30' cruising catamaran repair log

Yeah, that would maybe be easier. But my experience suggests drilling pilot holes in the plywood so it snugs up better, and prevents spitting out splinters. Which slapping clamps on is a wash in that case. Not a lot of holding power in balsa plus 1/8" luan, but maybe enough.

 

Looking great Jim.

How much headroom will you have? Mine only has 5'-11" with no floorboards.

I used those wooden shish kabob skewer things from the grocery to fill the screw holes, for a permanent mechanical bond.

 

I'll have to measure but I can stand up fine and I'm a good 5'-11" with my shoes on.

I'll try screwing next time perhaps - maybe I'm thinking too much like a wood worker/cabinet maker - loathe to put screws anywhere though I did use them plenty on putting in stringers and my repair patches. I have some screw holes still to fill on my patchwork so maybe will give the skewers a try at filling. I usually use a syringe of thickened epoxy but always looking at other ways.

 

Epoxy doesn't require super thin adhesive thicknesses -like some of the other types of glues for woodworking - in order to achieve good mechanical properties... if your leaving the timber finish bright then obviously I wouldn't want screw holes either. .. but if your going to paint then it doesnt add virtually any extra work- i find any areas that I need to paint require completely covering in bog anyway just to fill any surface textures which will show through the finished paint job if not done. So screw holes make no difference to me...

 

Gluing up 1/4" marine fir plywood into 1/2" pieces for cabin sides. Ultimately they will be about 18 feet long, using scarf and overlap joins.

 

Doing templates and cutting out cabin sides.

 

daggerboard

So since the shed is froze up, I'm working on the daggerboards. As per Kurt, I'm using a core of balsa-core. He wants 6# foam for leading and trailing edges and that has caused me a bit of conundrum. I've found some of the foam, but hard to find any that is grid-scored - or contourable. Wondering how this is usually done in the leading edge strong curve area. Thinking I could cut strips of the foam, shaping them somewhat.

Otherwise, 5# foam is readily available. But don't want to go against design values.

 

I used mix n pour from fiberglast. Not cheap but worked out OK. I just screeded it out like concrete. After cure a jig and a router trimmed it flat.

my big mistake was making one board a little too fat, causing all kind of grief later on. I used too much goo when i bonded the halves. I think it probably started to kick before I could press them together good and proper.

 

good thing to look out for - thanks for the info.

 

Work on daggerboards. Still need to finish off leading and trailing edges, then fair and paint.

 

Work on cabinets, stairs, cabin sidewall in starboard hull.

 

jdory, you have some really nice photos on the Flicker site, and lots of them. There are so few catamaran builds on YouTube that you could line them out with the rebuild photos and give a narration of each photo and you could get a large number of hits. I don't know what it pays but if you allow advertising it might buy a lot of material for the boat. I do know there are a lot of boat shops doing short repair videos and constantly posting updates so it must pay something.

 

Thanks for the idea ElGringo, might be something I should look into. Hard to find time for that kind of stuff, but could definitely use some help on expenses, as I'm sure most of us could. cheers, Jim

 

Gluing on the new cabin side, port hull. Roving and coving, with peel ply applied.

 

The state of the starboard hull at this time (showing double berth area, from forward and from stern):