Tools of the trade

Someone complained that I have no pictures of me in this Blog. ....Well, you can stop yer complainin, Wog!
but enough of the lighter side, back the project:



I'm thinking that I've neglected to talk a little about the process vs the results.

First, let's look at the primary tools of the trade:
1) Treated wood
2) Epoxy/Resin
3) Fiberglass Mesh fabric
4) Resin Jelly w/ short hair fiberglass
5) Lightweight Filler

Super genius that I am, I deduced that it would be best if I cut the wood down based on a cardboard pattern I pieced together with tape. What I have learned here is that your pattern has to be p-e-r-f-e-c-t because once you hack up a board, it just does not adjust to the discrete contours of the hull like cardboard will. You basically end up with gaps. Gaps which must be filled with the Jelly resin.


The wood, though treated, I'm also encasing in resin. My theory is that water will eventually get in where you don't want it. Once there, it will get into the wood and do what it does best, help rot it away. If I have it sealed on all sides, water will just have to work harder.

This pic is where I resin up the panels. It is messy work. I recommend you plan on using a nice spot no one sees much. No matter how hard I tried, I ended up slopping some on the carport.
Nice work, Blaine.

I use the shorthair epoxy to bond the pannels to the hull and each other. I then hit each seam with the lightweight filler to smooth out the seams and fill in the remaining gaps. Once that all hardens, I sand away the irregularities and cover the whole mess with resin-saturated fiberglass mesh. Key to placing sticky fiberglass mesh is to use a cheap brush to spread a thin coat of resin, drop the mesh in place and then use the brush to force resin through the fiber and create a seal. For me this was not an intuitive process. My neighbor had to show me the brush trick a few years back when I was repairing a 1960-ish sailfish. Until then, I thought fiberglass and resin were aplied using gloves and a stick.

Back on the inside, This is a bad Before picture of the rear seat as you look aft . You can see the crank handle sticking out where the winch was placed and where it will go back to.

The 2nd is the after shot. The seat will have two compartments. One for storage, the other for flotation. Since I could not cut the old hunk of flotation out, I left it in place. It gave me a handy guide for building an enclosure around it. If you are wondering what you are looking at, a crowbar and towel are laying on top of the old foam.

Next I'll be detailing my Keel work. There are three bolts to contend with. One works as a guide for the cable to run against as you crank it up and down. The other is used to lock the keel in place once it is fully extended. The third is what the keel pivots on.

What I found was the locking bolt was snapped in two. (Top) The Guide bolt was bent and had been almost completely sawed in half.

I'm playing with some possible solutions. A couple forums have been hugely helpful. Especially trailersailor.com.

What I am not looking forward to is taking the keel off as some folks have recommended. That just seems like so much......work. Not to mention, I'll have to figure out a way to raise the boat off the trailer. Given that the trailer was never made for a sailboat, I'll have to fabricate a sturdy cradle and then trust it enough to crawl under the boat.

I can see my obituary:  "Dipstick crushed by his own sailboat.  Darwin once again proven correct."