Kategorie: Allgemein

In between coats of paint, I kept finding a bit of time to carry on working on the inside of the boat as well.
I’ve finally cut out the beam that ran right across the observation pod (after bumping my head on it at least 100 times). Don’t worry, the deck is stable enough even without that section; it’s actually according to the plans.

Instead of the beam, I’ve glued in some handholds. I simply used two broomsticks for this.

Now it’s finally time to add a bit of color to the interior too!

I didn’t make the keel myself. Time was short, and besides, I have too little space in my workshop. Fortunately I was able to team up with the three other builders I had already worked with to cast the lead bulbs. Working together saves a lot of time and money.
We had the metalwork done by a local contractor.
The keel consists of two steel plates, one vertical, one horizontal. A profile was milled onto the front and back of the vertical plate.

After that, the two plates were assembled and welded together. A minimum weld thickness had to be achieved.

The weight was as expected.

Once the keels had been galvanized, we were able to pick them up. My keel went straight to Fabian, who finished both of our keels in parallel. I’m very grateful for his help!

Another picture of the weld:

The lead bulbs were still too heavy. Fabian milled down the inside until the weight was correct.

Three holes were drilled into each half. These are used to bolt the bulbs to the steel plate.
They also received an initial coat of epoxy.
Handling the bulbs throughout the process was very strenuous; each piece weighed 80kg at the start…

In addition to being bolted, the bulb halves are bonded to the steel plate.

Fabian then filled the drill holes with filler and faired the transitions and weld seams until they were perfectly smooth.

That’s how he moved the assembled keels. The total weight of one keel is approximately 242kg.

Even just after filling and fairing, the keels look great!

And this is what our keels look like after several coats of epoxy. Perfect!

I can’t thank Fabian enough for this work of art!

I’ve almost finished painting the squares. Doesn’t it look spectacular!
Many thanks to Tom, Kevin, Oli and Fabian, who helped me with the painting. And a big thank you also to everyone who helped with the design by buying a square and choosing a colour!

I’ve painted the first few rectangles. It wasn’t me who chose the colours for these rectangles, but a whole bunch of friends and family.
I don’t really have time for all this work, but my friends paid to be allowed to choose the colours, so I’ve got no choice.

The first of the new colours: blue

And a bit of pink as well

It’s about 34 degrees in my studio. So one major challenge is making sure I don’t let any sweat drip into the paint.

Did you guess right? The next colour was purple!

The shade of purple I chose goes really well with the yellow.

Next time, we’ll be adding two new colours at once.

It’s getting colourful!
I’ve started painting the fuselage. Just a few yellow sections to start with, to see how it goes.
Can you guess what the next colour will be?

After filling and sanding, the whole deck had to be coated with epoxy. There are two reasons for this: firstly, to make the filler harder (it absorbs some of the resin), and secondly, to provide a good base for the paint.

With the help of my friends Oli (#273) and Fabian (#208), I applied the epoxy. It’s much easier with two people: one mixes the resin, the other applies the coat.

And yes, of course this Epody layer needs to be sanded down. This is (hopefully) the last time sanding.

The boat looks quite boring, all in one colour. But that will soon change!

At last, all the surfaces have been laminated with fibreglass. The next step is to achieve a smooth finish.
Just as with the underside of the boat, this means: filling, sanding, filling again, sanding again…

Bit by bit, I carried on with the laminating. You can see clearly in this photo how I created an overlap at each edge with the adjacent section.

The transom was a bit trickier. I laminated it in two stages: first the strip around the top, then the whole area below it the next day.

And finally, the last section: the entrance bulkhead!

Now there isn’t a single section left on the entire hull with less than 600 g/m² of fibreglass on it!

Before I could finish laminating the deck, I had to finish building the observation pod. The roof on my pod looks a bit different from others. I’m planning a flat compartment where my dodger will be stored.

Once I’d laminated the deck all the way round, I moved on to the pod itself. I laminate section by section, with a wide overlap, so that the edges are further reinforced.

I’ve also started laminating the cockpit. As with the observation pod, I laminate section by section, with an overlap.