when the shinny stuff goes down. I can't tell you how many times I've started to squirt a finial finish and seen some unfairness and stopped, knowing how much a pain in the butt, cleaning up the fresh topcoat is going to be and having to continue fairing. Read up on fairing and smoothing. Body shop sites have a good bit of information on the process, though they'll probably call fairing flattening instead (or something else entirely). 

 

Fair is what you feel, smooth is what you see. If you have a car door with a golf ball dent in it, it might very well still be quite smooth, even freshly buffed and waxed, but you hand will feel the little dent. Some of these unfair areas are very shallow and hard to see, so use your hand, which (with practice) will tell you a lot. A quick dusting with some rattle can primer and a few cross hatch pattern strokes of the long board will find it fast. Lastly, the quarter sheet, orbital and DA sanders aren't for fairing, but smoothing operations. The in line sander and long board are the tools you need.

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You know, too, I think part of the problem is all these FLAT surfaces. They are harder to fair than curvy ones, I think.

Anyway, almost all hand longboard, here. Some touch ups with a short block, but mostly longboard.

And, a big part of my fairing has been airy coats of filler troweled on with a big knife, to help blend edges where the cloths meet. I smoodge some on, let it dry a few days, peel it back to bedrock, check for fair, repeat. I keep moving around, doing bits here, then there, then back around again.

The work is just slow and exacting, and I'm more of a go, go, go guy, so it's like pulling teeth to me.

I do the same trick for sanding, Paul, but I use thinned paint blown through an airbrush. Lots of air, a little paint, and a really light dusting of dots that show contours well.

Of course, I've been farting around on little detail bits, building other boats, off boating in said boats, running some footraces, building a new boat shed...:)

Peace,

Robert

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  • 2 weeks later...

So. I've been foiling the foils. Carving plywood just sucks. Lots and lots of glue. :)

I have to go out there in a few and I'll snap some pics.

Almost fair, too. One last little round to really make all the reinforcement cloth blend in smoothly. And make sure all these dang flat looking planes look flat. :)

Peace,

Robert

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yes, I know. Plywood leeboard!? Well. Yes. Normally I wouldn't, but the layout seems okay, and the sister ship has run one successfully, and I am hoping the glass sheathing will give a little more stiffness...

The glass seams have almost disappeared from my hull, too, and it is almost not wavy looking. :)

Peace,

Robert

post-4050-0-03824900-1480613361_thumb.jpg

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The black line is where I cut the glass, where the seam was. Pretty gone now, finally. Those lines are little ridges left over from the overlapping of the knife.

She is getting a little roughed up and painted for real... well, primer. Then sanding, and primer, and sanding, and primer, and sanding.

Then I might get to repeat a few times with paint, too. :)

Either way. I am a paintjob away from a flip and finish of the topsides!

Peace,

Robert

post-4050-0-60035800-1481574778_thumb.jpg

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First pic is one corner of the transom lower edge.

The second is just another shot of the glass overlaps I've been fairing. This is,about to get some paint, I think.

I'm just chasing little stuff like the corners of the transom, the bow and stem area, around the oarports.

Lots of tedious fiddling, but I tell you, sanding a 20 foot boat by hand ain't no joke, y'all.:)

Peace,

Robert

post-4050-0-49477500-1481595647_thumb.jpg

post-4050-0-88419900-1481595657_thumb.jpg

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Oh, Paul, I know it ain't old. I was teasing Ken because he be fixing a boat what he had to replace the whole side!

No, the Sneakeasy is in okay shape. Lots of rainwater damage inside. One big section of chine and most of the cockpit frames are rotted. No big. Super easy repairs. I may glass the bottom up over the water line, too, while I'm at it.

The limber holes left little traps for water to pool.

It really is in good shape, though, and a super neat boat. It honestly does not look like a square.:) I am very interested to run it and see the wake. Supposed to be vey flat.

Really, I'm more interested in getting this stupid sailboat painted, so I can go sailing already!:)

Peace,

Robert

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