Trailered!

The big news is that I got her trailered!

She's mobile!

Now I can roll her out of the garage and do some messy sanding outside. My dust containment tent in the garage is ripped and raggedy and not containing dust very well.

I also plan to roll her out and use a laser level to strike the boot stripe.

I could paint outside to keep the fumes out of the garage but at the risk of airborne dust. Likely, I'll set up  a fan blowing over a bucket of water to try and absorb most of the dust and paint in the garage.

I started by hoisting her up with straps on the ceiling, then I just pushed the trailer under and dropped.

Hoist her up on straps.

Get ready to push the trailer under her.

suspended

Pushing the trailer under

I'm also excited because I took some time to cut the ipe coaming turn pieces. This had been freaking me out because of the weird angles. I haven't permanently mounted these yet because I'm going to remove the ipe before painting. I'll paint the deck first, then glue on permanently the coaming rails before filling the screw holes and painting the inside of the coamings.

starboard side coaming turn in

port side coaming turn in.

Finishing steps before I start to paint

I spent Saturday laying down the sole doublers that I had cut months ago. This is all in preparation for painting.

Here's a shot of the sole as she'll look with the footwell cover in place and all the hatches. I'm pleased with the height of the hatches vs the height of the doublers. They are nearly the same, which will make for nice level sleeping surface.

The sole as designed.

The sole with the footwell cover removed.

I'm not quite as pleased with the seat hatches. They interfere just a bit more than I thought with the coamings and don't quite stay open by themselves. But they'll be fine.

I also added the ipe cabin trim rails. I think these look great.

While I was at that, I added the ipe coaming rails. I need to decide if I will remove these and bed them with bedding compound or just glue them on.

Ipe coaming rails

And just for a finishing touch, I added some of my loops to the underside of the cabin. Not sure how I will use them, but they seem useful.

Nylon padeye loops

Nylon padeye loops

I've got another post coming with the results of what I did today, but I'll save that for later. It's big news.

Transom cap installed

I installed the transom cap. This is the last of the large items to be glued and attached and I'm very happy that I'm starting to finish off the final bits of this build. There is certainly still a lot to do, but major construction is completed.

I started by making blocks to put under the transom cap.

blocks to fill the space. This block had the foreside partially removed for the doubler

Then I iteratively dry fit the transom cap on top of the transom until it all fit together just right. This was time consuming and dust generating. I was happy to have the shinto rasp to chow down the light western red cedar.

I coated the bottom of the transom cap twice and glued on the doubler plate.

Once I had everything the way I wanted it, I finally glued it all up. (No good pictures of this.) I used small screw blocks to hold down the transom cap to the gunwhales.

Once that glue cured, I put in two permanent screws into the inwhales and removed the outer blocks.

Screws into the inwhales

Detailed shot before the filling

(Note the rectangle hole in the transom. That is for the deck block that controls the trolling motor drop.)

Coats on the top and fills at the seams.

To finish the transom cap, I need to get some areas filled and sanded smooth. I've been sanding through the epoxy coating in a few places, so I want to do some more filling.
Once I'm satisfied, then I can move on to paint.

Coamings & cabin top grab bar installed

I've been quite busy lately with other things, so haven't had time to blog. But I have been taking pictures as I progress slowly towards the finish.

I did get the coaming sides screwed & glued in place. Lots of finicky work here as I work on fairing out the weird corners and angles.

Glued coamings. Be sure to put down plastic on the seats.

 The installation went fairly well with no major problems.

Once the coamings are in place, glue in the turn-in pieces.

This needs a lot of fairing

But it doesn't look too bad. Still a bit more cleanup to do.

I didn't get any pictures, but it was a real pain trying to get a small fillet on the underside where the bulkheads contact the coamings. I got something that is good enough; it will never be visible.

I made a cabin top rub rail. I ripped some 3/4" stock down to 3/8 wide to bend well. I shaved down the 3/4" width a bit to more like 11/16". It will have 3/8" brass half oval installed on top of it for decoration and rub resistance. I think I'll also place some 3/8" half oval on the transom cap.

Hint: If you try to order 2x 6' pieces of 3/8" half oval from JamesTown Distributors, they will try to charge you $50 shipping. However, if you order 1x 12' strip, they'll charge standard shipping. I think this is a mistake on their ordering form.

dry fitting the rail.

gluing after shaving and rounding over a bit. I also screwed in from the cabin underside.

I had some 14" ipe hand rails laying around from a deck we built, so I ripped them down into strips. They will make beautiful decorative rails. Unfortunately, ipe does not take stain or varnish very well because of it's density. I'll have to take care to get a good coat of oil on it each spring or it will turn grey. Grey may not be so bad though.

ipe rail

ipe rails on the coaming

Another shot of the ipe rail

Hull hardware holes drilled

I spent the weekend placing hardware, drilling holes, filling holes with thickened epoxy, then re-drilling holes.

I now have just about all the hardware ready to be installed. I'll have to paint first, but I've drilled pilot holes into the epoxy fill so that I know where to install everything.

I purchased the 2 1/8" wide Davey & Co pintles & gudgeons from the Chandlery, but I had added an extra 4.2mm chunk of plywood in the middle of the rudder, so they won't fix without major chiseling that I didn't want to do.
I ordered a set of 2 1/2" Racelite from Chuck at Duckworks. Much easier to install, since my rudder was 2 61/128" (according to my caliper).

Chalked a center line

First, I installed the pintles on the rudder. I had to make sure that I could clear the copper tubing that I installed for the downhaul & uphaul lines.
That determined the locations of gudgeons.
Aligning all this was kind of a pita. I had to install only the outside screws on the pintle straps so that I could make sure they were aligned with the gudgeons. Then I had to make sure the gudgeons were straight.
It all worked out. I think this was easier than the bronze p&g from Davey & Co.

Rudder dry fitwith 1/2" flat head screws.

Drilled out the 1/2" screw holes for 1/4-20 round head bolts.

I did develop one interesting technique with all these holes I've been drilling. I drill out the correct size for the hardware I am using and make sure everything fits just like I want. Then I use a step bit to enlarge the holes. I usually go from both sides to get it all enlarged.

Then I can fill half the holes. That way I can align everything just like I want.

I enlarged the 2 center holes and filled them. Then I drilled correct holes through the epoxy. Finally, I enlarge and drill out the other set of holes.

Shot of the rudder head with some holes filled.

 I also found the time today to dry fit the cockpit coamings. I screwed them in with 1" #8 screws.

cockpit coamings dry fit

I had planned to go out tonight and glue them in, but it's too cold in the garage and I don't want to leave the heater on all night.