| Bolero
Project |
Wednesday, May 7, 2008 I spent a good portion of the day on the basic supports for the cockpit seats. My plan called for a longitudinal support stringer on the hull, onto which would eventually sit transverse wooden supports to which the seat slats themselves would secure. With the main layout line in place already, I made a small guide block of the correct height (1-1/2" support thickness plus 1/8"+ fiberglass thickness allowance) and used it to transfer the mark down the appropriate amount on the hull. This would be the top of the longitudinal support core. From some 3/8" Corecell sheets, I milled several 1-1/2" wide strips. Then, I installed the strips on the hull: for the first set, I buttered the backs of the strips with thickened epoxy adhesive, leaving gaps every so often for some hot-melt glue, which I then applied so that I could stick the foam strips to the hull and hold them while the epoxy cured. With the first strips in place, the tops of which followed the line on the hull, I installed two additional thicknesses of foam, creating a core about 1-1/4" wide. I glued the additional two layers in place and, after cleaning up the epoxy squeezeout, left the strips to cure for a bit before continuing. While I was waiting, I worked on sanding more of the cockpit seat slats. |
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Later, when the epoxy had cured sufficiently, I returned sanded rounds into the outside corners of the Corecell, creating a smooth profile over which fiberglass could lay. Then, I installed epoxy fillets along the transition between hull and core on both sides of each strip, top and bottom, and left that to cure for a couple hours--during which time I again worked on some sanding tasks, including more cockpit seat slats but also the new epoxy-coated wooden cleat in the anchor well and the deck area around the well itself, which had received a few minor epoxy spills and fingerprints that, now that work up there was essentially complete, needed to be removed. |
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When the epoxy fillets in the cockpit had set up, I installed a layer of biaxial tabbing over the entire core and onto the hull, encapsulating and strengthening the overall installation. At the ends, where the foam transitioned into the bulkheads and wooden cleats, I filled in the gaps with pieces of lightweight cloth to ensure that the entire lengths of the stringers were covered with fiberglass. This work, and a phone conference on toerail design details, rounded out the day's work. |
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