Kurt Hughes Daycharter 36

Buenos dias amigo Charly!!

Como anda el trabajo en tu bote???

Hi Charly!!

What about de work in your boat construction???

Saludos
Eladio

 

Hola Eladio,

Las cosas anda bien. Mucho preperando del exterior para el final layer de epoxy Temprano me voy a fabricar las crossbeams. Mas photos veniendo. Quando empieza ud con su construccion?

Catbuilder,
Thanks for the kind words. Are crossbeams on your radar yet? How about cb trunks? All I can say is measure twice I think I have the front fairing drawings figured out, but not sure.

 

Crossbeams are definitely on the radar. I need to get my 2nd hull up first though. To keep working through the hot months, I switched over to rudders and dagger boards. Those are going to be wrapped up next week.

Then... I need to get my port hull out of the mold and get moving (quickly) on the starboard hull. Once the starboard hull is out of the mold, I plan to use my strongback as a glassing table to do the beams (and house and bridgedeck) on. I gave up on wooden beams. I don't trust myself to do that kind of work. Too tricky for me, which is why I'm so impressed with how true your hulls came out.

You have figured out those lines for the front faired beam?!?! Wow!

Do tell!

 

Our prints are probably pretty different.

My forward beam is pretty simple-- its just a box, with a rounded piece (fairing) that goes onto the front edge. the beam has a slight camber, and the plans have full sized templates for the different bulkhead stations that form the inner shape of the fairing...except some of them arent actual bulkheads, they are just station forms for the shape (I think). After the "box" part is made, the front forms go on somehow and the skin of the fairng is bent over that somehow, and the inner reinforcements, doublers etc, are put in somehow before the thing is closed in forever. I have traced and cut out the patterns for the fairing, and I guess I will just make up plywood "bulkheads" from them, and some how fasten them to the forward edge of the beam, but I am not sure of any of this.

I am also not sure what material I will be using for the fairing skin, I am thinking the 3mm okume sandwich may be too stiff-- so I may be using cedar stips for at least part of it.

Another thing is that the 36 is demountable. The beams will slide in sideways through inboard openings that are cut into the hulls, but the front fairing part does not. I am not sure how I will scribe the cut onto the fairng so that it butts up pretty against the hull and then dies out on the (curved) deck. I guess I will have to make a template out of something.

Those funny lines on the fairings page (I think) are the same kind of longitudnal lines that are on the hull takeoffs (I don;t have the plans in front of me...) that somehow depict the hull shape. I didn't use them when building the hull.... just measure each station from centerline to sheer and thats it. The hull formed its own shape. The fairing shape will be determined by those bulkheads and the camber of the beam (I think) So I am thinking maybe those lines arent really necessary since you have the full sized templates?

sheesh. Writing this stuff all out on paper shows me just how much I have to learn before I get started. Let me know if this makes any sense.

 

Projected laser image might help you get cut line set properly on curved surface.

 

Perfect.

Ill make a template of the hull and deck section with luan strips and glue gun, position it close to the fairing and shoot a bunch of dots/pencil marks

Thanks Hoyt!

 

Dear Charly, my project is only that, a project, but in the next mounts will be reality!! At this moment the buiding company that I work, are biginning a new building out of the country, then, I must go for a few mounts.

Please put the photos of your boat!!! You are a great builder whit imagination..

Saludos!!! Regards!!!

 

A beautiful day for "boating"

 

Nice work.

 

I just discovered this thread. Great pics and information, I think a lot of the members are following your build closely. I know I will, as I am particularly interested in this type of build.

When I was catching up by reading the earlier posts it occurred to me that the voids would separate the plies, and when filled would have increased stiffness that might introduce asymmetry when the hull halves were joined. Fortunately it looks like you either avoided or worked around it.

Building this boat certainly sounds like a maturing experience! I hope everything turns out well in the long run, persistence is all.

 

Hi Ancient Kayaker,

It sure is a maturing experience. I have matured by two years already since I bought the plans

Actually, I am so far quite pleased with the whole project. It is supposed to be a rapid build method, and I believe that it is, but it still takes a while for a part timer. A couple of young bucks with a good enclosed work area and a few dollars would probably be sailing by now. I would likely be farther along if I had used a more flexible 3mm plywood, and produced panels that didn't have to have all the extra attention fixing voids etc. The void areas do create flat spots when fixed, and thus extra time to fair it all out. That is what I have been doing, along with everything else, for the last two months.

This stage of the build is a great time to run out of money It doesn't cost much to bog and sand, and if I could be doing anything else, I might skimp on the fairing work. But my funds have dried up till next month at least, so I might as well take my time with it. It will never be perfect, of course. Getting the stems right have been driving me nuts.

I took these photos the last two days.

 

Charly, I am interested in the experiences of builders like yourself with the cylindrical molding method, since I am looking at adapting it to strip-built construction. Just one of the several experiments I have going . . .

I haven't finished reading the entire thread yet. What have been the problems that you have run into, apart from fairing and voids? Maybe the joning of the hull halves - your cat seemed concerned about that . . .

The other thing I wonder about is how close to the expected design the hull turned out: does Kurt give you the hull lines so you can check this?

 

The joining of the hull halves was not really difficult. I learned on the second hull that it is easier to lace the wires up if the panels are oriented so that the sheers are closer together on the floor. The lace-up is a kind of "hit or miss" exercise though. The wires can't be too tight, or too loose. They have to be Just right, and once you flip the hull over and spread the panels out for the keel pour, wire tension adjustment is not easy if the keel is resting on the floor.

The plans do have a table of offsets that include sheer half-breadth, dwl, and some squiggly lines that I don't have sense enough to read, so checking the final hull should be easy enough, but by the time bulkheads are in, it "is what it is" anyway, there is no more tweaking. Kurt is up front about the accuracy thing in the instructions though. This is very much an "eyeball" kind of build. Using the lofted pattern from the plans will gurantee the same dimensions from panel to panel, but the actual curves may vary a small bit, depending on wood bending characteristics, and storage time. The accuracy and the variations between hulls at this point is probably most governed by the builder's skill level, but one should not expect perfection. At some point in the hull phase, one morphs from carpenter into sculptor.

I have noticed that my actual hulls have a tiny bit less fore and aft rocker than the plan profile shows. This is probably due in part to the sag factor- the unfinished hulls resting on the concrete floor for a long time. Kurt recommends getting the hulls laced up and bogged together as quicly as possible.

 

Thanks Charly: that doesn't sound as difficult as I was beginning to think. From what you have written the scarfing and vacuum bagging are the crucial steps. One builder tells me a single layer of ply is OK, cheaper but that puts a premium on the strength of the scarf joints - he's a professional - and the description of the process on Kurt Hughes' site clearly calls for vacuum bagging. Another one writes of butt joints - I'd want at least 3 layers with that!

The hulls are very narrow and, I suspect, somewhat cylindrical for much of their length which would simplify the wiring of a pair of hull halves along the keel, with the stems more readily accessible. There is evidently less stress built into the hulls than I thought, which is a comfort! The deck flange is obviously important and I have only recently fully understood its role. More reading for me . . .

 

I don't see how a single layer of plywood would hold its shape at the bilge curve once off the mold, even with the best of scarf joints... maybe with 3mm ply, but the whole thing would be awful flimsy.

The scarfing part is easy