Marc

I’ve been making use of the colder temperatures to try some experiments for the hull to deck bond, as there is such a big gap traditional methods using a gun adhesive sealant would be very costly, I had a load of polyester bonding compound left after putting the keel weights in so last night I gave that a go and the results have been very…[Read more]

Today’s mission… Spruce up the engine bay, there was a gap under the wood which has been filled and filleted, about to add biaxial cloth tabbing and then a polite coat of brilliant white epoxy paint, really productive day

I’ve been waiting for a window to laminate between the hot weather. It’s below 25degees so now it’s Laminating time!

Nearly done separating the external join on the port side, there actually seems to be some sealant on this side which is slowing things down a bit, it seems to be silicone which could cause some bonding issues later down the road, best get some more 60grit discs on standby.

It’s been a quiet week aboard merganser this week, the concrete keel is still curing so I’ve been a bit reluctant to do anything that may make the hull move, we’ve decided that we’ll seal it in this coming weekend and when that’s done I can go ahead and seperate the last tabs of hull to deck join and then immediately rebond it from the outside.…[Read more]

Concrete pour is complete! Thanks to Chris for mixing and Lizzy for general lizzying. It took 4x 20kg bags of blue circle mortar mix, 5l of sika SBR+ and 1 glass of Cider. The air hammer was used to vibrate the hull which made sure it flowed into all the voids and it was then leveled and covered in plastic to slow down the evaporation. Massive…[Read more]

Just a quick one tonight, the new bilge floor is in… Huzzah! 12mm ply core sheathed in 450gm biaxial, thickened epoxy fillets and then a single layer of biaxial to line the whole lot, my first proper bit of fabrication and I’m pretty happy with the results, tomorrow when it’s cured properly I’ll tidy up the rest of the engine bay.

A ridiculously hot weekend down at the sailing club regatta, was having real trouble keeping the 2 part adhesives under control but I finally got all the keel weights back in and securely bedded, the new separator for the bilge well is done and the templating for the new shallower bilge is ready to cut out, there are no pictures of the weights…[Read more]

A very pleasant few hours of sanding after work!

Well well well (of the keel variety!) I’ve stepped up my game a bit this week and have been concentrating on getting the floor back in, the 1t chain block made pulling the last 2 weights out a breeze. So after a ridiculously hot and sweaty few days of chipping, grinding and sanding the filler back to bare glass I’ve got a couple of fresh layers of…[Read more]

I’m not quite sure how to start this one! The hull isn’t actually bonded to the deck… For the non boaty among you this is a bad thing. So once again progress has been knocked back to get this fixed luckily I found this at a point before I started covering the access to it from the inside so it’s a long but relatively easy task. So I’ve started…[Read more]

Morning folks! I finally got round to answering the “why are you removing the keel weights” question… The problem is it’s quite an aggressive and dusty process so cameras are usually left somewhere less hostile! So this is weight 4 of 5… It was the one with the most crud coming out of the drain holes I drilled. The basic removal process is…[Read more]

So we’ve started rebuilding, the first 3 pieces of deck core are in, it’s a real faff doing it from underneath but we got there! There’s one more bit to go in the lazerette then 2 more the full length to make up for the 5mm of filler used by the manufacturer to bed the original core. So glad to be rebuilding, feels like a milestone reached!

Sorry bit of a ramble this one! I’ve spent a few hours turning my random doodles into scale drawings and it looks like it will all fit! sizes of the various fittings and appliances are to scale and i’m using 18mm ply for the main bulkhead (twice the thickness of original) so that it can have the same support but be more of a hoop than a bulkhead…[Read more]

Bit of an interim update here, the eagle-eyed among you will notice that I have acquired what some may call a caravan, I was struggling to come up with enough storage near the boat for the materials needed to work efficiently and when this popped up for £100 locally I couldn’t refuse! Not a bad little van and all the mains electrics and water…[Read more]