Preparing for sole glue down; electrical mounting

Tonight, I painted under the aft sole piece.

Paint, not primer

I also touched up the underside of the sole with epoxy. It's now had 2 very thick coats and 3 around the edges of the doubler. Tomorrow sometime, I'll make sure the paint is dry in the well, then I'll glue it down. I'll use 5 gallon buckets filled with water for weights.

Underside of aft sole. The doubler plate will have a hatch

I had made up my mind last night about the electrical components and where to mount them, but I needed a doubler plate to make sure that the screws don't go all the way through. Tonight, I found a piece of scrap from a hatch that was just about perfect. I had to figure out how to glue that in; I just abused a couple clamps.
I used a whole tube of 610 epoxy for the floor plates in the foot well, I've used about a 1/2 tube for the sole doubler above and the plate below. I'm going to need some to glue down the sole doubler. I better buy some more.

The plate is pushed in with spreaders

Further away shot. You can see it will be a mounting plate

I'll have to fillet that plate tomorrow sometime. I'll coat it more when I coat inside the seat wells.

Best wishes to my dad

Some of you scamp readers met my dad and remember that he had a bum knee during scamp camp. Well, he is recovering well from his knee surgery yesterday and will be as good as new after a full recovery.
I'm sure he'll be up and traveling as soon as he possibly can.

Best wishes, Dad. I hope the new knee treats you well. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Electrical and priming the aft sole well

Since i have the battery well primed and painted, I can start to install the electrical. I have been crimping connections in my idle time, but haven't really completely prepared for this.

Tonight, I mocked up the install. I put in the battery case and mounted most of the components with double sided sticky tape. Most importantly, I verified that I can get the battery in and out of the well through the hatch.

Everything  in a mess. It won't be when it is all in place.

The battery sits at the back of the compartment in it's case. The strap goes over the case to hold it in place. The white jacketed wire with the grommet stuck on it is the 10AWG wire that goes up to the switches on the front of B3.

The battery connections

The battery has a terminal lug 75A fuse that cost a pretty penny at West Marine. I hope it doesn't blow because it's not a cheap replacement. You can also see the red/black pair that is the battery charger connection. The dipole connection is just out of the frame. It's the one that looks like a flat trailer connector with 2 opposing bullet connectors. I'll modify my charger to remove the clamps and add the mating connector.

Mains switch, bus bar and motor controller

There is a red 300A switch that is the mains switch. A positive/negative bus bar comes off the switch.  The bottom 2 leads are from the battery -- the negative goes straight to the battery, the positive goes through the switch.

The green wires are positive leads that connect to the white jacketed pair that go up to the switch panel.

The motor controller

Here is the motor controller. It's rather heavy, so I want it mounted low. I'm going to have to drill 2 holes for the wire that goes to the motor and the wired remote control. Those will go into the port seat and will then have to route back. That means the motor will be mounted on the port side of the transom.

Primed the aft hatch

Also tonight, I primed the aft hatch. I didn't get a picture, but I coated the bottom of the sole there one time. My plan is to glue that down later this week and cut the hatch later. I'll be hopping in and out of the boat for the foreseeable future and I don't want to come down hard on the sole and break it.

I should have thought about that for the other sole hatches, but they don't see as much foot traffic.

Motor from Gig Harbor Boat Works arrived today

Today I got the motor from Gig Harbor Boat Works.

I had ordered the 55lb thrust motor. It turns out it is what I figured -- an engine mount motor from MinnKota and a custom fabricated bracket. The bracket is 2 aluminum u-channel pieces with mounting holes and a black heavy phenolic engine mount that slides in the u-channel.

The mounting bracket in the channels

Another view

I'll have to figure out how low to mount the bracket. I'll also want to figure out a way to make a stop so that the engine and mount can't fall all the way out.

The motor. It's quite large and heavy.

The controller. The remote control is upside down.

The bracket attached to the motor

Unfortunately, the controller did not have a circuit breaker or fuse. It's almost like they expect you to hook it up without a circuit breaker. The manual says the USCG requires circuit protection, but they don't actually include any. I picked up a simple 60a circuit breaker switch. I'll install that inline before the motor.

My circuit diagram has not changed. I've added a simple bus block that will be located near the circuit breaker panel switch, but that is just for convenience later if I have to wire something else.

Sole hatches

Last evening, I decided that I wanted to double the battery well underside of the sole. I found a scrap piece that fit and glued it to the hatch. I do plan to put a doubler on the sole top as well, but this just ensures that I have good strength for an area that will likely see some foot traffic.

Extra strength on the sole

I also doubled a large part of the aftmost sole. This is on the bottom, I'll have to cut the hatch hole  through 2 layers of 9mm. And I'll add the sole doubler on top of that for a total of 27mm, which should be plenty strong.

Using a water bucket for weight to glue the underside sole doubler.

I'm getting to the point where I will want to glue those pieces down. It will still be quite awhile as I want to get the electrical done first.

Once I have those pieces glued down, I can take the existing sole doubler and cut around the hatches and lay that down. It should look nice.

I even ordered a tube of non-skid granules. I'll mix that into some epoxy and roll it onto just the doubler.

Frustrating painting experience

Wow, I really hate enamel marine paint. It's very touchy stuff. I used a good brush and tipped it as best I could. I've found that tipping with a foam brush helps me to get a smooth coat.

But this stuff did not apply well at all. I got lots of sagging even with tipping. Maybe I tried to layer it on too thick.

I'm going to have to wait a few days, then sand it all down to about where I had it before with the primer. This time, I'll try a roller and will maybe try a thinner coat. This is disappointing as I wanted to have one part of the boat done, even if it was just the rudder.

sags & runs galore

more sags & runs

I was able to paint the areas previously primed. They don't look great, but I'm not as worried about these areas because they are under hatches and not visible.

Painted the wells and the cabin.

I have proved to myself that I need some serious practice with this enamel paint. I should do the centerboard just for practice. I had planned to leave it graphite black, but it would give my some good practice.

Back at the build

Today I got to spend some time in the garage working. I hadn't worked since Monday night and it was good to get back at it.

I wasn't very productive today, but I did get some sanding done. After I got that done, I primed the rudder.

Rudder primed

Since I had the primer opened, I primed the wells behind B3.

Wells primed

I also mixed up some epoxy and glued on some cleats in the very rear well between B7 & B8. I had to plane them down a bit to get them to fit, but they will be very nice to hold up the sole when it goes on.

I also used that epoxy to glue on some doublers on the battery well hatch. I didn't get a picture of that.

shiny wet epoxy

I also picked up a couple of electrical items today. I needed a bit of extra red #6 wire. Be sure to use marine wire if you do electrical. It is copper wire, but it has been tinned for extra corrosion resistance.

I started to crimp up my wiring today.

Tomorrow, I should be able to paint in the wells and the front enclosed cabin. I think I should be able to do a 3rd coat on the foot well and the rear wells also. Then next week I might find the time to prime those wells.

I think I'll have to mix up some fairing putty also to smooth out the ovals and a few areas in the veranda.

hull doubler glued down and filleted

Last night I went back out and glued down the doubler and the tripler. It took an entire tube of 6-10 and about 10 pumps to get it all painted and glued.

I didn't get a picture, but I put two 5 gallon buckets of water and a case of 7 12x18 tiles on top of it to weight it down. I checked it this evening when I got home and it had a nice curve to it. Exactly what I wanted.

I wanted to get it filleted tonight while the other glue was still curing for a nice bond. I mixed up some filleting mix and got to work.

Hull doubler is down. I haven't painted the top piece yet

All the way to the stern.

I hadn't filleted in much of the last area between B7 & B8, so I got that. Now I know the last 2 chambers are ready for the last 2 coats of epoxy and then a coat of primer and finally paint.

I made up my mind yesterday that I should mask off the areas just under where the seats will stop. Then I can prime up to that point. When I put the seats on there will be a nice surface to grab and I can even put a small fillet in there. That will mean much of the area under the veranda will be unfinished. I kind of like the idea of working my way backward and finishing up each section, but pragmatism might be the word of the day.

I haven't cut my sleeping bed piece yet. Maybe this weekend.

A note about filleting mix: I liked the stuff Howard had recommended. It was a strange purple color, but it was smooth. I had a bag of wood flour left over from my old pygmy kayak build. I had mixed up my own filleting mix from 405, wood flour and a bit of cab-o-sil. My mixture is nice and hard, but dried to a rough texture that I didn't like. Tonight I added some 410, not a lot. That really smoothed the mixture out. I like the fillets in the foot well. They'll be nice and smooth after I touch them up with a gloved hand dipped in alcohol.

Sole cut

While I was wondering what to do next, I decided I could cut the sole.

Howard had talked about making a foot well between B5 & B6. Since Quincy is rather tall, I wanted to leave that open as a foot well. I even had what I consider a brilliant idea to create a drop down plate. That way you can have your foot well and have a solid sleeping platform for when you needed that.
I had deliberately not filleted in the area between B5 & B6 so that I could put down a hull doubler.

Today, I laid down the sole and took measurements for the cut.

Sole in place

Sole in place

I made the cut. I was a bit nervous here, if I had screwed up, I didn't have a similar piece and would have had to pick up another 4x8 sheet of 9mm.

But I did it correctly and everything looked great.

hull doubler is down, along with second doubler

I even took the tail end of the sole and cut it as a tripler that will lay down in between B5 & B6. (In the picture above, the tripler is raised because there are 2 screws in the doubler that I use as handles.) This will give me 2 locations to put in elvstrom bailers if I want. They should work well in that part of the hull. I'm not sure I'll do that, we'll see how much water I'll collect there.

I took the other large piece of marine plywood that I have and cut the final sole piece. This looks great to me. I no longer have those little spots for mini bailers.

sole is down, no bailer spots!

Also today, I cut out the hatch for above the battery well (nee water ballast well).

Tonight, I hope to go out and glue down the doubler and glue the hatch doublers as well.

I decided not to cut the sole for the aft hatch. It's likely that I'll walk over that quite a bit, so I'll cut it just before I glue it down. I do want to coat and sand the area under there as soon as possible now.

This week if I get some time, I will prime every thing that needs to be primed and maybe fillet in the sole doubler/tripler. I can also get the battery mounted and string the electrical.

Busy weekend

Friday night I finally got around to doing some boat work.
I cut out the spot for the electrical panel above the port side B3 hatch. Then I glued in some doublers.
I'm sloppy with my doublers. Don't laugh.

Electrical switch panel

shot from the fore

Saturday I woke up and had to do some work on the neighborhood signs. That took until mid-afternoon.

Then I took Quincy to the video game store to swap out some old video games and stop at West Marine for a battery fuse. It was incredibly expensive for a battery terminal fuse, but I feel more comfortable having a fuse right at the battery.
I also picked up some crimp terminals while I was there. The book recommends a special marine crimp terminal and heat shrink. I think I have everything for electrical now, I just need to execute my plan.
While there, I took a look at anchors. While I think I could build an anchor box, I think it's a better idea to use the hatches behind B3 as anchor storage. I think I will put in an anchor rode storage just like on Simeon's Noddy. That was convenient although it takes awhile to roll it all in there. I'll make mine a bit deeper than the one on Noddy.

Saturday evening I went to a concert. I accomplished nothing on the boat on Saturday.

Sunday, I woke up with every intention of priming the rudder top and the entire area behind B3. But during sanding of the rudder top, I wasn't sure if I sanded through to the wood. I wanted to make sure that was well coated. I re-coated it. I actually like the way it looks, I just wanted one more coat over a couple areas. I also kind of liked the 410 fairing mix. It sanded easily.

And while sanding the doublers for the electric panel, I definitely sanded through. And I realized that I needed a second coat anyway.
And I realized I needed to fillet inside the gap for the mast box and a couple other small spots.
So I painted and filleted for awhile. That was productive, but it meant I couldn't prime at all until it cured.

So instead I cut the sole pieces.

Sailboat electrics

A quick plug for Sailboat Electrics Simplified by Don Casey. I got the book yesterday and I've already learned a lot about what I need to do. I think my circuit diagram still stands (with the addition of a fuse on the charger lead). I'm glad I picked up the book though because it has good advice on wiring and crimp connectors. It's a good idea to buy marine wire that is tinned. I was balking at the expense and was about to run to Home Depot to pick up a spool of 18-2 for my LED strip cabin lights, but I think I'll spend the money on some ancor marine wire.

And the computer vulnerabilities are continuing, so the day job has completely eclipsed the boat building. I may not get to build anything this week and I've got a busy Saturday between neighborhood work and a concert. With luck, Sunday will be quiet and I can get the battery box mounted. I have a plan for that.

CVE-2014-3566 POODLE

Some vulnerability details were released today about the POODLE vulnerability.

That poor dog

I've done some analysis for users of F5's BIG-IP and posted it.

The short story is that POODLE exploits something we've known about for some time. There is the bit about forcing clients to fallback to the older SSLv3 protocol. That's rather clever but not really novel.

If you run a server, you should disable SSLv3. There are lots of ways to do that. Frankly, you should disable TLSv1.0 also and support only TLS1.2 for reasons I blogged about 18 months ago.

The frustrating part is that as a consumer there isn't much you can do about this at all. My version of Safari won't let me disable SSLv3. At least I can't find how to do it. Chrome and FF will probably update themselves eventually.

This has been an interesting year in my field.

Anchor box?

I think I had a brilliant plan to build an anchor box into the port seat behind B4. I'd build a deep box that went all the way down to the hull bottom and would be wide enough for a flat fluke anchor and the  rode. I'd cut the seat top just like over the centerboard.
When I was in West Marine, I forgot to measure the fluke anchor they have. According to this page, I think the 19" shaft will be too long. I'll need to find something smaller. Maybe I can put in a small hatch on seat and then use a mushroom anchor.

I'll keep watching other builds to see what they do.

Other builds that are well journaled:

• #70, bcbimmer on the SCAMP forum
• #243, Woodnmetalguy
• #268 Shackleton

Big electrical purchase today

I spent the afternoon in West Marine; I made some decisions about the electrical and needed to execute my plan.

First, I ordered the well recommended Casey book on Sailboat Electrics. That won't be here until Tuesday, but not actually having knowledge hasn't stopped me before.

First, I gathered what I knew:

1. I needed to physically fit the battery through a hatch opening 20" x 9". It could be no taller than about 8 1/2".
2. The 12V trolling motor that I ordered uses 50 amps when full open. I'd like to have around 2 hours at full open. That means 100AmpHour battery.
3. I have no idea how to mount the battery so it doesn't move.
4. I want a 12v system to run a GPS chart plotter and maybe a VHF radio. These have to be removable so that I can stow them safely.
5. I want LED navigation lights on a switch.
6. I want cabin lights (this is easy, LED strip lights).

I can't believe that it took me over an hour, but I had a lot of decisions to make. In the store, I could design all the details in my head.

I had a simple wiring diagram drawn in pencil. Once I had everything purchased, I enhanced it (thanks to Digikey):

Wiring diagram

For inside the well, I bought:

1. 79AH AGM battery (group 24) and a housing for it. This has a little less capacity than I wanted, but should still have plenty of juice. And it will definitely fit in the well and I know I can mount the  housing inside the well.
2. a 350 amp battery main switch. They didn't have anything smaller that I could mount easily. 
3. some 6 AWG red & black wire from the battery terminals to a 100A dual bus. This can carry 50A to the trolling motor without burning up.
4. A 10AWG lead with connectors from the trolling motor section. Half will be connected  directly to the battery. (The version I bought had round lugs on it, the one on the link doesn't.)
5. A 15A offboard charger. I'll cut off the clamps and add the other 1/2 of the connector from #4. Then I can just drop the charger in the boat, connect it and 6 hours later have a fully charged battery.
6. A fuse holder and a 30A fuse. This will go from the bus bar up front to the switch panel. I used a 30A fuse so that I could use 10AWG wire to the switch panel.
7. All the crimp connectors I needed.

To mount on B3:

1. A 4 circuit breaker/switch panel with 2x 12v cigarette adapters. Unfortunately, one of the switches controls the two 12v adapters, so that leaves me with only 3 switches. Which is just enough, but I may regret no more space later. The panel has 15A circuit breaker switches. I think this means it could handle up to 60A, but that would have been #6 wire all the way to the panel and that seemed ridiculous, so I fused it at 30A so I could use 10AWG.

I even bought some accessories, like cable clips, screws and velcro.

I don't know where the nav lights will live, so I didn't buy any.

And I don't want to invest in a GPS or VHF quite yet.

It was an expensive trip, but I know what I can do this week.

What's really weird: I wanted to ground everything to the chassis. Duh, you can't do that on a wooden boat. And when I work with the FIRST robotics program, they won't let you do it for the robot either. At least FIRST supplies you with a ground bus.

I have an idea on how to mount the GPS and radio on B4 so that it is easily visible, although I may do like Noddy and put it inside on B3.

Now, I need to start laying out components and crimping connectors onto wires. I'll mount the battery box down, but I'll probably have to cut it up a bit to get it to fit correctly. Then I can finish priming and painting behind B3 so that I can get everything permanently mounted.

I do still need some strain relief and preferably a waterproof (yeah right) grommet for when I run though the bulkheads. I know bcbimmer is using PEX as a conduit. That seems like a good idea. 

I'll also need to figure out how the motor will be wired. Hopefully that will arrive this week.

Still drilling for hatches

Today I spent even more time drilling for hatches, this time on the seats.
I also spent some time cleaning up the ones in the forward hatches.

Tape spots over the 1/4" holes

More tape

I wanted to prime the rudder, but after sanding, I still felt it wasn't fair enough.
So I slapped on another coat of 410 thickened epoxy, this time applied with a foam brush. It looks very good and maybe I'll get around to sanding it this week. Hopefully then it can get primed and painted and then I can get one big checkmark done.
Although I still need to make a tiller and put on the pintles & gudgeons.

Another coat of 410.

I sanded this by hand with 120 for tooth for the primer

Oh, and the 410 is easy to sand. Easier than the TAP microballons. Almost too easy. The jury is still out on when I will will use microballons and when to use 410.

Finishing the area behind B3

Last night, I painted the 3rd coat of epoxy on the area behind bulkhead 3 and in the water ballast well. I tinted the epoxy with white pigment to make sure that I got all areas covered.
I think it turned out well.

tinted epoxy

Then I dry fit the hatches back on drilled pilot holes for the hold down screws. Both for the upright hatches on B3 and for the ones on the sole behind B3.

Hatches in place

Hatches in place

Then i used a 1/4" bit to drill the holes out. I filled them with epoxy thickened with wood flour (that was actually my filleting mix for the last few weeks). From a discussion with Howard, you shouldn't use silica for this, it gets too brittle. And you shouldn't use microballoons because they are too weak.
Wood flour has good strength properties and gives the screw threads something to bite.

Tape over the filled holes

closeup of tape

This is the sole.

I mixed up some 410 fairing compound and rolled that on the rudder top. I'll sand that tomorrow and prime the rudder top and the rudder foil.

A quick note, I really liked the microballons from TAP plastic much better than the 410 fairing compound from West Systems. It mixes in a whole lot better and looks consistent. I'll see tomorrow how well the 410 sands. Supposedly it's great to sand.

Caught up

Most of the pictures up to now haven't been live; I had taken them awhile ago and was posting older photos with a description. Tonight, I finally caught up. I put coat number 2 of epoxy on the sanded surfaces behind B3, the ballast well and over the new hatch doublers.

Shiny new epoxy

You can see the cleat that will hold up the sole in the front. There is another one on the port side, but you can't see it.

back of the hatch

looking through the seat at the transom doubler.

This weekend, I plan to put on a 3rd coat of epoxy then prime the rudder foil and maybe the rudder head as well if it's ready. I think that will need some micro balloon fairing.

I also plan to do some more sanding under the seats and maybe I can get a 2nd & 3rd coat of epoxy in there.

I'll need to do some planning around the batteries and electrical as well.

Transom doublers

Since I bought the trolling motor, I would need to double up the transom under the seats for sure. I cut some rough approximations of the are under the cleats and shaped them with the shinto rasp.

I did this for port and starboard.

I decided to go with 2x 9mm doublers on each side.

The doublers cut from scrap

doublers

I glued the first one on and used a spreader clamp to push it.

spreader on port side

spreader on starboard side.

After that was cured, I mixed up some wood flour filleting mix and filled in the sides that were rough. Then I glued in the second set of plates. While that was curing, I filleted that.

I may get some pictures and add a new post.

This should be plenty beefy for the motor mount.