Ariel & Commander Owners

While some of you were relaxing this weekend or perhaps even sailing...congratulations Mike I'm just begining to comprehend... I FINALLY got to work on 113 for close to five hours.  Now that may not seem like much to many of you out there who enjoy 'simply messing about in boats',but it's the longest stretch I've got to work on her since bringing her home in May 2001.  I've wanted to rearrange some things all along and the whole 'bulkhead thing' has proven to be the catalyst to get things started.  We're not going as far as shag carpet, but I pictured something a little bit taller, maybe U-shaped, maybe curved...

Oh my God! What have I done!  This bugger was a bit of a beast to remove.  'Guess that's what everybody says that has tried it before.  Anyways, I'm glad it's gone now and I can't imagine the original ice box could keep anything cool for more than a day.

...and here's what kind'a started it all.  Geez, it sort of roomy in here now.  Maybe I just need to bring less stuff with me-like that Zoltan cat.

Being I can never spell bureau correctly (bad spellers of the world UNTIE!)we'll just call this picture former port drawers.

You've probably figured me out by now.  Yep, starboard too.

Oh my god, another Ebb :p

Tony,
You can still go sailing with no interior , in fact you are faster .
BTW , #45 is far from finished .

Mike G

Tony,

What are your plans?

#66 looks much the same right now--I stripped out the cabinets a few weekends ago (although your paint looks to be in much better condition). I can't see replacing the forward cabinets; the icebox & after cabinetry will be replaced by a simple, long counter (you cannot have too much counter space).


Bill,

From you comment, can we infer that Ebb did this too?


Ebb,

Did you do any mods to the interior? How about some pictures?

Ebb may be busy managing the vines at the estate this time of the year.  When last seen, Ebb had removed the total interior, including the strongback.

I'd have some pictures for here if I went and got a digital picture-maker or whatever it takes.  But I need to be told and given a few alternatives what I must do.  I have a Dell computer XPS7544. As soon as I'm motivated I'll go to goodguys and pretend I'm in the 21st century and 21 years old.  Both of which I'm not.

338 now has a laminated white oak beam supported at the ends with oak braces terminating at the V-berth plywood. Underneath are  magogany supports that fair and tab to the hull. taking some of the load away from the very casual cleat that  supposedly supports the berth plywood at the bulkhead (actually the plywood is tabed UP on the bulkhead with polyester and mat.)      This may be moot as the whole compression beam assembly is glued with cabosil, choppedglass  and epoxy.  It and what is left of the bulkhead are ONE    I will also drive in mechanical fastenings as soon as I get some.

The bulkhead has been cut away opening up the cabin to include the forepeak stateroom.  Where the head used to be is a bulkhead that contained the original watertank.  This will be extended up and to the sides to make a 'crash' bulkhead that will have a large interior access hatch and the anchor locker forward where the water tank used to be.

Seriously considering custom made poly tanks port and stbd under the shortened V-berth.  IE rather than glassed-io-place epoxy.

I've extended the stringers (maybe you think they are shelf supports)   forward to the stem and am in the process of reinforcing the stem itself which I found to be quite thin. barely 3/8s of an inch at the watertank bulkhead where I'm putting in the sonar gizmo.

So, watchout when you start taking the furniture out!!  Personally, I think Carlos left the interior up to the cousins, otherwise how could it be so awful?  imho   imho   inmh  ok?

I'm having some fun right now fairing the linerless forward part of the truck cabin so it kindof matches in smoothness the liner everywhere else.  I think the rounded edge of the coachroof and the deck carried all the way around will be a treat.

The deck up forward has had a couple of minor oaklam beams put in so that a foredeck hatch can be cut in.  There'll be a matching Bomar where the original is on the coach.  ....this can go on and on and on.       Luck on yer refit.  And remember, use an epoxy that doesn't blush, it's a hell of a lot easier to come back to the job to fix yer mistakes.

Ebb, how about Gene and I visit and take photos for posting?  Next week sometime?  (These retired people are so busy you have to get appointments a week or more in advance :cool: )

Next week'll be fine.  You guys did Thursdays befor.  Remember the hull is still nude inside and virtually featureless because of  exposed  green fiberglass and bits of pearsonpaint.   There just may not be enough to picture, you know, but we be honored to see you.   8/8/2002  noonish ??

Let me check with Gene and get back to you.

#66, also hacked-up inside.

Starboard side...

Where the icebox used to be...

And the counter...

Next time I will reduce the resolution so I can get it all in with fewer shots. I had to crop these to make the upload restriction.

We be fools or heros or lovers of impossible women.

Make mine a Pale India Ale , a Sierra Nevada will do just fine . It has been the lubricant for boat builders for eons .

I know I'm the latter...

:D


Found these quotes at http://www.latitude38.com/wisdom.htm

"To furnish a wife will cost you much trouble,
But to fit-out a ship the expenses are double."
--W.H.Tillman

"The man who would be fully employed should procure a ship or a woman, for no two things produce more trouble" - Plautus 254-184 B.C.

Brent
Doesn't that just give you a rewarding feeling?  Buy a boat-take a boat apart.  Have you any plans yet on what's going back in?  I'm curious as to what others deem necesary accomodations below.  Trying to come up with a layout that will allow two people to stay out of each others way in 25' may take a try or two.  I think the cockpit will get factored in the equation somehow.  113 will essentially become our weekend get away after we put her in.  No phones, no lights, no motor cars...

Ebb
While reading your piece in the latest newsletter regarding strongbacks I noticed the photo of your strongback out of boat.  Is that your mast with the tapered spreaders or just a handy bench?  Also, just in case Bill's photos don't elucidate all, where you puttin' yer MSD?  Glad you brought up the point of the stem being so thin.  I hadn't planed on doing anything there but then again I didn't plan on buying the last two boats either!

Tony,

That was the plan from the begining. For years I've been itching to build a boat, but my wife proclaimed that she was not stepping into anything that I built :(

So, after some deliberation, we agreed that I could get my "fix" by working on a fiberglass boat, and she would know that it was built by a professional (although you know what they say about the Ark and the Titanic) :D

The plan for #66 is similar to yours--a weekend getaway without cars, phones, TV, etc. Of course, mine is a little bit more ambitious, as there are the three children (ages 12, 9 and 4) in addition to the wife.

The forward cabinets are not coming back. I cannot see much use for them--except to collect junk--and my wife is a bit claustrophobic, so having more space inside will make her more comfortable. The extra length on the berths will help to accomodate us all too. Also, there was an article in Good Old Boat last year that described how one boatowner put slats between the two quarterberths to make one large bed.

The icebox is being replaced with this puppy. Notice the advertisement about keeping ice for 5 days. I'll be testing that this week. If it can keep ice for 3, I'll be happy. It is going under the companionway. The way I see it, I can pack this at home--once--and use it all weekend. Much easier than packing a cooler, then a built-in icebox, and then unpacking the icebox, repacking the cooler and unpacking the cooler back at home...

The galley will essentially be one long countertop across the beam, with a sink in there somewhere, stops for a camp stove (although I'm planning on a rail-mounted grill for most of the cooking) and space under for storing it and other necessities.

I'm trying to figure out some way of getting a full-size chart table in as well (it will probably fold or slide in/out somehow).

I've already bought a hatch for the cockpit floor; the batteries are going down there.

...Yes, lots of plans slowly coming together. Gonna do a lot of sailing next year :D

Thought I would use that hole in the boat just behind the tiller.  Like the royalty of old dumping out their castle windows.

Tony,  as you may have read here I'm doing a bunch of unauthorized alterations.  There'll be a new bulkhead right where the original head used to be  where I can imagine a Lavac with a small holding tank on the forward side of the bulkhead in the forepeak.  That's  an other time. There'll be a sanipotti in the V just where it used to be and a curtain at the compression beam.

omygod I forgot about the mast!
   No, that spar in the photo was just conveniently in the way at the yard.   But I really have an aesthetic problem with the standard conduit tube spreaders on the mast.  Ballenger Spars in Santa Cruz has nice cast wing spreaders that can be retroed.  They also make a hefty tabernacle-step. that looks VERY interesting to me.

I would like to replace the masthead 'crane fitting because it is deeply pitted and untrustworthy looking on 338's mast.  I saw a lot of stainless steel and aluminum spreaders at Ballengers but never thought to ask them about the toppiece.

Perhaps as was suggested on another thread we could get an order together for a brand new casting.  Ballenger could tell us if this is feasible.

I've read somewhere, maybe here, of a fix made to a broken flange by welding on another plate over it as reinforcement.  But that is a working loaded fitting that I'd think needs replacement because it's old, maybe stress cracks in it etc.  It would be cool to have a replacement available.  Will somebody look intoit?

Well, Ebb, nearly a month has drifted by and we haven't seen any pictures of 338.  Please don't tell me this 'work' thing is getting in the way of everybody's fun.  I like to think it only hampers MY progress.  You mentioned some products from Ballenger Spars-spreaders and a tabernacle.  The idea of a tabernacle really appeals to me 'cause I doubt I could round up enough friends to help me step the mast so I'll probably be sinlehanding that too.  A lot less comand issues that way! Does the mast drop (or maybe I should say lower)foward or aft with that design?
The more I think of what you said about the line formed by the deck and the cabin the more I like it.  Open the whole place up!  Shortly after I brought 113 home a friend dropped by to look at her and that's what he recomended.  At the time I thought he was crazier than a shit house rat but it turns out that is what I'm leaning toward.(what have I become?)  Did you do away with your V-berth all together but still call the area a v-berth or will it still be sleeping quarters?  You know we're all curious as to just what you're doing, especially after Bill volunteered himself and Gene to do the photo shoot.
Tony G.

Hey, Tony.....  I expect it was a gorgeous day all over the nation,  while I was up and down the ladder framing in support for the stunted V berth - maybe they're forward settees since the 'V' is now the anchor locker (where the watertank used to be.)  evreybody else was out sailing.

A settee is a berth too short to sleep on.

I'm putting in cleats (ie wood supports) under the ply top.  To provide continuity for the compression beam load  and forward to provide support for the new end of the ply.  The bulkhead under the V is not tabbed or attached to the hull.    It was plunked in place with some blue sanded polygoop mostly because it doesn't fit too well.   I'm putting in 'cleats' along the hull and up the front.  There is a filler piece in this frame  ( under the compression beam verticals that end on the settee)  taking the compression load to the hull.  In theory.

There will be two new tanks custom made for the V-berth settees.  THerefor the cleats there  will not be radiused and tabbed to the hull to allow the poplyethylene tanks to fit snug.  I'll radius and tab the other sides.    The anchor and chain well will be over built.   The anchor well is accessed from the deck thru a 19x19  Bomar cast/lexan hatch.

Below there will be an 'escape' access hatch thru the new bulkhead which will be watertight (anchorwell drain?) more or less conforming to the ORC "15% abaft the forward perpendicular" for such a bulkhead,  Actually, right there at the end of the foredeck it's about 20%.

I really hated the old furniture and the dark plastic bulkhead.  It's wonderful that it's gone.  Fairing the turrett area with 410 and my local noblush epoxy while not easy was  very satisfying.  And photogenic  Hope Bill and Gene come back with the recharged camera.

Tony,   I'm interested as to why you want to put  batteries in the bilge (under the cabin sole)  Perhaps we should go back to an earlier thread to thrash that one out,   I'm still persuaded.  Has anyone a cautionary tale about the water rising over the cabin sole on their boat?  

Hey, Brent, if yer here - how about some pics of your cockpit sole/ battery installation?

Tabernacles,  (another thread?)  Have to tilt forward,  tho I came across a site where the guy lowered to his aft coachroof (which was I believe taller than the Ariel's) where he had another fitting with a pivot pin that had to be inserted to continue the lowering aft.   I have never lowered any mast.   But the idea is to lower it with the boom as the outrigger down to rest in the pulpit in a roller there.  Then you'ld have to pull the pin at the step and with some help haul the thing aft.  It would sure be over ballanced over the pulpit.  A cruiser would have to lower forward given all the gear on the coachroof.  Ariel would have to have a tall european style tabernacle higher than the coach roof and whatever else is on top and IMCO a 'gallows' fitting on the pushpit to receive the spar.    There probably are some clever no-big-deal rigs on sailboats who have to lower their masts to berth in the inner marina down in Santa Cruz.  Bet they all lower forward using the boom

The are numerous sites with numerous methods for lowering.  You need a clever guy system for lateral control using your uppershrouds that keeps the triangulation taut as you lower or raise the mast.  The latest one I read about had rings on the shrouds exactly level with the tabernacle pin.  The lower part of the shroud is then stablized.    But I have no idea how to rig it  IMCO it has to be simple and accomplished singlehanded.  YUP

Ebb,
 Holy cows! It seems that you've got alot more done than I had gleaned from the posts.  I'm still a little cloudy on how much of the original bulkhead remains and where the suport/compression posts go-but I realize I'm a 'challenged' indivdual when it comes to certain tasks.
Yeah, how about that anchor well drain?  I've read of other wells that drain overboard via a through hull.  1. Watertightlessness  2. UGLY and stained  3. Below the waterline  (as you've probably guessed by now don't turn to me for ideas)  Probably one of those inexpensive, infalable, pumps capable of handling solids and particular mater of up to 3/4" is the answere.
As far as batteries go I ain't gonna put them down there.  I don't even like to put my hand down there!  It makes sense to put heavy weight that low but....I know water gets in there.  I've thought about locating them under the cockpit sole like Brent, and I've thought about finding some room up front under the 'soon to be gone' main bulkhead in an effort to keep the load balanced-unsure.   Right now I'm still focusing on destruction with a little thought on reconstruction.  I agee with your cautionary statement, more tabbing, stringers and beams will be added in an effort to spread out the stress as more of the interior is removed.
We have about two months before it starts to get too cold to work outside around here so maybe I'll at least get the destruction phase done this year.
Holding fast for photos, Tony G

Imagine,  Capt, T,  where there was bulkhead, a narrow passage and chunky furniture.  just an empty hole lined with oak.  The remaining bulkhead is evident under the decks and as ends for the bunks.

The first thing one notices going below is the wonderful graceful full curve of the deck and cabin going all way round port to starboard.

The original support structure of the compression beam terminates at the V-berth ply,  those supports were screwed to the bulkhead befor the micarta was glued on.   There is a single miserable cleat support under the ply.  The one on the main bulkhead is fastened with 6 brass screws ( 3 top and 3 side) with some finishing nails added for emphasis.    However,   the V-berth ply is tabbed to the hull and the main bulkhead - on the top only.  Half of a good thing.   On 338 some of this polyester and mat tabbing has come loose from the ply.

The refit beam overhead is 5/16" strip laminated white oak, sided 5'' by 3"
Glued with a mash of epoxy/cabosil/chopped glass to decrease squeeze-out when clampped wet into the bending frame.   Simple L-brackets on a plywood back in the curve of the pattern of the roof.   Three pieces at a time left to set in the jig with light as possible clamping and it's done.  Beltsand and cut to the pattern on the bandsaw.  Piece of cheese.

Each end is lapjoined with a 3"x2" vertical that goes down to the V-berth using the coachroof side to get the angle.   It's glued with the same mash to the bulkhead,  and the blkhd which is so conveniently used for the assembly is trimmed back with the Hitatshi to the oak. So there's original plywood going all way round.

 The post above explains the mahogany 'cleating' to spread the load of the abruptly ended vertical braces to the hull underneath the plywood berth and broaden the interface of the bulkhead/hull join in this heayily loaded area.

I remembered to rabbet the beam on the inside bottom edge which is almost directly under the center hole the mast electrics enter thru the deck.  This will take the wires in a kind of chase to the sides of this wide opening.  One guy came aboard and said,  It's bigger than a Triton down here!   Ofcourse there's no furniture in it yet.

IMCO:  What I say here and what I"m doing to 338 don't make it right and don't make it wrong, it's just what I'm doing.

Tony,  Course the chain locker being so low it couldn't have an overboard like those big yachts what carry their bowers in their noses.  good point.  You are right. Good idea.  There should be a pump for this locker and it's obviously the    Anybody know a better one?   Important rule:  Never drain a forward bilge into an after bilge.   Especially if it's supposed to be watertight!!!

One for the bilge, one for the head,  and one for the anchor well hand op er a ted.

The latest Good Old Boat arrived and it has an article on turning a Pearson 26 (the Shaw design that followed Alberg's Ariel and Commander) into a cruiser.  The author has gone in the exact opposite direction of Ebb!  The open P26 interior was closed in and it now looks much like the stock Ariel interior!

Didn't know moles went to sea.

Fast forward one year...ex-chainplate knee...heh-heh-heh...

I like this one because it gives me a sense of accomplishment.  New larger settee openings and some added in the v-berth and I think you can see the enlarged chainlocker opening for added comfort working on the stem.  doesn't matter though, it's all coming out and being repalced!  I'm thinking green shag:D

Gad Mon! yer SERIOUS about this thing.  Welcome to the 'how am I going to fit it all in' club!

Perhaps the most disagreeable thing about the remodel was grinding off the paint.  It was messey, dusty, dirty, acrid,  had glass particles everywhere. How did you manage?

...Makes these boats look almost spacious inside!

Serious as a secretary!  Spacious as a pea-pod!  I'm wondering how I'm going to get everything in around the main hatch where I can stand up-right without hitting my head!  For me, the whole trick was 30-40 degree temperatures. (uh-that's Fairenheight NOT Celcius, Geoff) I can't afford one of those forced air respirators so my goggles fog-up as soon as I start to exhert myself if it starts getting warmer.  Natural indicator of when it's starting to become more work than fun!  
I can only squeeze in about two hours in the mornings somewhere in the 6:30 to 8:30 slot so I can get ready for work on time.  The usual garb...tyvek cover alls, gloves, mandatory bandana, cartridge respirator, goggles(vent holes taped), and hearing protectors.  my neighbor doesn't know what I'm doing but is afraid to come over when he sees the bandana:p
At the end of each 'session' I document the days activities in a log.  The same log I keep track of expenses in :mad:

Tony,
Try putting a box fan across the forward hatch and the main hatch , one blowing in and one blowing out, or both blowing out if the side windows are out. I have 2 30" fans for boat work and they sure help in moving the air. I got them at the Dollar Store for $10 ea.

you arie guys have TONS of room! i'm the guy who lived on a commander, remember? i need to raise the sole in the triton about a foot just so i will feel at home!

actually, one thing i had always planned to do was to build the quarterberths up higher to actually gain some stowage and to put them at a standard chair height of around 18-12 inches, so i did not have to feel like i was eating/sitting/whatever at the child's table on thanksgiving at gramma's, as well as to gain a bunch of stowage area.  don't know about the ariel, but commander quarteberths are nearly wide enough for two. had also planned on making something more like 22 or 24 inches with a backrest (enclosed) to give more room for stowage again. definitely need to do that on the triton, with mary and jess along i will need all that extra space just for TP! if only i could guarantee availability of the correct product in mexico/south pac., i would be installing a ticket dispenser instead. anybody remember the tickets? they double as 320 grit paper, too!

tony, whatcha gonna do with dat sink?
ebb, remember how much i've always loved you!

best,
dave

Dave
If the sink passes inspection it goes back in.  This time with a foot pump instead of a hand pump.  The whole galley is going to get raised 7-8" so I can work standing up.  My big question is what am I going to do with those drains?  Mat and glass or seacocks, mat and glass or seacocks, mat and glass or sea cocks...:confused:

...I should have added this one...

Wow!   Lookit that stepped ogee on yer cockpit brace.  Looks like a regular piece of furniture.  Seriously, it's amazing how that piece of  3/4" jigsaw made the cockpit deck so much stiffer.

When I started this project on 338  I was an inch taller.  My DNA is already mutating, I'm sure, so that when launching day comes I'll be 4'6" - perfect for an Ariel, both below and on deck.    Actually I'm convinced that being fitted with telescoping prosthesis, like twist and lock boathooks, would better serve the human stowage problem.

Thanks Capt. Mike.   Starboard side quarter berth seems natural.  Why the kitchen has to be port side, I read once, had to do with an Englishman's lunch being always prepared on the starboard tack.  Is this true?  Tradition!

The 25D must have wider buttocks than the Ariel.  Yesterday I marked in a line on the hull interior under the stbd locker two inches higher than the berth in the cabin. This 'waterline' reaches only about 3/5s of the way aft towards the rising stern.   A foam matress  will raise it and increase that length,  but for me the space left would be claustrophobic.  [The 25D seems to have more width AND more heigth  as the bridge deck instead of having the nice curve that the Ariel has is straight and higher inside - it looks that way in a photo from the internet.]  I'll be able to get legs up to my knees in there.

The 25D also raised that quarter berth looks like 4 to 6 inches under the cockpit, and it extends out into the cabin in way of the bridge.  No comparison to the Ariel.  The Ariel is more like a tern than a duck!  What with matress and bedding there really won't be much room in an Ariel quarter berth!  The locker room under would still be a flat, pointy triangular volume, with difficult access, and hardly suited even to a tank.

With all the quarter berth space the Commander has, I was fantasizing a stretch Ariel like the stretch limos you see here in the wine country.  You know, like maybe 36'7" long??  Look like hell, but just think of the party you could have!!!  Eveybody crawlingf around... but with enuf beer and martinis....noone would be feeling the lumps on their heads!

Hooray for cool, dry air!  At last.  Bulkheads?  What bulkheads?  We don't have no stinking bulkheads.  Man oh man Ebb, I can see why you left your's in place.  Even with that what appeared to be serious rot these things don't just fall out.  I removed 5-6" of the v-berth on each side and the sole just forward of the main bulkhead in preparation and to allow for grinding room.  then I cut through the tabbing for and aft and gave it a good shove.  Then another. Then more grinding.  Another shove followed by a "nudge" with my foot.  All to no avail.  Because I prefer to cut things out instead of tear I gave my cuts another inspection.  I could see light coming from the other side along nearly 75% of the tabbing but it wouldn't swing more than 2" back and forth.  Then I noticed a little bit of tabbing that had lifted off of the 3/4" plywood so I began peeling along the length of the seam top to bottom and viola!  She broke free.  I sat for nearly a half hour just googling ove all of the room and potential.  More to come...

Tony,
Looks like yer ready to drop her in!  Spacious look of a Hunter.  Like the workaday placement of tools for that natural DIY effect!  
Haven't found one of those yellow drop lights myself...Was in some sort of auto shop when I first saw it, the guys there would literally toss it on the floor and retrieve it by its cord!

What Dave said bout gaining stowage by raising the V-berths - Baldwin did it in his Triton - For me there is barely enough sitting headroom as it is!  Add 4" foam...and    b a m m m.  So how much height would you add?

Just to be difficult,  I've being talking with an Airhead guy about fitting one of his 20" tall composters in where the Portosmello goes in the Ariel.    I started the exchange out by suggesting they design one more like the size of a normal wethead.     He said they've just begun working on it.    And  I wasn't the first whiner.  I like the idea so much I may get a tall one (they're 300% overpriced)  in a weak moment and may have to raise the berths so the filler piece can swing over the toilet for the 'double,'  The seat can be detatched from the unit to get a negative gain of two inches.   There'll only be sitting under the hatch.  BUT, it is an elegant way to have no stinking seacocks & thruhulls.  No hoses, and no holding tank!  S h e e e s h ... what else do you want from a head?

But while I do the structural changes I also try to imagine what the berths in the cabin would look like if they were RAISED!  Talk about not being able to sit.  Even with the bertths low as they are, I,  for one, can't sit unless I take my head off.  Can't see the interior now without somesort of dinette, a two seater, or even a one seater.  Serious.   Might as well raise the cabin berths to gain stowage,  no?

Right, didn't quite have the cojones to take the whole bulkhead out as you did!  What a relief to open her up like that!   Almost indecent!  Be interesting to see what you finish up with.   Onward.....

Ebb
What goes back in won't be that much different from the original set-up.  Just updating the old gal for the next fourty years.  Raising the setees would give a little more storage but at the cost of too much head room lost.  I too have to sit facing fore or aft in order to keep from pinning my chin to my chest.  We're hoping to just organize the interior stowage and utilize the space better.  I'm even toying with lowering the cabin sole an inch or so just to get a wee bit more head room.  Of course then we'll have to walk a tight rope.  No, I'm afraid there won't be anything too radical happening here, just a few curves and new curtains and such.  This one won't get to be a world cruiser, just a weekend cabin somewhere in Minnesota.  Then again we have several customers that used to sail the Bahamas when they were Floridians and they highly recomend I do the same;)

An unsupported (in the middle) xompression beam can be a little un settling to look at, I guess.  Someone has said that a single compression post was great to grab and swing yourself around with, in or out of the V-berth area.  So you could keep it wide with that fine laminated beam you have, supported at the ends, and use a curtain for privacy, rather than that tiny opening the originals have.

I've just removed the 1/4" teak ply in small jagged pieces from the sole.  It was tough as nails and stuck down with a mean rubber mastic.  In some places we pulled the glass cloth coating off the the 3/4" stuff underneath.  But instead of the mystery space between the teak sole and the hull sides,   now we can see that the sole is glassed in in the usual way to the hull, and it'll be a piece of cake to cut the plywood out.   IMCO it would be easy to lower it.

Intend to take it out, clean out the last of the original remaining paint from the bilge, glass in lateral supports in the form of frp bulkheads or floors, and reclose it at about the same height thereby creating an extra tank.  For rum.  Or gin.  A very stiff bilge tank.  Whats keeping me in check at the moment are decent waterproof cleanout hatches at a realistic price.  Each bay needs access
.
Certainly top it off with some sort of wood deck.

Will you go like this?  It certainly is a great place for a water or waste tank!

From the Penn State Industries catalog, I quote:
"Ideal for wood dust!  This patented product uses a snorkel-like mouthpiece for breathing.  One size fits all and avoids the "beard problem."   Air is filtered from the rear with a .3 micron filter media and is exhausted downward from your face and avoids fogging glasses or goggles,   The air tubes sit comfortably on your shoulders,  are light weight and are positioned to the rear to breathe fresh air.   A nose clip is included to avoid  breathing dust ladened air.  Includes filters."

What the photo shows is a guy chomping down on a yellow mouth piece,  a tube angled straight down on his chin and the air intake tubes going back at his jaw line ending in a bugle shape that must be the filter.  He is wearing goggles way up on the top of his nose, about as far away from a respirator as you can imagine.  I wear a front valved 3M dust mask usually that goes over mouth and nose plus glasses and goggles.  Always fogged up even when I purposefully breath in thru the nose and blow out thru the mouth.

Imagine there's nothing like a fullface mask with airflow down the face from an airpump somewhere out in the clean air.  Or there is a slightly cheaper one where you wear the pump and filter on the waist.  Hundreds.   This new thing might be a decent compromise at $45, filters $8, mouthpieces $4.   Might get some agression out on the pacifyer effect of the mouthpiece and implant a sunny image of diving one day on a bahamian reef in  warm crystal clear waters.                Grindon mcduff!:eek:

Ebb,

My new floor circa February.  That Black ---- er, stuff holding down the old 1/4" fancy plywood was a real challenge to get off.  The nails were just as hard to deal with as the aformentioned black hardened rubbery goo.  I had to reglass the top of the 3/4" deck before putting on the new teak and holly.  Save your pennies because the new 4X8 sheet of T and H really put a dent in my wallet.  Found only one place in Houston to get it.  :mad:

Capt. Kent,
Can only hope what I began in a fit of pique,
will end up as nice as your deck of teak!:D

Ebb
We're not really sure what is going in the bilge yet.  Ideas have ranged from water tank, fuel tank(Aussie Geoff), sealed battery box(box and battery),sealed storage, cold storage...certainly something more than just a bilge pump or two.  Mr. Baldwin, and others, have dropped in some nice storage here.
Yes I have toyed with the idea of just a compression post in the center or just off center hidden in a bulkhead enabling me to enclose the head forward.  I just couldn't find enough room to make it agreeable though.  That and the fact that you'd have to step on the hull go forward which might be tricky with a little heeling.  I think that works best on beamy hulls(Commanders excluded of course).  But I definitely will widen the passage way through the bulkhead.  I was forever catching or scraping something on the old one!
Funny you should mention respirators.  I was just shopping for a full face jobby that could run in either negative or positive pressure mode.  All of this grinding is steaming up my glasses and because I have so much of it left to do on this boat and then another boat to start after this one I'm thinking maybe an upgrade isn't such a selfish idea.
Anyway this is the neat part...

When I was cleaning up some of the dust I ran across this little relic.  It's a pencil line one of the workers at pearson had drawn on the hull to mark the bulkhead location.  I like this kind of stuff.

well I'll be...    ...    ...
don't think they gave out pencils to the guy who pasted 338 together!
(Actually,  Pearson had one pencil and it wore out by the time they got to 338!)
did find a word with an arrow
embeded in the laminate
(you could only see it when the sun shone thru)
on the forward port coach roof pointing to the little opening port
- it said "window"

'Worked late last night, woke late today, went out to the boat to find this...

...and this:D !

Tony,

Are you going to leave the cabin liner intact?  It appears to be just about the only thing left inside.  I have wondered what is under there, you know, what would happen if I just took it out.  It doesn't fit all that closely...at least in 105 it doesn't.  Might make port light replacement a little lbit easier without it.  Jus' wonderin'.

Pretty impressive prep work there!
How many of us know what a rotton job it is,
and how much you got to love that boat.
Has any Ariel/Commander been this nude inside
since Pearson put them together?

Greg,  punch in 'cabin liner' on the SEARCH button to read up on discussions historical.

It would take a lot of troweling and fairing to get something close to the liner's original finish.  It would have to be fair for any added fabric/foam headliner to look good.  If you wanted a wood strip roof. I would first consider taking just the part of the molded liner off that would be replaced.

Jim Baldwin's method of rebuilding his windows used the coach sides and the liner separation (1/4 to 3/8" space) filled with epoxy gel.  This must add considerable rigidity  to the sides and the installation.  I'm just about to do a version of this myself.  Baldwin then floated in lexan and used the original aluminum frames as clamps by thru bolting.  He's circumnavigated his Triton twice.  To me this is a perfect upgrade, adding a lot of strength to the windows and the coach sides - without having to add clunky framing inside and out.

The dead air space between the two moldings must add insulation.
Any thru-holes will have to be done in the predrill oversize, fill, and drill again method to make sure no water gets in between.  And, ofcourse this method creates standoffs so that when you tighten a fastening you won't distort the liner.

Liners have permanent distortions in them now, but after yon fill and sand the upgrades I think I would finish off with a light colored satin paint, so the wobbles won't show.  If one was really pickey judicious drill  and fill might be used to straighten the liner!  But who's that nuts?:eek:

Proposed nutcake liner fairing method:

[I'ld drill a hole where the liner had to be pushed out or drawn in.  I'ld use a panhead screw to mechanically and temporarily push or pull the liner.  I'd drill another hole close by, probably larger, and squirt in gel using the big two ounce syringe.  When set, and glued, back out the adjusting screw.  I'ld do this from outside.  After the liner was set, fill in all the other holes with the syringe  I'ld have a bunch of these fills to do at the same time.  The liner would become rock solid.]

Greg
The cabin liner will remain a resident, though, like yours I suspect, it doesn't fit that snug to the cabin top.  That loose fit was the cause of much distress to me early on before I discovered the soft, flakey plywood at the base of the main bulkhead.  Now it just lends to the character of 113:p   This liner currently has alot of holes in it and in the end will have a alot of new ones in it from hardware and such.  It would be nice to have a clean, continuous headliner in the main cabin not accented by acorn nuts.  As to what's under there, I cut some large oval shaped holes in the cavities behind the port and starboard nav lights on the side of the cabin top so I could lay in some fabric and matting to close up the holes left by said light removal.  That was the best look I've had at the underside of the cabin top.  It appears to be of the same texture and quality as the v-berth area.  Keep in mind that I've only seen an area about 40 square inches.  I think removing the cabin liner could be a bit of a bear when you get to the underside of the deck where they attach to each other.  I'd probably cut it out in sections taking the areas where it floats freely first and then work back to the points of attachment.  Those 24 grit sanding(butchering) discs are efficient at fiberglass removal.
Just as an aside-make first couple of pieces of equipment you buy a good respirator and goggles before so much as sanding off some paint.

General call for imput here.  Shortly after bringing 113 home I notices what looked to be a long, nasty repair job on the port side of her hull.  Given the location I guessed someone took a glancing blow somewhere along the line and who really cares now because she had been repaired (less than flawlessly) so you wouldn't notice it twenty feet away.  Then one day I happened to notice a scar on the starboard side too!  In the process of taking some pretty thorough measurements before starting my chop job it became apparent that those 'scars' were directly behind the stringers that run for and aft through the main cabin. Imprinting!  My dangerous little mind thought.:eek:
Digging around for information I've found gobs of it out there.  Opinions Galore (remember that James Bond movie?) but I want to know what this group's members think.  I spent the morning working with some dense, rigid material that I would call styrofoam but who really knows what the stuff is called now.  It doesn't crush more than 1/32"(ish) under my full weight with a 3/4" edge riding on it and later today I'll give it the epoxy resin melt test.
Please give freely and liberally, your opinions.
Tony G

Here's a rough idea in case any of you were wondering...

Well, Cappy, it's like this:
Noticed these same shadowy indent on 338 also.  Certainly not scars!  You can see them if the light is just right,  but it's easier to feel them on 338.

Let's take those stringers:  they are 1 1/2" wide, not 3/4", with a bunch of poly and mat tabbing them on.  They are not under load like a bulkhead yet they've telegraphed thru the hull somehow.

I have not read any literature on this phenomenon.

The imprinting you read about is what happens when you place a hard edge against a thin, THIN, 'engineered' modern hull.  You would put in a pillow to spread the load with filleting and tabbing, suspending the sharp edge of the bulkhead off the hull.

IMCO, you don't have to do this on the Ariel.  If you think your old stringers, described above are imprinting then you better put in 10 inch wide styrofoam between the bulkhead and the hull.  Correct?

338 has and will have all its plywood bulkheads put in dry, with large, 1 1/2" fillets (90 degree radius fillets take very little gel.)  Then on major bulkheads two or three layers of mat with the narrowest put in first.  This I believe widens the loads out even more.   And the HOLD on the hull can be spread out as wide as you make your tabbing.   At the compression bulkhead I would tab over the fillet 4", then 8", 12",  18".  Well.,   something like that.

What arguement could there possible be that if both sides are done this way that anything is going to move?   Maybe the boat will shrink! And thereby reveal the bulkhead?

Suspended bulkhead on foam?  The upward pull of your upper shrouds is going to be opposed by your tabbing which is spread fairly wide on your hull.  Maybe that's ok. Maybe I'ld add more tabbing.

If I remember 338's stringer imprint on the hull outside is slightly holloiw, ie there are two mini ridges.   Of course the hull is thinner up there, and the imprint is lengthwise.  Maybe the hulls weren't cured all the way when they added these things when they made them.:o

Would very much like to read anything on the subject of fiberglass boats changing shape, shrinking, becoming brittle (not gelcoat.)  pre-OPEC oil crises (1973.)  We get surface delamination from sun and heat, but shape-changing so that pasted on interior pieces would 'imprint'?  On the Ariel,  I don't think so.

What they did: they slapped the stringers on loaded with extra hot catylist.  Braced them up with spring battens and let them smoke.  On a not yet totally cured hull, That might cause distortion. I think it all happened at the factory.  ARGUEMENTS?

FWIW, Commander #280 has aa pair (one per side) of indentations similar to those described wight where the stringers for the v-berth shelves go.
Dave

Not near the boat right now, but next time I'll get the trouble light and make marks on the hull.  Awhile ago we lightly sprayed some dark grey laquer primer over the topsides.  sanded it with a flexible long board,  and came up with a depressing number dark areas.  They've faded.

Dave sys his V-berth stringers on his Commander show up outside.

338, just below the sheer, has two 3' long (1/4" deep in the center) lozenge-shaped hollows in front of where the companionway bulkhead is.  Last week I sighted an earlier hull (#175) that was perfectly fair in that area.  'Course it was relaxed in the water - I may have developed these hollows while sitting in the jacks.  ??

So what I will look for are the vertical imprints,  I really don't think they are there - but I will find out.  

Trying to imagine the schedule for putting these boats together,  the stringers would have to go in after the bulkheads, but befor the tabbing.  So I don't see how the hull could not be cured.  You have to be working inside without the wax coat on.  And the deck mold wouldn't be on yet.  So the hull had to be out of the mold? and free standing?  No. Had to be in the mold because the deck had to meet the hull 1/8" tto 1/8" all the way around!  So you'ld have to really slap all the fundamentals in like fast.  Maybe I can't imagine how fast.  Maybe the boat was still hot when they rolled it out into the sun, ready to launch!

Some boats have these horizontal imprint anomalies, some don't. Some have these hollows, like 338.  So maybe on another post we can figure out the best way to take care of the problem, if it is a problem?  Leave it and love it?  Or fill, fair and fiddle?

The imprinting is caused by the shelf "working" against the hull. In all likelihood, one or more of the partial bulkheads (to which the shelf is attached) have come loose. The interior of the boat is being pulled against the exterior.

I had this problem on my boat. I had an "innie" imprint on one side and an "outie" imprint on the other. I re-tabbed the loose bulkheads. Pictures of that repair are on the first page of the Deck Joint thread.

http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussion/showthread.php?s=&threadid=313&pagenumber=1

Tony is going to solve the problem during his clean sweep and reconstruction. Nice work, by the way. I feel your pain.
 
As for other boats with this problem, I wouldn't panic. If your boat gets normal usage, I doesn't require immediate repair. It may get worse, albeit slowly. Still, it will have to be addressed. Movement is never a good thing.

On the outside, I faired the hull with microlight and painted the hull. Thats strictly cosmetic.

C'pete sir,
We have an digression of opinion, based on personal observation.

The shelves in 338 took an act of congress to deconstruct,  What had a chance to move were the stubby pieces that held the forward and aft chainplates - they hadn't moved because of the thickness of mat tabbing holding them to the hull - tho there was some rot on the tops.  They hadn't moved even tho they were being steadily pulled from the top by the chainplates.   The bottom of the forward chainplates were glassed to the shelf!

So all 4 sets of shelves helped the stringers to keep the hull from flexing - or from working.   On 338.   As I observed, the hull topside on the exact opposite side of the stringer shows a (faint) double imprint of the stringer construction inside.  I think the mark comes from extra hot tabbing that was probably used to fix the stringers in place DURING CONSTRUCTION of our boats.

The polyester is hard as a rock.  Something would have to be forced against the hull inside to have any effect outside and it would be in the form of a big bow or billow.  Even a relatively sharp 3/4" line of ply.   The stringer is a 1 1/2" square piece of mahogany that is fairly massively pasted to the hull, 2" wide minimum.  I don't think the polyester is gummy enough to imprint the stringers locally as we observe.  

The topsides are thinner the closer you get to the sheer,  BUT how thin and how flexible would they have to be to make an exact picture of the stringer inside?

The marks had to have occured in the soft early stage of construction when the whole boat was new.  That's the only time that something added to the inside would  be able to suck a localized area of the hull into an imprint.  Kind of like a love bite.:D

I'm having flashbacks of college philosophy...never the issue always the argument:)
Scrap the syro?

Seems like a very important issue.
Don't have to be persuaded by opioions,
we can lean with our prevailing prejudices.
I'm not a lawyer, just an observer and an
Ariel owner with no axe to grind, doing
the best I can for #338.

Somebody once told me,   a poet needs
only a 500 word vocabulary to write the
greatest poems.  I know I'm too windy
and use too much color.  Still a working
stiff, still dreaming, still trying to get it
straight.  Blah de blah

If we ain't having fun yet, I will shut up!

Look, there certainly isn't anything structurally wrong putting in the bulkhead with the wide spread you got there.  Let's see how it turns out.  That's your gut feeling and it's innovative.  My problem is with the assumptions.  Are you going to be consistant and put your horizontals in with styro?  All the rest of your tabbed in stuff?

Good glassing!      
I've shot my 2-part wad on this subject.

Thats what we need around here---a battle of the fibre breathing dragons.:p

Ebb,
We'll have the weird science thing going on in 113.  Running our own experiment that is.  The lower aft chainplate knees were bonded directly to the hull and when I get to laying tabbing I'm just going to follow the same schedule as I'm putting down elsewhere.  So, only in the end will we know if the styro will make a difference on the main bh.

When we were busy cutting things apart I noticed that the wood components of the knees, bulkheads and berths were not bonded directly to or riding on the hull except for some ares where the funky, blue colored 'bondo' wads were here and there.  I'd have to say the bulk of the strength/ rigidity/ integrity whatever we want to call it came from the tabbing.  Somewhere here I have a pic I snapped just after removing one side of the main bh and you can kind of make out the 3/8" to 1/2" high ridges of tabbing sticking up and when I cut through I was cutting under the plywood.

I ain't no lawyer neither, Ebb.  I like to think we're among friends here:D   Actually, I have lawyers, Feds and spooks in my family, we don't understand each other very well:(   Tony G

This isn't the exact picture I was looking for, sometimes I get a little delete happy.  But if you squint your eyes just right in low light you can make out the depth.  From now on I won't erase anything until the dust settles-uh, so to speak.

Yeah, you're probably right.  What I'm looking at more than likely happened during construction.  Pete's innie and outie may very well have come from movement.  But now I've got twenty minutes tied up into cutting these stinking styro pads and damn it I'm gonna use 'em:D

The styro pads are a good idea.

Ahh, Minnesota.  Where else can you go from cooling fans to heaters inside a week?  No kidding, the last sanding I did to smooth things out, well, as smooth as you can get with 80 grit, was just bearable with a fan blowing down on me from the forward hatch.  A few days later as soon as the last layer of matting went on I started digging around for a small space heater to keep the temp inside in the seventies.
About nine hours to install beam, cut patterns and fiberglass, mix epoxy, roll, etc..  Judging from all of the work Ebb has done he must be a machine!

Here's the view from the cubby hole

You do nice work there, buddy.

What I like especially is the tabbing you did on the bulkhead to get that  beautyful line!  It takes time to make patterns.  It takes time to do it right.

Very impressed!!!    Happy boat!!!

That beam is a real sunbeam!

[ from Fiberglass Boats by Hugo du Plessis (Adlard Coles, 1966)
Pg 57 in the section titled,   "Hard Spots and Stress Concentrations:

"Many hard spots do not appear until several months after the boat has been moulded, not until the moulding has cured, contracted and settled down.  Some moulders would probably be surprised to see how noticeable the hard spots have become six months later,  and there is no doubt that some, particularly the hard spots associated with bulkheads, are due to contraction during cure.
Most stress concentrations will give no trouble in normal service because a good design will have an adequate factor of safety.  But these hard spots are in fact eating into the factor of safety, so that when the overload comes, an impact or a sudden squall, the factor of safety is not there.  The moulding will fail, whereas one without hard spots would not,
1.   Round off all sharp corners...
2.   Broaden and taper off the root of all bulkheads and shelves.   Keep bulkheads and incompressible members from direct contact with the skin, so that the strain is taken on the broad-based angle fillets, or use a soft padding between the bulkhead and the hull.
3.   End one structural member at another, or fade it into the skin...
4.   Make all changes in thickness gradually....
5.   Radius all corners...
6.   Bolt or fasten all stressed fittings through blocks....
7.   Make or pad fittings or woodwork to fit...

Distribute all loading and stress.
Visuallize how the moulding will deflect.
How can any stress concentrations be avoided."

Tho we go to him for his experience, the trouble, as we know, with any expert is that we have his predjudices or opinions to weed thru, as well as the heat level of his persuasion.  His saying that the skin will fail at a point load (the boat twisting probably in "a sudden squall") is unsupported by any examples or fotos.  Not to say that I  doubt it.  However, what you are doing IS substantiated by the guy who IMCO wrote the first (and best) manual on  the subject.]

Say Ebb,

I took a close look at 376 this weekend, and you can clearly see the horizontal line made by the port main cabin shelf  on the outside  of the hull.  Nothin on the stbrd side, though.  When I first noticed this a few years back, I thought maybe my dad hit something 20 or 30 years ago, got a crappy fix-it job, and maybe he was too embarrassed to tell me about it!  He took off part of the rudder one year at Johnson Island near Cedar Point on Lake Erie--- I didn't know till I recently found the repair invoice in an old file. But it definitely is the shelf imprint as opposed to poor seamanship of yesteryear.  And the imperfection  has so many dips and bobs in it that it could only have happend during the curing process.  I'll photo it if I think about it.

Capt Kent,
No problem upgrading yer Dad's seamanship, eh?

What's interesting with these long imprints on Commanders & Ariels(rather than vertical) is that they are not by definition 'hard spots.'    Are they?

They are cosmetic, not structural.  And they occured at the birthing, not later as the supposed 'working' of the hull.

So that is why I call du Plessis on his unsubstantiated assumption that these hard spots are somehow dangerous.  No doubt they are on ultra-light over engineered racing machines.  And some boatshow sailboats and powerboats.

I can see perhaps that if you hit a piling on an unsupported section of the hull it could deflect and return to shape with minimal delamination and damage.  While if the hull was hit where a bulkhead was you might get some crunching or a hole, depending on whether it was gasketed or not.  I don't know.    I would really like to hear what an engineer has to say on this, who has direct experience with frp hulls.  Or some credible survey of damage to boats after an Isabel.

For what it's worth:  On our hard relatively thick skinned old hulls it is  ok to paste on edges of plywood and cleats if the join is filleted and tabbed.  

Since that is what I'm doing to 338,
I'm seriously open to any call on my practice.

It is possible that an old fiberglass hull can be thought of as more BRITTLE.  Has any expert spoken to this?  Haven't seen it.  The 5 or 6 points of du Plessis' are the way to go.


[I meant to add:  Last weekend I did some filling and fairing.  Between spurts of damn longboarding I did a lot of eyeballing from the stern up the sides.
It became clear that C'pete's observation that one side of his babe was out - t'other side in.... could be seen on 338, as well.  Not exactly the same, but one side of 338 is more fair than the other going forward. Must be why I've almost anthropomorphosized the Ariel whose left and right symetries are a little off.  Each one of our boats has its own special character!]:D       ,,,,,,,yea!........

Damn the companies that produce 'rubberized' paints and pitty the fools that use it!  Althought it has great non-skid properties and remains soft and forgiving, it is a real pain to remove.  Grinding/sanding turns it into a hot, stinky, sticky mess.  Scrapers are completely ineffective.  Not being one to turn to chemicals as readily as before, it seems heat is most effective means of removal.  This is about fifteen hours into the job:(

...like Buffett said, "Gawd I wish I was sailing again."

Tony,  you're back!    [aching back]
What Buffet is that,  Warren?   He sails boats of laminated $1000 bills?

But I like your deck there.   Definitely non-skid as it is!   Great cobble-stone look.   One way to look at the coating - is how hard it is to get off.   That's a good thing.   But what you planning to put on:   LPU and what kind of non-skid?:confused:

Yes, I've allways been here lurking below the surface, studying, watching and reading.  The one thing I haven't been doing much of is working on 113.  Really looking forward to getting started though now that the cotton wood trees are nearly done blooming.  I've finally learned that you just can't paint, varnish or 'poxy until after the fourth of July around our neighborhood.

Jimmy Buffett used to sail before he started making money like Warren;) Aren't all of the new boats-eh hmm-yachts-made of laminated $1000 bills?  When I read the reviews with prices listed it sure seems like they are.  Sure, sometimes I too lust.  But I know inside this is all the boat I need.

I never looked at the paint issue that way.  If I knew I'd never have to make repairs to the deck again I might be persuaded to use this silly rubber paint again.  I've been called a damned fool more than once, thank you.  But I guess we'll just go with something simple like Interlux for the nonskid.  Just as an aside, I won a bet with the Mrs. and SHE'S buying the Awlgrip and supplies.  All two or three gallons!!!:D

First I have to fair those decks a little.  Then fill in a couple of holes and then make some new ones and then finish it off with some fillets and such.  Then maybe paint.  Who knows, I'm really at the mercy of retail public.  Tony G

P.s. send pictures...

Hal Roth (How to Sail Around the World) uses one part poly and coarse sand for the decks on his yachts.   If I remember: wet coat, sprinkle on sand with sugar shaker, two more coats on top.

If the boat is going to get used a lot, cruised,  the arguement is safe sure footing and the ability to repair the surface easily.   No nonsense.

If you're going cruising.  this book has a huge helping of great practical tips.

I don't want to be convinced that I need a 36 grit surface on the deck!
But,  we don't have that much deck.   When I think of having to go forward on a heaving boat streaming with green water on a dark and stormy night.....:eek:

Wow!  Am I excited or what!  A new layer to the project.  These last couple of weeks when ever I go up the ladder my wandering eye slides over those 'cracks' in the paint on the hull.  Only 113's hull has never been painted, just the decks...

Anybody cringing yet?  Other than me, that is.  You bet!  At least 50-75 per side and I haven't even gone below the boot stripe yet.  Well, I guess she'll be a new yacht through and through.

NOTICE
Now accepting volunteers for fun, rewarding positions in grinding and filling.

Tony,
Can't really make out if those chips are in the paint,
or are chips in the gelcoat,  and what we see,  the dark stuff, is another layer of paint,
or is the original poilyester layup of the hull.

Either way,  it is an interesting problem.

I'm sorry, my head must have been a little cloudy from all the GLUE I'VE BEEN SNIFFING!  After another hour of digging I've unearthed 200 to 300 on the port side:(

Ebb, it appears that the gel coat is poc marked, for lack of a better term.  At the moment I'm fighting depression at the thought of dishing, filling and fairing all of these holes.  Thank the Big One that this is a worth while craft or I'd be havin' a bon fire!  The dark color underneath is the fiberglass.  Looks like matt but I'm not sure of the laminate schedule used by Pearson.  The 1/4" diameter ones are a true 1/16" deep.  The little pin head ones are less.  Less deep that is, still a big PIA.  
Anybody on our site experience joy like this yet?  Sounds like what Tim L. went through with Glissando.  Well, in up to my eyeballs,  Tony G

P.s.  I'll post more pics if that helps:D

Here's an archive shot of the turn of my bilge.  These pock marks were discoved when removing the bottom paint.  Couldn't see what the surface looked like, because the grinder removed the paint and some of the gel coat at the same time.  Kind of looks like your chips, but mine were all below waterline, and in places where ebb thinks maybe the resin gun at the factory might have been spluttering out, leaving air holes.  But who knows? I fixed it all by removing the gel coat from the problem areas, then rolled on about 5 coats of vinylester on the bottom before the bottom paint.  Got a good finish (not excellent) but also fixed the problem.  Not a solution for your topsides problem-- won't be smooth enough.

for what it's worth,
338 has those pocs,  very simular, where ever I have sanded thru thr gelcoat - or almost thru the gelcoat - I'm only assuming that it is the nature of the gelcoat just after they sprayed it on and were laying on the mat - the first layer of the laminate.   I've come across this topside and on deck.

When 338 was coming out of the water and being surveyed,   Capt Roger found some five or six suspicious bumps in the antifouling.   I forgot about them and they "diaappeared"   The hull was taken down to the gelcoat some time later and they have remained disappeared.   Have since found out that this is common.   If the bumps were true blisters,  they are still ther and will reappear.

The isophthalic polyester in our hulls does not produce the modern blisters.   But obviously air pockets and/or incomplete mixing problems,  foreign material  or almost anything could cause isolated or uncommon problems in the A/C gelcoat.

The mat under the gelcoat on 338 doesn't seem to be very thick.   Blisters are a phenomenon that appear at the interface of gelcoat and mat.   An assumption I have to make is that any free chemicals that didn't get catalysed in the original hull layup MUST be long since gone.
Afterall the hull is semi=permeable, water flushed you could say.

Most of the blisters I've observed on other boats are symetrical like boils.   They ARE boils,  under pressure with chemical and salt water cocktail.   What I see in your foto looks irregular, angular.   Almost as if they are externally caused damage.   Like an anchor?  Halloween prank?    Maybe badly patched by the DFO and reappearing.   I would get close with a magnifying glass.   Get some oblique light on the hull to see if ther are anymore bumps ready to hatch.    But by definition, age. material it can't be your normal everyday blisters.

Personally,  I would do two stage epoxy.   Laminate Part A, Slow hardner Part B.  Soak the holes,  wipe them 'dry.'   Fill with epoxy/cabosil gel.   I disagree with polyester on polyester cold patching and underwater repairs.

So...you've got those too, eh?  I had lots (didn't count 'em) and they looked to me like bubbles in the first layup that didn't get rolled out.  I filled the ones that I found and stopped thinking about the ones I didn't find.  Maybe not as scrupulously honest as I sometimes claim to be, but stuff like that can get downright depressing.

I was thinking that it was because our hulls are sort of close together in the run of things (105 and 113), but since ebb and others have found similar goings-on, I think it's just carelessness in the construction.  I, at least, cannot blame anything on the ravages of saltwater, 105 is a strictly freshwater boat.  

During this loooong de- and re-construction, I have found all kinds of things that can be put down to the same carelessness, but she is, after all, an elderly lady, so I give her and her builders the benefit of the doubt.

By the way, don't do what I did as far as grinding those little bubbles out.  I used a sander and made myself lots of work filling and fairing, an effort which continues today.  I wonder sometimes why I always do things wrong the first time, you'd think I could guess right at least once in a while.  One nice thing is, I sure am learning a lot about the boat and how I should have done things the first time.

We had the same pocs below the w/l on 350. Only below the turn of the bilge. But there was a bunch. Decided they weren't blisters after reading all i could find. I decided to pressure wash, after ginding down all the paint/ gel coat, then let 'em dry good for a couple days. Painted areas with epoxy, then faired with epoxy and colloidal silica. Then we did a barrier coat and bottom paint. I think she's pretty well taken care of. Guess we'll find out in a few yrs.

I didn't find anything like what you have above w/l, and i took her down to the gel coat.

Hopefully they'll be in small patches and easy to take care of:rolleyes:

Wew! I don't feel so alone anymore.  Thanks for therapeutic support all.  Thanks for the pic Kent, it's always nice to have someone step up and say,'that ain't bad, look at this!'  At least now if/when I get to the bottom I shouldn't freak out.
I reviewed and reread  the Gougeon Brothers, Casey, Lackey and it's just going to be more work.  No way around it.  Nothing catastrophic...it's just that I'm only now getting to May's work in August.  'Hoping for a big late in the season push to get back on schedule or close.  Once again I've been chasing the $buck$ instead of working on my soul, my boat.  This is how carma works, isn't it?

In 2055, 50 years from now,  there'll be tonys, kents, williies, gregs & ebbs - maybe grandkids and surely those who make fortunate discoveries (like having an Ariel or Commander find them!) - they'll be gathering to trade observations on the centenial restorations the old girls are enduring.   We're all doing the work that'll take them on to their next refurbishment.   Giving them sweat and life and keeping them sailing for the good little princess they are.   Oh yeah!

I didn't have any on the topsides of T397, but a gazillion on the bottom. They appeared after I abrasively removed all the paint and did a bit of fairing-by-gelcoat-lump-removal. The spots that didn't just pop open showed up as little short lines or halfmoons, which once pressed at with a jackknife were just the same thing.

These are no big deal (unless they are topside and you have to fill 'em all, hehe) in a structural sense or whatnot...the outer layer of matting just didn't get saturated all the way thru in a way that would have bonded it completely to the gelcoat and there were little air bubbles there. Wouldn't take it as indicative on the rest of the laminate, either. These boats were all made in an incredibly resin-rich fashion...de-airing roller? Hunh? What?
The only roller these boats are likely to have seen was a paint roller dripping with resin which was used to both saturate (!) and smooth down the laminates. Makes perfect sense now, don't it?

Dave

Grinding back each of those little chips sounds like alot of work.

I would probably dewax the hull and just give them a once over with a sander or dremel attachment to knock out anything loose. Fill with a peanut butter of epoxy and microbaloons or microlite.

Yeah, you're right.  It does sound like a lot of work.  We'll fiddle for the middle on the best way to get it done right with the least amount of swearing.  But I'm okay with that as long as it cures the problem.  My biggest fear now is missing a dozen or so and having them 'pop' open in a couple of years after I put the jizzilion dollar a gallon paint on.  Isn't there a serenity prayer for sailors or want to be sailors?:rolleyes:   Tony G

Yep, goes like this:

(Insert appropriate deity or saint here) I hope this works!
( ") I hope this works!
( ") I hope this works!

I thought I'd post these here so the threads don't get too unweildly.

This is the Dwyer boom fitting after some judicious filing.  As it turns out they don't just slide into our extrusions.  Next on the list is to mold an epoxy "T" that will be inverted and glued inside to (hopefully) make up for the material that I removed.  Probably unnecessary but it's winter and what else is there to do?

...a better view of just how much was removed...

Tony'
That slip fitting looks just fine!
Just fine the way it is.   Will get plenty of strength from the surrounding boom extrusion especially if it's a close fit.
Any thoughts of anodizing or powder coating or otherwise painting the fitting befor it goes in the extrusion?

Ballenger's parts for the 338 mast were all clear anodized.

Ebb,

Well, like I said, they don't just slide right in.  the attached pic should explain it alot better than my fumbling words about the screen can do.  

Dwyer has the same dimensions on the outside but a drastically differing profile or shape.  Our extrusions have a teardrop shape while theirs have an almost perfect eliptical outside profile.

So while I shaved off the shoulders a bit I'll have to build up the sides to give a snug fit inside the boom.  That fit is what, I believe, will give it strength at the union between the boom and the new pieces.  That will be more evident when I get to the outhaul fitting where it will have even less material left after the file.  I keep picturing it 'flipping' out of the boom end and shooting toward the mast head.  How will I ever overcome that?

so you see, the paint still on the 'shoulder' will have to be removed so I can build up that area with epoxy.  Then it'll probably just get some bright side to cover it.

Tony, despair not!

//www.caswellplating.com

I fixed the deadlight frames with a one part aluminum putty/paint from these guys.
The frames went thru the powdercoat baking process no problema.

There are a number of metal fillers with video names.  Get the aluminum filled one they use on mufflers or is it engine blocks.   Hey. WHAT kind of epoxy is THAT? :D


[Hit the 'Repair' bar then look for Lab Metal.  I used the lower priced stuff without problem.   Don't have any tips really on using it.  Painted it on,  it is a loose paste, one part, let it set up.  Filed like metal.   Get the solvent too.   It might not even be epoxy....YEA!

There are two part putty sticks like Aluminox and Permatex makes putties too, never used them.  Even West System, has aluminum powder to mix yer own.   But the high temp stuff is more intriguing.   And I vouch for Lab Metal.   It goes on wet.  I felt I got something that LIKED aluminum, looks like aluminum,  and became aluminum.]   LYCKA TILL :rolleyes:

It's like that old Buck Owens song, "there won't be nothing left when she gets through with me."  This is before Tony's file....

This is the 'underbelly' of the outhaul piece.  The upper mainsheet block will ride on a stainless bail that will be bolted through the boom and outhaul assembly with a corresponding compression tube (or whatever it's really called).

In honor of Frank Lloyd Wright I busted through the snow drifts and ice into my shop tonight after work.  It has it's own type of 'organic architecture' after a long winter's nap...it smells like a cat turd!!!  Mr. Wright, surely, would not approve.  

Because of these new fittings, the overall boom length had grown.  So I decided to cut some off each end to get rid of the old screw holes and what not.  A fine opportunity to start anew...

'not so much off of this end though.

I'm willing to swap this action photo for another action photo from any other member.  I'd prefer something from a recent sail or sailing experience.

From the tack to the aft end of the boom, not including the outhaul assembly, still works out to be 11'-11 3/8".  At first I was worried about shortening the boom too much, but, it seems to be just fine (at this point).

Tony, Thanks for this photo series on the boom refit!!

Ah-Ha!  We got a bite.  It's still cold in the shop up here in the hinterland.  Sure would appreciate some California sunshine to get summer started...I was able to suffer through making some VHMW bushings for the goosneck fittings yesterday.  

Now I'm trying to figure out how the heck I'm going to fit a 4:1 or 6:1 block system inside the boom for the outhaul.  Oh yeah, I don't want it to be clanking around in there either(rubber padded blocks).  I'd like to keep it inside the boom in order to save the outside surface for the reefing system.  Of course, it could go between the goosneck and the mast step on the aftside of the mast but that area is already going to be pretty crowded.

If I can figure this one out then maybe we'll tackle the foil spreaders :cool: I'd like to paint the spars early this year in hope of getting my @#!whooping out of the way, right away, so then I'll have all summer to fix them :D

Any thoughts?

Quote from: Tony GNow I'm trying to figure out how the heck I'm going to fit a 4:1 or 6:1 block system inside the boom for the outhaul.  
Any thoughts?

The rigger who installed a four-to-one outhaul inside the boom on #76, built it in an aluminum tube and slid it into the boom.  I believe the tube was split to give access for installing the blocks and line and was then folded closed as it went into the boom.

Bill,

That's waaay better than what I was thinking.  You guys on the coast(s) get all of the good stuff.

I have a couple of questions about 76's set up.  Do you find the 4:1 purchase is enough to comfortably/easily adjust the outhaul?  Is the fixed block in the system attached to the inner tube mechanically or is there a line attached to it that exits the boom and is tied off somewhere to 'fix' the block's location.  Or, is it attached in some manner that my wee-little, land locked mind hasn't even thought of yet?  Did the tube add much weight to the boom?

I realize some of these questions may require a trip to your boat to answere.  And, of course, if at all possible take some pictures. :D

These days, I find the 4 to 1 advantage to be marginal when sailing to wind.  May be due to my "maturity," but it (and a future jib halyard) is the reason for the port side cabin top winch.  It may also no longer be 4 to 1 as there were two owners between selling the boat in 1988 and repurchasing it in 1997.  

As for how it's done, sorry, but I don't have a clue.  Had it installed by a local rigger who specialized in such things.  I'm pretty sure the inner tube and hardware are mechanically fixed.  As for weight, the tube material is pretty thin, so I don't think it's an issue.

After weeks of low temps and cruddy weather, I finally got to do a little something on the boat.  Whadyuh think?  I was unsure at first, but after I painted a port frame on I like it!

I also added a buffet table to the aft end of the cockpit.  Pictures will follow.

Here's the new cockpit table.  Big enough for the whole family and plastic covered for the little tykes that spill alot.

Can you believe it?  Someone was throwing this away!  That should solve the 'head' problem.  And the name...it says it all :D

Another four consecutive hours of work.  Something big could happen here.

Nice work there Tony, :D
What was the issue with the deck that led you to take all the gelcoat off.  Did you have to recore?

Absolutely the worst job is grinding the inside of the hull,  looks like you did a heroic job.   Only a damn fool would do it,  just plain nuts!  

Somebody should invent a handy sandblaster like a wand that would spit out the media and vacuum it up at the same time.  Have some different tips, but you'd wave it over hull and the paint would dissappear.   With an adjustment you could remove paint from ply with it. You'd still wear a mask but the air wouldn't be dirty, nor the rest of the surfaces in the boat.  Sigh

If you want to just remove paint , use corn meal as the blast media , for decades we have used that in restoration of motorcycles and cars . It is hard enough to take off paint and leave a beautiful surface .

Ebb,

The decks were gray which I thought would get too warm.  Also, they were coated, rather haphazzardly I might add, with a rubberized paint.  Add to that the fact that we had to do some cosmetic work on those ugliest  of side deck scuppers and it just, plain and simple, had to come off.  A long arduous job I hope no one else has to do again.  But on the lighter side, it was then I discovered that one of the POs had allready done a recore job on 113.  Wow!  I'm off the hook!

So..well, you know how it goes.  I have to fill in the scupper cut-outs and make some new ones farther back on the side decks where the water actually pools.  And then I thought about frameless ports in the main cabin, dorade vents, a sea hood, an instrument dashboard, new sliding hatch, dropboards, winch pads, a new toe-rail, a new rub-rail, an anchor locker, thru-hulls and seacocks, MSD and holding tank, water tank, alot to do with the spars, oh yeah-we gotta modify the outboard well for a four stroke, etc..  That says nothing to the fact of all the canvas work and all of the interior work yet to be done.  

Now, none of this should be a problem because I've finally secured a slip next year.  So I guess we have an official deadline to meet.  Whew!  I was begining to think this job would never end.  To think it all started with a 'sail away' boat with a little rot in the bottom of a bulkhead.

Sir, I need a machine that goes around vacuuming up behind me constantly! No matter what I'm doing I'm making more dust and dirt.  It seems I can't even sit on my boat a drink a beer without making a slight mess. :eek:

I'm bewildered and tired, but grinning. :cool:

A 6hp 4 stroke fits fine as is and is all the power you need and only weighs 55lbs  , a 9.9 is 115 or more . The sump on the  8's & 9.9's gets in the way .
Just got my Nissan 6 back from servicing

Mike,

Maybe I'm just whimping out with my advancing age, but, I'd like both electric start and an alternator on the outboard.  Lighter weight sure would be nice.  If there was a company out there that sold good, cheap, quality made (pick any two) after market pieces that one could slap on a 6HP we'd be all over that.

Mike,
Like 'true grit' as a vegetarian option for sand as the media!  Might there be a chance for whirled peas too?  Coarse salt?  Walnut shells?  

It'll be a two bag unit,  one for the maize,  the other for the vacuumed stuff.  The Hog Feed Dustless Paint Removal System.  It's gonna wait tho,  I'm NEVER going to grind another hull again, inside or out!!!  EVER.  No, I mean NEVER!


Interesting the difference in weight 2 horses make.  Tony, you point out the 8 and 10 have electric tilt.  And an alternater.  As I recall the literature on my 8/4,  it is a high thrust set up with the exhaust directed out the prop for forward and reverse.  When I 'researched' the net it was clear that 8s, 10s and 15s are up and down every river and estuary, bay and harbor in the world pushing fish boats and barges, on the back end of anything that floats -  probably without scheduled maintenance and fresh water flush.  How can anybody afford $3000 for an 8?  They cost that Here, now!

Forward into the breech :eek:

My 6hp 4 stroke has a charging system , no electric start , I do have a vertical pull hand start and it starts on the 1st or 2nd pull every time with ease . In the slip next to me my friend Mark has a 9.9 Johnson electric start and I can get started faster than him every time . I also can remove and install the motor underway much safer and faster than he . I'm rapidly approaching 60 too!

Ebb, walnut shells are much harder than cornmeal , and don't taste as good in a hush puppy .

This was a messy job.  Once the epoxy fully cures we'll back fill all around the ports by pumping in thickened epoxy three to four inches fore and aft and two inches up top.  The strip between the ports will be beefed-up too.  Then, out come the jigs...

Ports du look gud, dude!

Are you using the old frames?  I MAY yet convince myself that putting on 'west coast' windows is the way it ought be.  Easier and stronger,  easier and quicker to replace.  Lexan needs replacing.  Aesthetics is a stronger consideration for using the frames.   Tho the studded look has a kind of harley modern look. :cool:

All four of the inside frames were either cracked or crumbling.  As we live in the middle of the country I don't have access to all of those chandlery and parts stores you 'coasters' do.  I'm going to try something along the lines of the Morris Yachts daysailor.  If it all turns to $#!^ I can always backtrack to the bolted on ports, even though its not my favorite.  I suppose we could drop three grand and buy some shiney, big opening ports.  Yeah, right...

Only Morris Yacht's Daysailer found is a 36' Sparkman and Stephens designed Scotch and Teak throwback what has windows that look like they are 'lined' perhaps within the thickness of the cabin sides, but have no discernable frames outside per se in what I found.  It difinitely is a IGOTMONEY yacht,  way cool, way expensive, with sitting room only below.

How you gonna proceed Capt?  I did notice that the holes you have in the sides of the cabin are VERY nicely trimmed and clean.  I couldn't clean up 338's because the frames ride on only about 1/4".  And the guy who cut them out in 1964 musta had a liquid lunch.  What's up?

First off, don't be fooled by these pics.  Those port are four different shapes and sizes.  You'd think they would have had a jig of some sort at Pearson.  Hell, at least a pattern to trace!

We've concocted a little jig for the job.  In theory, it should provide the female form for the epoxy blend that will become our port, provide the pattern for the lexan for the lite, and act as the placement jig for the holes to be drilled and tapped for the stainless bolts and, yes, be a cutting and drilling jig for the inside frames.  And as an added bonus, it's made mostly from discarded material.

Ater the some grinding and sanding and surface prep the jig will be clamped to the cabin side through the six holes.  Then fill the gap between the existing ports and the jig with the extra special epoxy blend.  Then wait.  Once she has an intial cure we can 'pop' off the jigs and take a look.  Then the jigs go back on and we drill all of the holes.  Once the hole are drilled then off comes the jig and in goes the tap.  When the hole are tapped we'll drill a countersink for the bolt heads.  Once the bolts are screwed in...well, it's all down hill from there :cool:   A little fillin' and fairin' and we're ready for primer.

Here's a picture of the jig...

Well, that's one of them.  We made matching fore and aft or port and starboard, whatever.  

Here's a shot that shows the angle of the male mold for drainage.  It's a fifteen degree cut.  So, if you minus the five to seven degrees of the cabin top you still have around ten degrees to shed water.  I hope that's enough.

Here's the beginings of the male mold for the new scuppers...come on, work with me ;)

Do I understand yer going to mold a frame in place !!!   Holy Minnihaha!   Brave Soul.   Naw I think yer gonna do it flat ie horizontal. right?

I've run into some kevlar paste - is that the secret ingredient?  Probably better than carbon in this ap.   There's a bunch of metal-filled epoxies around - can't wait til ya spill the beans.  NO! Yer NOT using hog feed in the mix, are you???

In situ, baby!!!

I'm sure I'll end up throwin some swear words in the mix too.  Somewhere I've got a link to a site that shows how to make a vacuum pump from a refrigerator compressor.  That's the next stage here.

After this Ariel is done we've got this beat-up Ensign that is going to be, well, redone.  This won't be your classic daysailor.  Nowadays, I think the kids say, "pimp my ride, beeotch!" :p

Anyways, here's what we're aiming for in the scupper.

The quart of PVA (releasing agent) finally showed up.  I guess I'd better get started on the ports soon enough or we'll run out of summer.  I've been going through the 'plan' over and over and I won't really know what happens until I'm in it up to my arm pits.

But first I had to fill a couple of other holes and tackle the chainplate areas.

...here's one cleaned out...

With the chainplate wrapped in plastic and ready for some epoxy...

Yeah, I admit it.  Sometimes I go a little overboard on this boat stuff.  Like the other day I got a great deal on this 350# danforth.

Tonio,
For a release agent on top of wax you might try AquaNet Superhold from yer local drug store.  Whatzat you say, Mike?

WARNING
Tony, if you do decide to use hair spray, do NOT use Aquanet.
I was preparing a couple female molds (new hatch slide rails) and the Aquanet did not dry.  So I went to find an expert.  I found a pert youg lady at Longs who agreed the A. stayed sticky on her hair too.  She suggested I try L'Oreal Studioline Fast Forwrd Quick Dry Strong Hold.  Yup.

What it did was mist on the work very easily as it mists in a very fine cloud - rather than spray. No droplets.  Seemed to be a real plus getting an even coat even down inside.  It covered the sticky stuff and dried. 3 coats.  I just popped the pieces out of the molds.  Worked like a charm.  Side benifit was the garage had this nice feminine scent to it.  Kind of made you stand up a little straighter and suck in your stomach.

My new rails look real sexy! :cool:
How those frames coming?

Ebb,

Thanks for the heads up on the hair spray.  The PVA worked less than beautiful :D .  When we fire up the vaccuum table we'll try the L'Oreal.

The port frames are molded in!  Because there'll be some grinding to do on them and other parts of the boat, I'm doing a bunch of different little jobs that will result in grinding so I's can do all of the grinding at one time.  Ick...

Just finished prepping the forward hatch.  You know, I can glue wood all day long, but when it comes to cutting it I get nervous and worry that I'm going to ruin it.  I need boat therapy soon........

Excellent work on the hatch!  Rounded corners, whoa, now ya talking! :cool:  Nice hatch too.  The cast aluminum Bomar's 338 ended up with weigh a ton.


As to "popping" finished pieces out of a female mold OR off a male mold, here, for what its worth, is a couple observations.

I use a blue colored specific mold wax.  The color helps in spreading it evenly around, which I do with my hands.  Put it on, let it dry briefly, buff it up. Do it again.  I do three times, then it gets old.  I think next time I'm gonna wax and buff at least six times to be certain of complete release.

Made sure the molds were designed to release the completed lam.  But getting the pieces started was difficult,  Any corners holds the piece real tight, so, have to get one side started for the mold to let go.  Everything may seem loose but will stay stuck!  On my male mold (the hutch) I did not wax enough and/or hair spray enough (I had made the mistake of using AquaNet, also) and ended up deconstructing the goddam mold from the inside.  Bad. Real bad.

I'm using epoxy for this polyester type work. {Believe it's argueable that polyester shrinks a little because of solvents thereby aiding in removal - while 100% solids epoxy doesn't]  Gel coat is probably the real secret for successful female molding.  My epoxy gel coat is slightly thickened laminating epoxy with universal white color added.  I could not get it thick enough because I wanted to do the whole piece at once.  Thick first coat just got squeezed out where ever I pushed and poked the xmatt into the mold.  Maybe there's a way to get three color coat layers on by getting them to go off but not go hard while the cloth is going in.  That would be too organized!  But I'm a coward, and therefor the pieces will have to be finished when in place on the boat.  :o

Wow. Really slick hatches Tony! Very very nice! And a nice shop too...

So is the plan to add ambience down below with those aquariums?  :D

/me see's those hatches.

/me drools.

:D :rolleyes:  :D

Oh baby, Oh baby......That's nice

Another good thing about our boats--you can stick your head out the hatch and see where you're going while taking a whiz

Better be a good aim and/or smooth water! Ya miss, it's yer bed...

Well, this stinks.  The top of the instrument 'dash' is 10'-1 1/2" off of the shop floor on the trailer.  The distance from the threshold(?) the the top of the door opening is 9'-6".  I thought if it was close I'd just let the air out of the tires, or, take the tires and rims off of one axel and let the other one squat down.  

We don't have time to fart around with half-baked, hair-brained ideas.  So...it looks like we'll have to redesign the seahood to make it removable.  That's just one more bead of sealant to maintain that I was hoping to not have to deal with. :(

Actually, this has been a thought that has been burning in the back of my mind for some time now.  I just didn't want to face the fact.  So we'll press on.

Here's the frame for the new main hatch!  It has three coats of varnish on it now so I feel I can start working with it and not be so careful.  Of course it will get about another six or seven coat before being deemed 'done'.  

It will have a white plexi panel on top to let in some light without beaming in the rays and corresponding heat.  I was going to put a smoked panel in to match the the forward hatch, but, a 95 degree day like todeay made me think NOT!!!

It doesn't show up in the pictures but it actually has a gently curved top so water shouldn't pool on it.

Quote from: commanderpeteAnother good thing about our boats--you can stick your head out the hatch and see where you're going while taking a whiz

I never looked at it that way.....maybe we'll mount hatch so it opens to the aft!

Thanks to all for the kind words and honest criticism.  Sorry I haven't responded to many of the posts.  I've been a little busy lately, and, the support of this group keeps me going.  Well, that and more coffee than food!

SO ooo OOO Fine!  Like that handle there.   Nice frame, first class.  How you going to lock it?


Mean to tell me you can't  you can't sawzall the top of the garage door opening - make like a hinged one foot tall however wide piece that'll swings up out of the way when needed???  Hey!  the boat comes FIRST!!!  Self, wife, kids, family, dogs, taxes, religion, govmint: AFTER the boat.  You got that?

Hot and humid weather makes me think about water.  I just can't drink enough of it.  We bought this baby from a guy in MI.  It came out of a Cape Dory 28.

Placement and support is proving to be more difficult than I thought :eek:

I realize that this is a pretty insignificant step compared to all of the work you others have done and are doing out there.  But we're actually putting something on the boat instead of taking things off.

Sole( or maybe they're called sub-sole )boards are going down and I wanted to get the forward areas of the bilge painted out first.

...here's the bottom sides getting sealed with epoxy...

...and here's how they fit together...

Go for it, Tony, nice work.
Be interested to see what that upper step becomes. Guess you're partially closing off the V-berth 'aisle' for stowage?

What is it they say?
"A remodel of a thousand angles begins with a single piece of ply."

Gorgeous prep on the hull!!!

Tony -

Do you take photo requests? :D I'd like to see what shape you settled on for the opening through the bulkhead... I really liked the rounded-corners one that you had prototyped in cardboard back many pages ago.

Also, I'm thinking that I am going to sell my window frames, and go with Lexan bolted on from the outside. Probably too late for you to be interested in them, but I thought I'd mention it in case your molding hasn't progressed too far, or if you run into troubles with it (which I hope you don't! I considered doing something similar a while back...).

She's looking reeeaaalll nice. :D

I'll take a picture of anything!!!  We're currently leaning towards the same shape on the top of the passageway and a flat foothold on the bottom.  After stumbling through there so many times working in the v-berth I think a moving target may be even harder for me.  Man, old age s****s!

As of tonight we're ready to laminate the 'furniture' pieces that are going beck into the v-berth area.  Then I'll have a suitable platform to work from for the 'toe-rail' job.  yeeeh...

Everybody seems to be dealing with the heat, so I'll spare you the whinning.  but 90+ degrees and 70%+ humidity make hand sanding and shaping a little more messy.  I've just finished off my first seven gallons of epoxy and I think I've sanded away at least four gallons worth :D

found some time the other morning to cut holes for the dorade vents.  The cabin top here was a full 3/4" thick.  Cool.

Because of the lack of room and, more importantly, the fact that I only had a 52" stick of teak left, we made a modified dorade box.  It will still drain through weap holes but the air will have to go around a baffle.  Such is life.  I'll deal with it...

What really stinks is my boring bit/countersink and plug cutter are two different sizes.  I had enough scrap to cut ten plugs.  Plan D

You know Tony, you may have something there!  Never seen this design be for - and why won't it work?  Unique!

Everyday dorade boxes have one or two  baffles across the box  to help separate  water from the air coming in the cowl.  I can't see why Tony's horizontal/slant innovation won't work just as well - if not better!

One of the 'improvements' I've noted in my collection of Other People ideas is the install of two access plates on top of the box.  The idea being that in good weather you could move the cowl right over the hole to get direct air flow below.  

Another was to put on a lexan top instead of teak to get light thru the opening.   Which is to say that maybe your slanted baffle plate could be lexan, or even the top as well?  (The second plate over the forward opening might also get more air below with the cowl there!)

Anyway, just my way of expressing  enthusiasm for your invention!  Way cool!!!

Don't ferget the limbers in the corners!!! :D

It's already August 12th. :eek: That puts me about...uh...mmm....4 or 5 weeks behind schedule.  Just spent two week NOT working on the boat tending to other business.  I was intending these last two week to be used for letting the paint fully cure.  Ha!

I was finally able to get back at this weekend.  The v-berth fixins are tabbed in.  Biaxial (4"), matting, roving, matting, cloth.  That should be pretty similar to the schedule that what was in there to begin with.  Anyone find anything different than that?

The port openings have been drilled, threaded, redrilled, and the stainless bolts installed.  The bolt holes got some epoxy pushed in, and now have two coats of fairing compound.  Several more to go for sure!

Made a White Oak beam that will get glassed into the lazarette (just for you, Whaleshark!) to become the backing plate for the backstay chainplate.  If I can get a picture of what's in there now I'll post it.  You wouldn't believe it!

It's time to start looking at the hull too.  I guess it's a bad time to be opening another store on top of all this.  I mean, priorities being as they are, come on, the boat come first. :D

eh...I just couldn't help myself.  Sometimes, I dunno what comes over me :eek:

Actually, I had to get at this thing.  It has been bothering me for five years now.  After we first got 113 home I noticed we had some leaky deck fittings.  That's ok, I thought, we can fix that.  Besides, the water always found it's way to the bilge where it should end up.  But one time I didn't get back on board for a day or two to 'sop' up the bilge.  When I pulled board up the water was gone!  A little while later I noticed water pooling by the rudder shoe.

After opening things up this morning I was able to confirm my suspicions.  A little grindin', a little fillin', a little glassin'.  Top that off with some paint to spiffy things up a bit.  Viola!  We got ourself a new wine locker :cool:

The sole seemed solid as a rock.  However, one can see that many a gallon has poured over these soles.  

Everything that goes back in will be sealed in two coats of epoxy and painted with bilge kote.  Yes, I do intend to have this boat for the rest of my life.

After we got the stringers for the ceiling strips shaped and tabbed in we slapped on a few coats of paint.

Tony, you boat will be one fine vessel when you're all done!  Hey, how are thos scuppers coming out?

Tony,  One of the better looking bilges we've seen!

Are you going to insulate the hull?   That and ceiling is another sixmo!!   I found a deal on 1/2" Ensolite (turned out it was actually 5/8" - probably why the deal).  I like your idea of sealing the hull.   Have convinced self it's important,  but only non-solvent stuff I found was that white tank coating from epoxyproducts.com.  It's hard, not like a paint and takes 3 coats to get all white.  I'm sick of epoxy by now, damn!

Did seal the bilge with it.

Get any further with the windows?  Like to see....!

Mike, the scuppers are in a holding pattern for right now.  My epoxy/cockpit table is still on the boat.  I also have to find another vacuum pump.  My old gast has a torn diaphram :eek: and the screw heads are so corroded from salt water there is NO way to back them out anymore.  After I finish the bilge I'll scoot up under the cockpit to do some work there and then, hopefully, will get the scuppers in place.

Ebb, The ports are faired on the outside.  Two, maybe three more coats of fairing compound to complete the openings and inside.  The bolts are all in place and the lexan is waiting to be cut and drilled.  I'm tellin' you, man, the idea came from your anchor chain well.  It's cool.  I like the clean look.  yesterday I made a profile sanding block for finish work.  I'll snap a few pics for you guys.

I had to see for myself...That keel void thing...well, everybodys got one!  

It started out with a little inocent dremel work along some cracks in the bilge.  Some were deeper than others, and, there was a spot that just sounded hollow and weak.  What the heck, I thought.  I knew I'l have to do some 'poxy work in there anyway.  Out came the 1/2" bit.  It took little pressure and about half a second to pop through the little glass that remained.  

I probed around a bit.  Swore.  Probed a bit more.  Swore alot more.  The only good thing is five years on the hard meant she was pretty dry in there.  I hooked the shop vac up to it with the hose on the output and let her run/heat/dry for a couple of hours just for good measure.

After much more digging I decided to fill it back up with foam-it and seal it on the top side.  We'll have to inspect the heel area well later on.  Definitely before we dunk.

What's in there you ask?

Here's what it looked like before the foam really went wild.  By the days end we had sanded it down and applied the first coat of thickened epoxy.  Once there is enough epoxy down there we'll put in some matt, fabric, roving, and a light weight fabric on top to help smooth things out.  If you've ever poked or sliced your finger cleaning a bilge, you know why I'm being anal. :D

G A W W W D  ! ! !
I thought about taking a look and then forgot!  Loosing it.

In pic #162, what did you make of the 'cake' stuff between layers in the hole?  Do I understand you foamed the void?  To me it shows that the ballast has settled in the years since it was put in there with shop floor shims.

For anybody rennovating...
It obviously important to find out the condition of the ballast.  In my considered opinion any void should be filled solid with something that will keep the space clear of water that seeps through the hull laminate and down through the bilge.  And through the sump, if the boat has one like 338, at the end of the ballast.

It's possible, but nobody has reported it, that the ballast could work, move, as the boat is sailed.  Even tho the area is supposedly sealed, my feeling was that if the boat went aground and holed herself down there at least it would be mostly solid stuff exposed in 338's case. :eek:

Ebb,  The area we're dealing with here is behind the lead ballast.  Those holes I drilled are in the aft section of the bilge where it begins to rise from the deepest part.  

The stuff in post# 162 is the original foam.  It was dry and stuck to the glass pretty good.  Initially, I dug rather agressively with my big, busted screwdriver thinking I would be replacing alot more foam filler.  Not much of it came loose though.  The top hole didn't even commincate with the bottom three.  The bottom three shared a space just below the surface of the fiberglass.  The biggest hole had a 1/2" crevice that lead downward about 8".  After fishing around with some stiff wire I decided it really wasn't as bad as I thought, and, I had better start thinking about repairing the void instead of making it worse.

Yeah, I may have water migrating into the void again, but it won't come from the bilge.  One of these fine vessels has a drainplug installed and I'm begining to think that may be the way to handle seepage.  Maybe even two plugs so you could force air through to facilitate drying....would the owner of said boat lead me to the link?

Quote from: Tony GOne of these fine vessels has a drainplug installed and I'm begining to think that may be the way to handle seepage.  Maybe even two plugs so you could force air through to facilitate drying....would the owner of said boat lead me to the link?

It's described in the manual.

Hey Tony,  I got the proportions wrong, what we were looking at.  So you are putting foam back in.

Strange, in all the years I've been mucking about they have not come up with another type of expanding foam than polyurethane.  Watch that stuff, the fumes are genuinely lethal, pour and get out of the boat immediately, enjoy your posts, fruits of labor!   I've recently used some one part out of an aersol can.  Not the same as two part.  Befor it settles down it seems to shrink.

It isn't much further down to the bottom at the end of the encapsulated lead, like you say, maybe 8".  Since I tanked 338 under the sole and brought fittings out the bottom of the tank aft, which is the top of the ballast, I found the extra depth convenient for turning T's and so forth.  It's tight down in there.  Also there's just enough room for a small bilge pump and maybe the hose end from the manual.  Not much volume tho.  

So I'll leave some of the very narrow V going back to the rudder unfilled to gain a couple gallons.  The narrow V is suspiciously sloped up at the end of the hull and  probably stuffed with unraveled roving and unreinforced plastic.  338 came without Everett's folly tho.  Lucky, I guess.   Otherwise, without the volume under the sole, tanked, it won't take but a few gallons to put bilge water on the cabin sole!

You know they don't guarantee expanded foam against water intrusion.  They say closed cell but water gets in anyway.  I asked the guys at TAP, complaining as I do at the quality of products consumer, one suggested mixing styrofoam pellets and epoxy for a filler.  I mentioned epoxy exotherm might be excessive, so you'd have to do small batches.  It's an untried idea.  Maybe cheaper than buying the 2 qt foam kit for such a small space.  :rolleyes:

Another day and a little more progress...

Out with the old!

Yee!  'Pretty sure the EPA won't let me toss those in the dumpster.

We changed the sole under the galley a bit.  It'll ride lower and be a little skinnier.  

...in with the new.

Had enough time to squeeze out a set of these today too.

Thanks to Karen and Jerry ( and Mark A. too) for timely article in Good Old Boat magazine.  It is a bit more 'complex' than I had originally planned but I like it much more.

Ebb, this post is for you.  Not a whole lot to look at yet.  

The s.s. bolts stick out about 5/8".  The outside it ready for a little more fairing compound.  

I took CPete's lead and bought some barrel nuts.  Each port will get 6 of them to hold the trim piece on inside.  The rest of the bolts get washers and nuts to hole the lite in place.

I'm leaning toward butyl as a sealant and then run a bead of whilte 101 around the opening to hide the black.  I dunno...that's a ways away yet.  things can change here in a day!

Whal arl be hornswaggled!
Believe I got the concept, didn't imagine the outer unframes so smooth.  No doubt 'see' it better with the shiney finish coat creating some shape and shadow.  And you'll paint the cabin color right up to the lite, right?  

Can't see why it won't work - it's truely hydrodynamic - great idea!  If I hadn't restored my frames I might steal it for 338.  It's real stealth!  Got a shot of the molds?  You must have said already but what reinforcement if any did you use in the pieces?

Might finish your system with butyl for the mere ease of maintenance (replacement).  Don't know what curves you got but they must be like 338's.  I'd guesstimate that the lites theirselves have about a 1/4" curve.  Curved lex will fit in there like hand in glove.

(Noticed with most sheet material and  my piece of 4X8 3/8" lexan that sheets have a natural side they want to curve to.  You know, balance the sheet on edge, sight down its length, and lo! there's a side that wants to bend more than the other, imco.   Anyway it's that curve that the plastic wants most to spend its life in.  Even after a piece is cut small like the window lite and it looks flat, it'll want to take a curve one way best.  This curve adds a lot of strength to a flat panel.  And I'd guess the natural curve has little stress.  You can persuade lexan into more of a curve with hot water, or even weight in the middle of a span for a period of time.  My method for 338's.  Don't think 1/2" lexan can be 'naturally' bent.  Aside from smoke grey lites. 338 will have a lexan main hatch slide and probably drop boards too.  All the curves, real & imagined, will be facing out! :eek: )

Your window invention is great!  Maybe the arguement is that if the butyl doesn't work for some reason you can easily upgrade to something nastier!  But the combers will slide right on bye!   And those bolts, what are they? 1/4" - and how many? well, Nuttin' is gonna stir them babies. :cool:

Ebb,
The basic mold/form for the ports is pictured in post #124 on this very same thread.  In that photo the holes have not been drilled yet.  The bolt spacing/placement was determined and holes were drilled on the mold to act as drill guides so every port should be the same (mechanically, and in theory, of course).  

The mix was a relatively loose mix of epoxy and cabosil with milled glass fibers(hate the stuff) and hand chopped roving fibers 1 1/2" to 2" long.  What a MESS!  The molds were clamped onto the previously shimmed and spot filled port openings.  Then the 'mix' was added, poked, twisted, pulled into place.  It really moved as one glob from the pot to the mold, and more than once I thought this is never going to work.  I was almost scared to knock the molds off when it was cured.  Thought for sure I'd be grinding the whole mess down and going with plan D or E.  But I'm stubborn and did the job in managable stages.

The bolts are 1/4".  I drew the original concept with smaller ( I forget the # size) but when I was standing in the aisle at the store I kept thinking these are way too small-I'll bend them trying to sand the filler.

There is a little bow in the openings.  That's why I'm leaning toward a butyl seal.  The stuff can fill iregularities with ease and it's not so bad to work with.

Sure wish I could get that high-build primer that you've been using.  The local SW can't/won't get it.

Quote from: Tony GI'm leaning toward butyl as a sealant and then run a bead of whilte 101 around the opening to hide the black.

You should be able to find white butyl. I got some at Ace Hardware for something like 2.50 a tube. I used 4 tubes, I think, on Dasein's 4 deadlights, 6 ports, and a couple of odd plastic fittings.

Nathan,

Thanks for the heads up at Ace.  I love my neighborhood Ace store.  While they may not be a true chandlery, it is the only place around here to find 5200 or a decent assortment of stainless fasteners.

Mike,

Well, the vacuum pump was a complete wash...We applied the K.I.S.S. principle and it worked just fine.  It was like sand casting, sort of, and upside down.

I taped the mold with packing tape, being the PVA turned out to be a PIA, then stapled the matt in place to keep it from sliding out of place.  The matt was heavily wetted and a layer of FG fabric was worked down over the top.  Cover the mess with lightweight plastic wrap and pack it six inches of sand.

After about four hours I dug it out and put some filler on the back and added some styro pieces for build up and waited another hour or two.  When it got to a real tacky state, I wetted out some more matt and covered the back again.  By night fall it was ready to come off the mold.

Here's what the cat coughed up...

Here's the top side.  You can see the lines from the tape.  Of course it still needs sanding and some filleting and fairing on the 'pretty' side.  The bottom will get some more reinforcing.

After nearly a week away from working on the boat I'm starting to fear I may not finish her in time for launch next spring :(

Here's a mod job by one of the previous owners.  While moving the backstay chainplate to the outside of the transom was a great move the knee adaptation left a little to be desired.

If you can see it on this archival photo, the modification consisted of sistering two pieces of 3/4" oak to the original knee, wrapping it with a piece of fiberglass( pasted right over the paint), then drilling four holes betweenthe sister and the original knee but only using the bottom three holes for attachment.

That just wouldn't do...

I dug around and found a 1 1/2" X 2 1/4" piece of white oak that should work just fine.  It was coated with epoxy and fitted, along with some styro fillets, into the lazarette.  I also added some transverse stringers back here for strength.

And while we were in the neighborhood I thought we'd remove the old mainsheet block pads.  This way, when we get to installing the traveller we won't have to do any custom scribbing and cutting.  I mean-come on-who's got time for that! :D

Tony, she'll be a one of a kind when you'r done with her!  And by the way, those are some fine looking scuppers, I must say!

Now you're cooking.

I think she's ready for sea

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/dorset/4203594.stm

Thanks Cpete, for that!
The Brits still seem to suffer fools and eccentrics more gladly than anybody.  Over here the guy would have ended up in the slammer and sent the bill for the chopper rescue. Except the USCG would not have considered it a life threatening situation and  left him adrift.  One thing to think about though is that hole in the landscape they call Lulworth that the guy, I guess, hailed from,  he shudda left there long ago! :eek:

I couldn't wait a day longer.  We're running out of good weather here for epoxy and painting weather is all but gone.  So I had to tackle that pesky deck/hull seam once and for all.

I seem to remember what a PIA it was to grind it out and now I know for sure it is a PIA to glass!  I looked back to C Pete's thread when he did it and every other post regarding the topic.  I decided to just go with 4" biaxial covered with 7oz. 6" tape and skip my initial plans to completely fill the cavity below the molded toe rail.

Here's what it looked like minutes before I started.  Everything in waxed paper and layed out in order.  cooler close at hand filled with cold packs to keep the epoxy from going off too soon.

Three years and one afternoon later...

Good.  Now that nasty job is done I don't need these setees hangin' around anymore.   ;)

I don't think I posted anything on the sea hood in a while.  

Here's a 'dry run' with the new hatch to check for clearance.  The dash board needs a little sealant to hide the outer seam and the display heads will add a touch of realism also.

Maybe I should have taped the covers up there for the picture?

Tony.
Like that pull on the slider!

Hull/deck seam
A L L
at one time??
Holy Mackerel :eek:

Had a tough day working.  Every hour or so I had to run outside to see what was flying overhead.  The local air museum is having a WWII exhibit.  B-17, P-51, Corsair (love that plane) and I think the Zero even took to the skies.  Wow!

Way back when I joked about shag carpet and curves.  Well, the shag might not happen.  I thought I'd try to make our own plywood today.  What the heck, if you're going to make plywood you might as well make radiused plywood, huh?

We knew we'd need a 24" chunk and at least a 33-36" piece too.  So I thought I'd make a jig that would pull a double duty.  It forms a 2 1/4" radius (in theory, that is) by pulling 1/8" plys into the jig using pipe clamps and heavy walled 4" PVC.  The 24" piece is setting up now as I type.  Maybe tomorrow we can slow down enough to get an action shot.

24" mode...

Holey cats my shop is getting filthy.  I need a day just for cleaning!!!

Here's a shot of 'Le jigue' in 36" modus.  I hope to try this setting out tomorrow.

Doing some excellent quality work there Tony.

What's the plan with them jigs?


This is supposed to be the last B-29 still flying

I ain't  much of a cameraman

..aint much of a cameraman!?!  Why Pete, I've been very fond of a number of the photos you've posted ;) deck hardware and nav aids to name a couple.

We're pretty lucky to have the Fargo Air Museum close by.  It's not a big facility by any means but the owner/curator has a heck of a collection.  Including a super corsair, one of eight remaining and the only one flying in the world.

Anyway, this is a sailboat site...

We're going to use the curved sections in the galley.  The shorter piece will form the inboard corner of the ice box.  That's right, I said ice box.  Well, ice box/navstation/com. center.  The longer of the two will form the inboard corner of the galley proper.  Those two rounded corners should save alot of shin skin.

After seeing the radius I with I could find some teak veneer fast.  I'd really shoot the wad on the main cabin.  But as it is, it'll probably be painted white to open things up a bit.  Maybe we'll put raised panels in the 'salon' to add a touch civility.

Cool beans Tony - I cannot wait to see your finished boat!  But I gotta say, after seeing that sign on your workshop wall, I'm sure glad nobody has any shots of you working!   :D

Icebox! in northern Minn., isn't that redundant ?

Looks great !

Tell me something......

How come you Ariel guys don't like the icebox?

Being able to reach a cold beverage while you're sitting in the cockpit.

Genius

This one likes it just fine!  Nice idea.

Can you give us a shot of your vacuum bag system?

Thanks guys.  

The sign was a b-day present from my friend that is a 'big-time' high end, anal retentive, finish carpenter.  He likes to make fun of me because I always(used to) refer to Norm Abram's New Yankee Workshop.  This guy has a wood shop I'd gladly live in.  Counter space gallor, every tool you'd need, doubles of most of 'em, TV and stereo mounted in a dust-free cabinet, blah, blah, blah...But he still has to go outside to pee.  So I chuckle at him, with my little hole in the dirt shop, because I'm one up on him.  I've got running water-every time we get a good rain :D

Frighteningly redundant!  Current weather: Highs in the sixties, lows approaching thirties.  Epoxy: Stiff!

Pete,  

The easy access cockpit available ice box is no more on 113.  Sorry, but I'd just end up falling overboard.

As promised, an action shot!

I think this is just about the entire arsenal minus a few big clamps.

Things are starting to slow down here as far as 'boat work' goes.  Of course, everything else is picking up.

I had a couple hours on Sunday to lay out some lines and cut a little wood.  Things are starting to take shape.

It's gonna be NICE!

This is no stretch of the truth.  Friday of last week it was 82 degrees here.  This morning, snow and a high in the upper thirties.  Boatwork season outside is pretty much over for me this year.  Oh sure, we can still cut and shape a few things, but epoxy and glue work is done.  Just last night I had to use a heat lamp over the radius jig to help the glue set.

Bummer.....

Sounds like you need heat in that well-used workshop of yours!  

No snow yet here, but the boat is scheduled to be hauled on the 17th.   :(  

Tony, I had an idea looking at your picture - how about an aft berth tucked up underneath your cockpit?  Look at all that room in there!  Then you could use some of the v-berth space for an enclosed head.  ;)

PS. BTW, this can't be said enough: VERY slick work!

Tony...obviously a 'labour of love'...lookin REAL GOOD !!! Keep the faith..and throw another stick in the stove.

epoxy I use is good down to 40, no blush.
one or two of those cube catalytic heaters
pointed into the ends of the boat
with the fans going will get it
like summer inside the boat for setting the resin.
Progressive can probably set you up with
some stuff that'll set up in Anarctica.

338 is gonna have curves too,
but nothing as grand as what you have!
WOW, kudos to your designer!
you're gonna beat me back to the water, RIGHT? :eek:

Quote from: mbdTony, I had an idea looking at your picture - how about an aft berth tucked up underneath your cockpit?  Look at all that room in there!  Then you could use some of the v-berth space for an enclosed head.  ;)

I've been thinking the same thing. I'm glad I've lived aboard for a while before doing any major work in the cabin. My design is evolving. :)

I know what I want to do in the v-berth (guest bunk on one side, cabinet/drawer stowage on the other), and the settees (somewhat). The back wall area of the cabin is what I've been pondering for the past couple weeks. What I do there will to some degree determine what the final arrangement of the settee area will be. A quarter berth tucked up under the cockpit (basically extending the current berth ~2' aft) makes a lot of sense - it puts a usually empty, but needed, area more into the stern of the boat, would provide a flat floor to the cockpit locker above, and will be a safer place to be bunked in stormy conditions, especially if, heaven forbid, repeated knockdowns or a complete capsize were to happen.

I did consider using that area right under the cockpit floor, but I think it would be too hard to keep dry, especially being right under the companionway. As I write, this thought comes to mind: if done properly this area could be made1) watertight and 2) detachable, thus being able act like a liferaft if the boat started to go down. Kind of a James Bond liferaft. Maybe whoever has Ariel #007 could do this. Know of any sources for explosive bolts? ;) :D ;)

Quote from: mbdPS. BTW, this can't be said enough: VERY slick work!

For sure! Kudos!!! :D

Water tight and detachable!  I gotta see a drawing! :eek:

A bunk under the c-pit was seriously considered here.  But that would require some serious rebuilding for supporting the cockpit sole, don't you think.  Couple with that, as Kurt pointed out, it could be a very wet area.

Quarter berths tucked on one or both sides like Ebb has done are alot easier to accomodate.  If we just had another 4-6 feet we could do something on the order of this...

Here's the pic of Ebb's under-cockpit quarter berth.

(http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussion/attachment.php?attachmentid=1104&stc=1)

From Ebb's Thread (http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussion/showpost.php?p=4861&postcount=65). (Can't get these images to show up for some reason, just the links to them...)

Dang it. I'v gotten used to sleeping on the *port* side, but this berth with Scott G's ex-icebox-lid illumination (see the Association Manual and/or Scott's page (http://www.solopublications.com/sailarip.htm#inter) ) would make things bright and cheery even on an overcast day. I've an old, huge bronze opening port that I considered mounting in the cockpit footwell sidewall for light and ventilation of the quarterberth foot area, it's something to consider perhaps with a version of Scott's mod, just on the other side. My current idea-ing is to put the icebox below where it currently is, a' la Scirroco...

(http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussion/attachment.php?attachmentid=73&stc=1)

Tony, that's an awful purty quarterberth and nav station. The compass rose inlay is gorgeous, and salty looking. In fact, everything in that pic is nice...

Kurt

An opening port would help out a lot for anyone slightly claustrophobic in one of those quarter berths.  I'd definately make a cover for the x-icebox hatch lite.  Just think of a wine hangover with the sun beating in on your eyes.  YEEH!!  I just made the room spin :eek:

Nothing stellar tonight.  I guess I'll just keep making pieces for the puzzle next spring-unless we get some really crazy weather.  for which, I'm ready to lay some glass.

As things come together some things are working out fine and others...

The ice box/nav station is okay as is the galley.  They are pretty much a straight forward installation.  Then there was that little bureau on the forward end of the starboard setee.  I didn't even plan on that one, it just sort of 'came together' the other day.

The port side setee will have a berth that tucks under the galley giving a desperately needed six and a half foot spot for yours truely.  That sill leaves 8+ inches for a water filter and misc. plumbing and 'stuff' storage.

The problem I'm running into now is coming up with storage behind the setee backs and still having enough room for a double berth across the main salon.  If I was only addressing sitting room it would be a piece of pie( :D ) but I need those 3 inches on each side.  

I'll have to hit the books over the next few days and try to come up with something.  Unless one of you guys has the right idea.

Tony,
Those curves ARE gorgeous, can already tell the interior will be fantastic.
Yesterday, sitting below, while taking a break from prepping the toerail, pondered the double berth quandry.  I have to go for even more length, width as well.

Remember your cushions will raise the level and create width for sleeping.
Could make the seat backs part of the double bed expansion with the bedding behind on one side (338 will be starboard.)  Could make one settee back without vertical partitians - still with the shelf on top - gaining more horizontal area to the hull.  Could even pad the hull.  

 

[I've almost convinced self to raise the sleeping levels to the height of the V-berth on 338's starboard side in the saloon!!!  Aesthetically dangerous!  But I am putting in a two seater dinette with a table that can be hinged up to get it quickly out of the way for the sleep mode.  Dinette seats same height as V-berth.  Raising up the platform means maximum width for lying down and more precious stowage.  

The double would take all of the aisle, of course.  In my case there has to be like four square at the companionway to take care of any vertical  business.  Would sit on the bed with feet down at foot of ladder.  Will design ladder that can be pushed under bridge deck.  Hopefully the commode between the V-berths is accessable.  But privacy and convenience would be better served with a camp commode out in the cockpit when the cabin is double berth. imco

The thing about the quarterberth that Alberg has in the Cape Dory is that it is an enormous volume.  I imagine it will be the sail locker on 338 (because I've put the platform low as possible) as the bags can be stood up into the usually unavailable space.  Might still have room there to keep daily gear out of the way.  The cockpit locker access seems inconvenient for getting sails in and out.]

Press on!   Curves ahead! :D

:eek: For Sleep Accomodations I Put A Removable Drop Board Between The Existing Port And Starboard Bunks.that Allowed Me To Sleep Athwartships With My Head Up On Either Tack.the Same Thing Occurred In The Cockpit And This Arraingement Worked Out Fine.there Were Times That I Woke Up In The Middle Of Nowhere And Completely Forgot That I Had Left.

Any new pics of your progress?  I am just starting my interior renovation and was very inspired by your work so far.

Oh my Gawd!!  Nearly a year gone by, already?!

I've been putting WAY too much time into this new store.  Think, half the time, and, twice the work.  Not twice the income :o   yee...

Well, you know how this works.  Excessive work must be balanced with an adequate, yet fair; no, equitable amount of boat stuff.  So far I haven't deviated from the original plans so very much.  But I will admit, the longer it takes me to finish this wonderful little craft the more toys she gets.

Autopilot.  This has been deemed a necessity by some and opulence by others.  Yes, there simple alternatives that won't breakdown, shortout, or suck up that precious electrical supply, but, after the first few weeks of working until midnight or three in the morning I figured it was earned and I might as well get one just in case!!  Besides, it will tie in with the rest of the electronics we've already purchased.

Stainless steel.  Well, I dunno what to say.  Maybe it was the new anchor that necesitated a bow roller.  The bow roller needed somewhere to sit and there is already plenty of wood to varnish.  So why not get a shiney perch for the pair to hang off of?  Yah, I'll take a bow pulpit to match.  You really have to don't cha?

I put those dorade boxes on and it's kind of a smallish boat and they're in a rather 'busy' spot with all the lines and stuff coming off the mast base so we (purely for saftey's sake, folks) ought to have some guards over them so we don't kick one or 'pop' one off into the drink.  Those babies are expensive!! :D

You have to agree with me, boarding ladders just don't look right hanging over the side midship.  Where else can you hide one but to disguise it in the pushpit?  Wouldn't work with the one that came with 113 so we'll just have a new one made that is split in the back a little off center to accomodate a flip-up, folding boarding ladder.  That way the 'front' and the 'back' of the boat will have the same amount of shinyness.

Hard Dodger.  I like them.  If you can attach a sun shade and sides while at anchor you've got mui-cabin.  I figure to build one properly I'd have to break down and assemble a vacuum bagging system.  So to that extent we shopped around and found some vacuum guages, vacuum switches, check valve, solenoid valve, reservoir tank, venturi valve, hand book on vacuum bagging, you know, the usual boat junk.  Can't wait to start!!!  Outboard shaft plug, winch islands, scuppers...oh yeah, 'just about forgot...the hard dodger ;)

I had once stated that this was going to be my lake home.  Since then the fact that life is indeed short has been forced upon me.  Why not the Bahamas?  Why not Belize?  USVI and BVI?  Even the Florida Keys are enjoyabe.  Eric, Frank, George, Zoltan, what do you think?

Anyway, that's what's news here at the Nude Honky Workshop.  

Tony G, in dire need of boat time....

Wow...lots of great ideas !! Thats the fun of redoing a boat...you have 360 degrees of possibilities. You end up with a very personal end result. My thoughts are..."do what ya want..but get it done and go sailing !"  The boat is MORE than capable of destinations you mention. The keys are very easy..very close and as tropical as ya can get at home...best part is from there , you are only a day sail to the Bahamas....work your way south from there and you are only a .......  ... ... ... ... !! The only thing stopping you is ...YOU. Have fun.

Tony -

News? Updates? Pics? :)

send out a search party boys,
Tony probably froze half way to the shop.
Bring im a beer, bring im some antifreeze!
Spring is on its way!!!

Still here crew.  2006 was all about the new store and things should lighten up shortly.  You know me well enough to realize that I never stop thinking boats!  I sneak into the office every now and again and drop-in here to see what's new.

2007 will hopfully have #113 ready for water.  I'm certainly ready to get back to her, and a year's neglect should be apptly corrected by shiney, new things.

Best wishes to all of you this coming year.

Glad you're OK !! Best of the new year to ya !  I am sure that given time , your ariel will turn out beautiful.....now give yourself a new years present.........TIME :D

This kinda sucks:p  

I've just gotta get back into boat work to save my soul.  So we're starting with 'baby steps' and what better stride than a vacuum bagger?  Mind you, I haven't even thrown the switch on this thing yet but it should work.  I mean, it's not my brain child.  All I did was copy one of Colin Cox's system found on his web site //www.buildinggalene.com.

Anyway, Ebb once asked to see my vacuum bagging system and it didn't even exist at that time.  So just to keep things right we assembled one.  It's venturi operated, controled by a vacuum switch and a solenoid valve.  

First on deck are new rails for a sea hood.  Yah.  The original design I toiled on for countless hours is not going to make the cut.  More looking and research and Ebb has driven me to a higher standard. Redesigned side deck scuppers, winch islands and of course the hard dodger and bulworks.  But here's the new idea...I call it Inspira'd la C Pete!  I'm thinking self-draining, insulated, molded into the cockpit seat DRINK HOLDERS!! :cool:

wow over kill. I haven't done that much, but I havent run into a situation where the vacuum needed to be regulated, the leaks in the bag kept is from crushing the core in my past foam projects and if the vacuum did exceed your Comfort range for the material your working with poke the bag, and most of the mechanical pumps are rated 100% duty cycle.

That all said, great system.

Keep us updated on the cupholder project.
Need to keep your priorities straight.

All I've got is a winch handle holder. This is reserved for the Captain's beer.

The crew is required to stay alert

You know, Pete, I read that post three times before I noticed the one tucked in the winch handle holder.  I guess I was more concerned about the beer that looks to be seriously close to peril:eek:

To make a short story long...I'm not a morning person at heart.  As a matter of fact I have a real tough time getting to bed before 1:00-1:30a.m..  But in order to get any work done on my 'love' I hit the shop door by 5:00 BIG cup of java in hand.

We made a template of the cabin top and tranfered that to some plywood stringers and made a (?) form to vacuum bag a hard dodger off of.  I think yu can see the lines that we're patterning the top to.  The curves came from the port frames that way we have some continuity.  The areas with the handles cut in will be cored with wood as will the attachment points.  The rest will be cored with foam.

Googled a set of instructions on building a hot wire foam cutter and I couldn't just let it go to waste!  We started with a 1/2" platform of Baltic Birch that gets epoxy coated (X2).  The base of the island gets 'pulled' over the ply and a styrofoam mold.  Once the epoxy cures we can remove the styro and put in reinforcement and attachment points.  

I don't know why I like them so much but I truely do covet winch islands:confused:

I keep running across these lovely S & S designs with what I imagine are salons NOT saloons coated in raised panels.  And who wouldn't love a Cherubini 44 or 48?  But who can afford a shaper and expensive bits.  

I knew there had to be an easy way to cheat at it.  Here it is...:cool:

Hey Tony,  Whatz the cheat?
Looks like you might be grooving for a slip in ply panel???
Nice handle!

On the winch islands:
I got non selftailers so a set up that would allow a jam cleat on the island is desirable.  

But I wonder if the cleat should be AFT OR FORWARD OF THE WINCH?  
Talking a non-race set up.  

Be great to see an actual successful working set up.  Does the cleat need to be on a plate and/or be set at an angle to be able to take the line off and on easy?  Should it be a jam or a clam?  The more windes on the winch the more a fair lead to the cleat is needed.

I had a hell of a time with selftailers, could never get the hang of it, the tailer part was always too short and the tailcatch too small for my big hands.  I'm thinking a longer lead to the cleat would make it easier and really less dangerous to hold and let go of a main full of heavy air???

It is the lead OFF the cleat that I want to get correct.  Want it to slip off and not hang up!  When the wind's up and the boat's tacking.

I'm assuming the styrofoam is to act as a form for laying up fiberglass to make a hollow form?  The hollow form will have a piece of mahog or teak on the top?

Gads!  It's the ubiquitous island orientation query...

I dunno, Ebb.  I've seen the winch to cleat orientation both ways.  Being you're planning on cruising, you'll probably be flying a big reacher or asymetrical much of the time.  In which case you'd maybe run the sheets back to a snatch block or foot block and would be better served by having the cleat in front of the winch.  My O'Day was set up that way with a jam cleat.  It seemed to work just fine and we never flew a chute on that boat.

You know, I've a pair of Lewmar 42 ST not doing anything.  You could use 'em to haulout:eek:

You can groove with that jig too.  I made it to cut the bevel or chamfer with a lip if you will.  Hike that blade up a couple of inches and lean it over a few degrees.  Then just clamp the blank and run her through.  Fast and safe without multiple passes to remove material.  No catching or tearing out either.

I don't know what the two highly crafted and shaped wood blocks are called that bridge the gap between our coamings and the cabin top are officially called, but mine are in pretty tough shape.  After studying them for awhile I don't think I have the tools, guts, or know how to make good enough replacements.  Besides, there will allready be plenty of wood to varnish on 113.

In the reconstruction phase I noticed alot of hairline cracks in and depressions of the headliner in the area where the above said blocks attach.  I realized that I wanted to remove some of the head liner to add a backing for reattachment and provide mounting points for cabinetry or whatnot.  Hopefully it will work out and I won't just make more work for myself.

 So to that extent I made up a couple more blocks of styro, got out the bevel guage and got busy with the saw.  (By the way, the hot wire foam cutter burned up the transformer allready.  We'll try again after this weekend...)  We also made up a platen to make vacuum bagging the forms easier.  We'll see about that!

Hey Tony.
The coaming breakwater whatjermacallits:
Doing it the old way:
After you glued up the requisite block of Mahogany 8/4 pieces,
you could cut the tapers and the rabbit out with the table saw.
Or be easier to bandsaw the tapers (two cuts) then cut the rabbit out on the table saw, no vacuum bagging.  Could jackplane the big round corner, no problem.

I just saw a 24 footer by TedBrewer.  It seemed inspired by Alberg.  Had a lazarette behind the cockpit.  Had the same LOW varnished coamings that you can't lean against
and can't sit on, if the boat is on 'er ear.  Or just see better forward around the cabin.

I've been threatening taller backrest coamings on Little Gull - which would mean taller breakwaters in the front off the cabin.  Like maybe 16"!  They would be big triangular baulks of wood.  The coamings are definitely Ariel trademark (even more so: Commander) and a good simple piece of glorious varnished teak or mahogany that really dolls up the ship.  A real tall coaming might NOT look so good, though.  And water volume could increase dramatically.

Reason says it would be possible to raise the coamings a bit, have winch islands, have stowage compartments, even make the coaming SITTABLE... with an added cap rail.  That's what I'm aiming at.


It's a quandry - I worried about it - just can't give up the  satisfation of that mahogany furniture.  And I don't know if I want to give up that elegant RUN of  coaming by breaking the eye with glass  winch islands.  They could be painted wood color. Tacky.  
I've tried to imagine the winch island laminated with mahogany veneer showing on the outside.  Capped with a piece of 3/4, who would know??  What do you think?  Can it be done?
The winch island also could be extended along the coaming to make  sometime sitting always possible.

And, now I'm thinking, looking at the coaming standoff models you got there that the same thing could be done with them.  Fiberglass with wood veneer.  Especially with that vacuum bag process.  Wonder if it could be done one shot or have to bag the veneer on separately.

Gotta see your vacuum bag process in action!:cool:
_________________________________________________________________________________________
The alternative:
Why not do the whole stretch of the coaming, all together....?  The coaming COULD be 5" or 6" across,
a narrow hollow fiberglass box,
would incorporate the winches anywhere on top without the bumpouts (islands)  Could be easy to face with mahogany.  Even on BOTH sides.....  The standoff/return/breakwaters at the front might have to be separate pieces.  But we expect that break there.  Sit anywhere on them!  There wouldn't be much stowage capacity unless it was heightened some.  The seatback inside the cockpit could be a open mahogany grid like  the galley has for bowls and cups.
Anyway, just a thought.  
Try to get the small of the back supported.  But try to keep the Alberg/Pearson proportions of cabin to coamings.  It'd be epoxied in, wouldn't leak!  The stow compartments self draining.  Think of the extra cockpit stowage.  But we'd lose the  side decks.  Would that really be so bad?

Add for a  backrest some tube rail at the right height that could be padded.  
And  could be grabbed once in awhile if you ever lost yer balance.  
Be great to have them in rough weather.  
And offshore they could have sunbrella panels and be incorporated into the spray dodger.  
The panels themselves might make a comfortable backrest too!:cool:

If we were more comfortable
would we'd spend more time sailing
???????????????????????????

Well, this is round one with the bagger.  I didn't even do a test pull for practice.  No time for wastin' I had one day off so we put all chips on the table.  

Worked like  champ!  One problem I over looked is the form leaked air in from a seam underneath.  That caused the compressor to run non-stop.  I didn't like doing that and I'm sure the smaller pieces will workout much better for the compressor.   At this point it's all 'blah-blah-blah'...let's get on with the pictures!:D

Am I reading it right:

"Tony's Nude Honky Workshop"?

L M A O !!! :D

(methinks it is probably a good thing that there are pictures only of the pieces being worked on, not of the workers!;) )

Quote from: Tony G;15931Well, this is round one with the bagger.  I didn't even do a test pull for practice.  No time for wastin' I had one day off so we put all chips on the table.  

Worked like  champ!  One problem I over looked is the form leaked air in from a seam underneath.  That caused the compressor to run non-stop.  I didn't like doing that and I'm sure the smaller pieces will workout much better for the compressor.   At this point it's all 'blah-blah-blah'...let's get on with the pictures!:D

Tony, two questions....

1.  How are you sealing the edges of the bag to the form?  It looks like one side has a piece of angle aluminum clamping down one edge.  What about the other edges?

2. Did you say that you had a pair of Lewmar 42's sitting around doing nothing.....
....
What would you sell those for?  
....
Lewmar 42's would make ideal secondaries on my big boat.

Agreed.  Tony, Please let us in on the PROCESS.
Would like to see a photo series on bagging - with commentary.:D

something!


I just wallowed around in an old thread that's up on the Board currently.  That's the Exterior Varnish thread willie started in 2004(?)

Anyway there are pics of his Ariel #350 with VERY shippy winch peninsulas.

I'm glad a fossil thread has been restored again.  But I really miss the guys who aren't posting anymore....sniff....
BIG THANKS to those who chime in and continue to make this a wonderful spot to visit!

"Anyway there are pics of his Ariel #350 with VERY shippy winch peninsulas."
 
Wow!!!!!!!

KM  

1.  Being the cheap skate that I am I currently use a 3M window insulating kit for 'mastic' and 'bagging film':eek:   No kidding!  It was hanging out in a corner of the shop and I thought, "let's just give it a try."  I suppose I will eventually have to order some professional grade 'stuff' but until this is used up, or doesn't work any more, I'll stay the course.

That aluminum channel was a last ditch effort to seal what I thought was the culprit seal letting in the air.  It turned out to be somewhere else.

B.  Yes I have a pair of 42 STs up in my boat supply room.  I sent you a private message.

Ebb

I started taking a series of pics last night on the whole bagging process as I do it.  I won't say that I'm doing it right, but when I first started looking into this process there seemed to be alot of DIY techniques.  Some kind of sketchy and tight on info.  So I thought we'd buy a manual from the Gougeon Brothers.  It turned out to be a general info guide and a bunch of sales lit.  Go figure.  Then I tried contacting a few people actually doing it.  Jack pot.  Turns out it's not rocket science!  We'll see what happens...:cool:

Finally got a couple of days off and went to see the boat.  What a gal...

I've had this idea in my head of what I thought was appropriate or good or right.  No.  After sitting for what must have been hours I resigned to the fact that the boat would tell me what should happen.  Things went much smoother then.  

Here's the nav desk area, galley drop-ins, area where the refer will go (Engle35),another nav area, companionway shot, cockpit storage access.

Oops.  Reached the five photo max.  I guess if I did this more often I'd know about these 'rules'.  

We added the port side nuthin' photo.

At last, new pics from Tony, and worth the wait!  I am absolutely in love with those elegant curvacious corners. Very chic!

Thanks for the update. :D

Ah yes, curves, girls and boats.  
And it is worth the effort.  Right?

Aside from the engine room and strange stuff we have to carry for parking - we must to find room downstairs for a kitchen, a parlor, an office and bedrooms.  On a Midget Ocean Racer Cruiser.

And we all have it our way, those of us who are rearranging one of the smallest cruising sailboats.  We will have very different interiors when done,  yet all with the purpose of comfort and beauty and sailing far.

It's a great thing to be doing and a great thing to share.

"And morc to you, sir, morc and morc!"

Tony,

  What a super cruising interior!  The need for a good place to put the laptop is a real issue now.  My used-to-be-icebox turned nav table was less then ideal.  I ended up with a few makeshift ideas* that were never really suitable.  I really like the working surfaces you have built in, and think you will really enjoy them.

  Thanks for the update, look forward to more pictures of your awe inspiring work!











  *Cruising with a medium-large dog has it's challenges.  In looking for things to prop up a board to put the computer on I did at times utilize the back of my sleeping Lab.... thus creating the 'Lab-top computer'.... :D

Quote from: c_amos;17468I did at times utilize the back of my sleeping Lab.... thus creating the 'Lab-top computer'....

Hehe!!

Tony, are you planning to put the sink back in its original location there on top of the counter?

Thanks for the compliments, captains.  I'll be the first to admit I stole every idea incorporated into Dream Weaver this far and 'we aint done yet!'  

Still desperately searching for the best possible work surface/table arrangment.  I thought we had found it in Frank's Revival but after changing 113's galley around it won't work there.  The nav table refer location is mainly an inn table for the library.:D not really a ergonomically desirable work station.  I'm back to eyeing the main bulkhead again.  I seem to remember someone, somewhere storing a table on the overhead in their v-berth.  That may be a viable option and if anyone out there has a link to that boat site.......

The sink is going back in pretty much the same spot it came out of just a little higher and a little closer to the centerline and a little farther forward.  I think we'll valve the drain though before it ties into the cockpit scupper drain and seacock assembly just for good measure.  Hopefully that will still leave enough room for the gimballed kerosene cooker and some outboard storage under the side decks.

Any thoughts, comments or concerns are welcome.  Oh yeah, real world advice is greatly appreciated!

Among the many well thought out features, the Albin Vega 27s have a very slick table setup, which includes stowage above the v-berth area. Sorry, no pics here at work, but you can probably find some on Yachtworld...

Hot, humid weather finally!

Found the oportunity to sneak up to the boat again.  We took all of the main cabin furniture out and epoxy sealed the backsides, edges and bottoms of it.  Then back to the boat where a few final cuts and shaping had to be done.  And finally some hot, sticky weather to inaugurate the epoxy in tight spots season!  Ahhh.  It's officially summer.

Having recently given thought to the electrical system I decided I had to commit to a wiring chase forward from the electrical panel.  That included a 3/4" PVC pipe through the main cabin and just through the mainbulkhead.  Then we picked up a 1/2" PVC pipe to run through the v-berth area into the chainlocker/peak to handle the wiring run for the forward navigation lights.  Of course this would involve hacking my way through the ceiling battens I applied to the hull some time ago.

A good friend left me some of his tools and in that odd collection I found the perfect beast!

Along with the wiring chase I made way for the plumbing to run from the head in the v-berth back to the holding tank under the cockpit much like Theis' set-up.  

I used short pieces of PVC just large enough in diameter to allow the 'flexable' plumbing to run through the bulkheads and setee dividers.  The flexible plumbing will be caulked where it passes through the PVC stubs so the setees will be water tight (in theory).  

The edges of the holes were coated with unthickened epoxy first, then the PVC was wrapped in wetted matt and carefully 'twisted' into place.  Later, after given a little sanding  an epoxy fillet was added to smooth things out.

Being these funiture pieces are not really structural and I wanted to expedite the whole process and save a little epoxy, I hot-glued these little styro wedges in for 'fast fillets'.  A quick pass with a 1-1/2" sanding drum chucked in a drill gives a nice smooth form to lay tabbing over.

We have all this re-sawn ash to use up so I thought as long as I'm waiting I might as well add some ceiling battens to the hull on the starboard side below the cabinets.  This time I decided to use some of the 1/8" baltic birth ply lying around to make some curved battens that follow the hull's form.

The curved furniture pieces got a final shaping and are glued in place.  Well, on the starboard side at least.:o

Nice work, Maestro...{insert bowing emoticon} Can't wait to see more, and those lovely interior curves - she's gonna be a *beauty*...

The styro fillets - have thought of the same, they make perfect sense for straighter runs, no need to get 'gloppy' if you don't have to! :cool:

Another day, a little closer...I did not shape these syro fillets with the sanding drum before the tabbing went on.  I just wanted to see how the glass would take the sharper corners.  Being it was a light (6oz.) fabric it flowed from surface to surface just fine in my opinion.  If it were a truley structural seam with a heavier tabbing schedule a fillet would certainly be in order to reduce the stress on the bonding fabric.

A few years ago I made a mahogany frame/base for the Bomar forward hatch.  And then one day I saw a picture of Periwinkle's forward hatch.  Love at first sight:rolleyes:...

So this weekend I 'redoned' it.  Starting with redesigning the frame to put the hatch's top surface on the same plane as the main cabin's top as it has a slightly different angle than the forward cabin's top. That alone was an improvment.  This new one will get a GRP skin giving me the chance to play with the vacuum bagging system again:D

First shot shows how much the previously enlarged opening will get 're-enlarged'.  Then the dirty deed has been done.  Next is the wood frame scribed to the interior overhead.  Finally some styro has been added which will be sanded into shape and later covered in fiberglass.

Tony, NIZE JOB on that hatch install!

and that mottled paint job is tre unique.
Couple clear coats and you'll definitely have an eye catcher!

I like the "cryptic" subliminal message too.  Let us know if it works! ;)

Tony

great interior!.. your forward hatch install is cool. will the birch ply on the interior be finished bright (while the exterior is GRP)??

cheers,
bill@ariel231:)

Ebb, I'm pretty sure this is the longest on going paint job in A/C history:o

The sign didn't work, Mike.  Found myself drinking dark & stormys at the end of the day.

Thanks, Bill.  The inside will be painted white.  We have been toying with the idea of ash strips on the overhead to hide the p.o.'s plywood remod.  We're far from done though, and as this thread demonstrates, things change!

Well, here's something I was not planning on doing today-or ever for that matter.  But the grinder made a lot of noise going over it and sounding it with a screw driver confirmed it (sounded like a bongo).  It will be solid when we're done.  Bummer.  That's another 3 or 4 days of work added on to the heap.

On the up-side, I did get to break out the vacuum bagger.  And for anyone out there wondering, taffeta does work as a peel-ply for the poor man.  Fortunately for me my mother is a top-notch seamstress and I now understand that taffeta is a fabric and not a food item.  Woa!

Capt T.
Looks like you got some breatheing ports into the foreward stateroom going there ??  What kind of cowls will you use?  Dorades maybe?

Keep up the good works!:D

Ebb, sir

Somewhere in this thread is a pic of these dorade boxes I tried to make with, then, the last of my teak.  (rasberry) We can do better.  Bigger, not because it's better, but because it will add less resistance to air flow.  Larger weep holes because there is more water than I think 'going on'.  Plastic because I don't want more maintenance.  

I'm fooling with some designs that tie into the rise between the forward cabin top and the main cabin top in an effort to make the things less noticable.  We scored on some ABI 3" vents a few years back.

...when do we get some new pics of Little Gull?  I'm running out of ideas to steal...come on-give...

Tony,
Built-in, glassed-on, dorades sounds good!
One arguement might be that the structures would give you some excelent foot bracing while at the mast.  
You know, instead of those bling stainless tube valets you were thinking of.;)

Once a hatch, then a seahood (questionable ), next a dorade box?  That's the plan anyway.  Something solid enough for footing, but, I'll keep the stainless guards/handholds for the dorade vents.  Thoses babies are expensive!

We finally ditched the makeshift ladder I've been climbing up and down for the last howmany years...  But I knew we'd have to shave the threshold down a couple of inches to keep that first or last step from being too much of a stretch.

The forward hatch is glassed in at last.  Just some fairing compound and tons of sanding.:cool:

Er....
Tony, doesn't this picture right above us here (264)
show a bump-up sea hood almost like 338s?  It's a hatch garage - correct?
Mine is also pretty tall and that aesthetic Nag became agitated.  But I prevailed!
"Form follows function, you fool..."   Stuff like that.
Which may be the reason you're cannibalizing yours?

Takes courage to do something over again.  Because we were SO sure the first time....

What I've been mulling over though is to use the height of my hood, there is a good argument to convert the forward volume where the hatch doesn't go into a dorade - two 3" cowls positioned near the sides and a single 4"D opening below in the middle.  Would guess drainage would be quite efficient with the opening vent on the very top of the coach roof crown.  

Buried somewhere in my notes:
Positive it was a well established designer that came up with the formula and drawings for a dorade that DRAWS IN air - it had to do with cowl size, interior volume, where the baffles are and how restrictive, and the opening to the inside.  Some dorades  work too passively.  
Access plates and the cowl are big expenses these days.  One idea I like is to install access/mounting ring directly over the hole inside - so that  the cowl can be moved there for straight through air.


Watch that jig-saw!  Beautiful works there Tony ----- keep her going!!

Somewhere in the piles and piles of boat photos we have an older, beauitful, European built woodie that has a dorade box just like what you're talking about... I think it might have come from the Abeking & Rasmussen site.  Anyway, I bought cowls with way too high of a profile.  That RBV would act like a bat and send me slack-jawed into the briney to recover the shiney.

Lower profiled cowls would probably work right there and the inclusion of vent protectors might even work as a good attachment point for lines or organizers.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>*<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Instead of adding new posts to the thread I've just been using the edit feature to add new pics.  Epoxied the new outer skin onto the dorade boxes this morning.  Hopefully we will finish the inside layers tomorrow.

Well, too much job and not enough 'work' getting done.  If you know what I mean;)  The nice thing...on Sunday the temp was in the 80's and the humidity was in the 70's.  Love that mix.  Seriously.

Got a couple of hours of work done today.  Uh-boat work that is, and only after meeting my obligations at the job that pays the bills.:o

Started laying the foundation for the garage.  This includes pitched 'drains' that empty into the cockpit.  Placement of sacrificial mmm, 'stuff' for the hood scuppers and shaping the wadda ya callit backwall...

Next we'll make a foam nose cone and add some sexy-smooth taper to the sides of the rails.  Then out comes the grinder again.  Yee-Haw!!  After puttin a groove on the roof top we'll glue everything in place.

We ground a groove around the structure that has a 1/8" to 3/16" deep dish about 1 1/8" wide to accept the bulk of the tabbing.  Outside of that groove there is a 1/16" deep by 1 1/8" wide area to take the top layer of cloth and fairing compound.  These measurements, while not exact, are depths into the actual FRP not the paint or gel coat.

Looking really good Tony!
 
:D
 
Would love to have had those cowls in the Bahamas... not to mention the sea hood. Really wish we had one on one dark and stormy night anchored off of Little San Salvador.. (http://sailfar.net/forum/index.php?topic=72.msg12634#msg12634)
 
(http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10014/HalfMoon%7E0.JPG)
 
This was taken the next moring... we spent the day drying out all our cushions and bedding... everything onboard was so soaked it was like someone had turned on a fire hose below. All of the water had come in one place... the small gap under front of the sliding hatch.

Most of the last couple of days has been spent cleaning and painting the inside of lockers.  Not much to look at there, just white bilgekote.  

Started giving some more thought toward storage and workspace in the \-berth.  Can't really call it a v-berth any more because we stole 1/3 of the space, mainly the port side for storage, there by changing the 'V' in v-berth to a '\':D

One noticable difference in her appearance is the addition of foam to the sea hood and rails.  Hopefully we'll have everything covered with x-matt, 17oz. roving and 7 oz. fabric by mid week.  I'd like to get started on the coamings before it starts getting cold:(.  After all, cold weather is grinding season!!:D

Have no idea why some of these pics are so dark.  Maybe Bill could come to Minnesota to do a photo shoot.  His shots always seem to turn out flawless!

After the longest five days of my life waiting for more epoxy to show up we finally got the last two layers of fabric down on the seahood!

So all totaled we have two layers of 1/8" baltic birch, one 1/4" layer of closed cell foam, two layers of 8 oz.fabric, three layers of stitched matt, two layers of 17oz. roving and a cover of 6 oz. fabric.  That may seem like a bit much but it may get stepped on accidentally and I wanted that styro nose solid.

Now, if I can just figure out how I want to mount the traveler we can get started on the cockpit coamings.

Looks top notch Tony... care to do it again on Faith? :D
 
  I sure do like the traveler aft... especially for a cruising boat.  Works well for going below, and the loose footed main seems to want end of boom sheeting IMHO.... but then there is a great big old thread on that IIRC... :p

Craig

I'd love to help with anything on Faith.  I must have been dropped alot as a baby because I don't mind the itchy, I don't mind the cramped spaces checking something twenty times to see if it fits yet doesn't really bother me either.  But, I really get annoyed when I epoxy my hair to the back of my head:mad:

End of boom sheeting really does seem like the logical answere precisly for the reasons you mention.  Way, way back when Bill first shared his mainsheet set-up on 76 I ran out and bought one based on his unfettered praise.  (going to copy his outhaul assembly too!)

My big hurdle now is wether to mount the traveler on the coaming, outside/behind the coaming or inside/forward of the coaming.  On the coaming I would have to eliminate or reduce the amount of arc on top of the coaming that would mirror the lovely curve of our deck.  Outside would be ok but then we have to add fairleads or tubes through the aft wrap of the coaming and move the traveler car control line camcleats to the inside of the coaming.  Inside would be easiest for traveler operation and mainsheet set-up, however, I keep seeing some really tough angles and crevices to lay glass into.

For a while now each time I go up the ladder into the cockpit I look at that general area and no revelation yet.:confused:  Anyone have an idea?  A picture or two?

Found another candidate,(No, not one of those kind), and a Carl Alberg design to boot.  What if the coaming wrapped around the lazarette hatch?  Then the traveler could stay in the same spot, I could have my arc in the aft part of the coaming and maybe add one of those bimini tops that drop aftward!  Ooo! 'just gave myself goosebumps!:p

I like the turning blocks.  They would lend a kind lead to the winch if we're flying the MPG/Asym.

Flying biminis on sailing condos seem to be the rage these days.
Sept/Oct '08 Good Old Bateau has a guy talking about his 39 footer with a split-level transom.
"Two practical uses for two stays aft"
Split or double stays can mount the radar on a cross tube.
And also if you have a detatch tube frame bimini you can anchor it between the two wires aft.

An interesting variation having a 'mid-boom' gallows is explained. It also anchors the forward end of the bimini.  And the author mentions we builder types start from  unassailable points of view planning and building and then have to make  important changes after gaining experience sailing it.  

It's hard to figure where the mainsheet leads are.
His furled mainsail in the lead photo is one of those that incorporates a fully deployed sunbrella cover along the boom when the sail is up.

The dodger like the bimini is an all tube, rag and isinglass affair.  It all looks like  it can be taken down and stored below in case of a hurricane.

Hey Tony

Excellent work.

Sounds like you're planning a wraparound coaming. Would look nice, and provide more comfortable seating on top.

I cant see a good reason to have mid-boom sheeting if you have a boat where the boom reaches the end of the cockpit.

I would try to make the traveler as wide as possible. On many boats you only have about a foot of adjustment on either side--limiting the effectiveness of the traveler.

Here's what a few builders have done:

1st pic is a Schock Harbor 25

Next 2 pics are the Harbor 20

Then you have an Alerion Express 28 and 33

I hear what you're saying C-Pete.  Used to "sail" on a C & C Mega 30 that had one of those 24" travelers right through the cockpit and of course at shin hieght.  It was a bit of a challenge to move it to windward, or move it period, specially if the skipper thought he was Dennis Connor.  Thinking back I'm amazed nobody lost a finger or more.  Sometimes I wonder who was a bigger dolt, him for his actions or me for sticking it out.

I was hoping to use the full length of track which is four feet if memory serves me well.  Of that length you lose 3-4 inches from both ends for car control blocks and cam cleats, but, that still leaves quite a bit of travel for a 26 foot boat with a 11(plus) foot boom.  Between the halyard, cunningham, boom vang, out haul and traveler...oh yeah, mainsheet there should be enough sail shape control to pass the time getting from point A to point Z.

I did some rough drawing on one of the profile diagrams found in the Assoc. manual and a coaming that stretches all the way back and around the lazzarette hatch doesn't look bad at all to my eye.  The lines coming off of the forward cabin 'shoot' back to a point just above the stern.  This 3-day weekend will hopefully afford me enough time to pattern a full scale mock up of the perimeter dimensions.  Then we can really see the difference between paper and plastic.:p

Have a good Labor Day all.

I think ebb is incorporating the more ergonomic non-horizontal coamings.

There is probably an ideal % for the most comfortable recline

Hinckley DS42

Ah wood luv to circumslide mah butt around that teak rail from pote to stahbrid... one cool and dewy mornin.:cool:

The more I've dwelled on what to keep and what to change, the more I feel our straight coamings are salient features that can't be messed with without a fight.
 Straight sheer, straight brown "take off" coaming lines.  Straight boot stripe, straight loose foot boom.  All play in the sweetness of the Alberg design.  

It's getting harder for me to mess with the guy's harmony. I've come to realize that a  stripped down virgin Commander with those tall mahogany coamings is unparalled.
There isn't a mo'bucks Hesperian with a hot-tub cockpit can touch  that rare and timeless style!

Geez!  Something as simple as making a form for these coamings is surprisingly difficult!  I can't find a line that goes behind the lazzarette hatch that looks smooth.  Trying to mimic a CD36 coaming just doesn't fit on our deck (go figure!).  The CD 330 and 36 have much wider decks back by the cocokpit and accomodate the wide sweep of the coaming right around and behind.  Ours are a bit too...pinched?  If you bring the aft portion of the coaming right through the middle of the lazzarette hatch, however, it looks pretty good.  Sooo, the new thought is incorporating the aft section right into the lazzarette hatch...  Then I thought, do I want a smaller hatch in the lazarette hatch or should I split it down the center line making it a left or right or both type of hatch?  This is starting to seem like a lot of work just to reduce maintenance.  Especially when you consider I'm adding mahogany toerails and rubrails.

Tony,
It sounds like you are serious about a fiberglass coaming?
Just surfed  by an aluminum Dudley Dix in the making.  The angle of coachroof sides is carried aft in a clean sweep to a 2 step transom.  That angle visually becomes a very important part of his design - like a facet of a crystal.
The Dix is wide enough so that the cockpit coaming does not have to bump out like ours has to.  
Still, a hollow coaming on the Ariel could be made using the seat-back and the coach-roof ANGLES with a nice sculpted curve out from the coach corner.  Have to sacrifice some sidedeck to take the wide footprint of this style of coaming.
   
(Maybe worth a mock up.  I'm using office supply illustration board.  It's about 1/16" cardboard, stiff, excellent for nice long curves.  But also if its sponged with warm water and bent over a form, it'll dry into a more radical curve.  And you can almost get a form to use as a mold if you double up and Titebond  bent cardboard forms together to get nearly 1/8" thickness.)
 
It might be possible to get a 3" or 4" top  flat across the angled panels that could be capped with wider mahogany for sheet winches and for sitting on occasionally.   In CPete's post #276, the 'Nahma' illustrates what I'm trying to say. The sweep out from the coach-roof corners....  the coaming is obviously hollow and is capped.  On the Ariel, to get some back support, the coamings would have to be taller and therefor the footprint wider, robbing the sidedeck.  Anyway I think the angles are important to have it look like Alberg (or Dix) had a hand in it!  

Fiberglass.
I would lay it up over a male foam (or press-board, or cardboard) mold because there are fewer steps that way - tho the finish is harder to get than if you did it in a female mold (which imco is even more of a pita).
OR... maybe a  veneer of mahogany could be glued on both inside and outside to finish.  With a nice cap  nobody would know.  And areas of the hollow inside could be  useful for storage if you dared  cut holes in the coaming/seat back.  Eh! Hell, whynot?

Really don't have to go with the curves that fiberglass skin can do.  All round single plank coamings with cockpit corners cut from laminated blocks can make bodacious curves too.  They be 'posts' front and back like the ones against the coach.  You do see coamings sometimes where the posts have been bandsawed with an inside curve too.


Whatever we do with fiberglass is going to end up heavy.  1/8" to 3/16" frp in a hollow coaming of any height is a lot of square feet.  The ole Mahogany coaming is relatively lite.  But if you want a three D coaming that is hollow inside why not Dudley Dix and use aluminum sheet???  It'll paint up like the rest of the Ariel - and be even less weighty.

:cool:What would we do without CommandoPete's always right-on pictures? Eh!
______________________________________________________________________________________
H m m m m....
How crazy do you want to imagine?
If you have an inside diesel planned, that may mean you don't need the lazarette in its present form.  So,  Imagine the cockpit seats going across the back BEHIND THE TILLER.  It could be a lot like one of the two boats in your post 271.  Then you might mold in those nice radiused corners you like so much:D.
'Course then you end up with a similar problem to mine: where does your mainsheet traveler go???  (My answer is: to hell with the traveler!  and go back to the double deck blocks the Ariel originally had...)

You'd have a longer cockpit apparent. You'd even have storage in the thwart seat locker for an anchor and a bunch of other stuff!

And all the Commanders in the fleet would finally have Ariel envy!!!

We are trying ever so hard to incorporate angles, curves and lines allready present in Dream Weaver's original design as to keep the remod as remeinescent of Alberg as possible.  Hopefully in the end we will not only benefit from the well founded design of a great naval architect but also have a boat that doesn't look too ugly because of all the changes.  

The current idea is a coaming that provides good support for the back, has additional storage available for lines and such and can hold a butt cheek or two.  There are a couple of designs out there I gravitate back to-Cape dorys, the newer Hinckleys, Alereons, Cabo Ricos, Great Dane-you get the picture.  The hitch is the 'hatch'.  The best looking spot for the aft wrap appears to be athwartship midway through the lazarette hatch.  So I'm thinkin new hatch that is even with the top of the traveler track on the inside of the coaming aft and deck level outside of the caoming.  That way when on the hook one could slide the boom and traveler over to one side and cozy up in a nice curved aft corner.  

Also been giving serious thought to splitting the hatch into two just to the side of the centerline, incorporate some overlaps for strength and added seal surface.  That way one could get in the lazarette without having to open the entire area.  Its starting to get more complex than I'm looking for though.  We are getting snow today so I'll have plenty of time to think about this one:(

Tony, with all that business going on in the aft of your cockpit, maybe you should reconsider mid-boom sheeting and move the traveler to the coach roof and away from the bottoms trying to find a cozy spot? It might make getting at your engine a bit easier too.  

Also, I think Admin Bill should give you a demerit for mentioning that 4-letter s-word.  :mad:

If you are going to cruise the Ariel, you'll probably raise the boom so you can move freely in the cockpit without loosing your head.

Midboom on the Ariel is exactly over the bridgedeck.  If you are going to dodger it, you will probably make that tall enough to get in and  out without fuss.

Instead of putting the traveler way forward over the hatch where the forces are probably tripled to control the boom,  I think the traveler  could be designed to go over the cockpit end of the dodger.  In such a way that fingers are protected.  A hard   dodger can be designed to help take the forces of a traveler.  The block spread on the boom would be further aft, easier to haul, and probably have shorter tails.  The almost flat top dodger design that Tony has designed would be PERFECT!

You may still have to have a new boom made, especially if a rigid vang is rigged along with the extra blocks.  Traveler lines would probably stay at the forward end of the cockpit rather than draped over the tiller and tangled under foot like most have.

An independent arch for the traveler over the dodger could also be used for the forward end to fly a bimini or rig a snug tent.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
When I asked Sponberg (Yacht Design Inc.) what he would do about headroom in L.G.'s cockpit,  he simply raised the end of the boom leaving the gooseneck in its original position on the mast!  That's how it's gonna be on Little Gull.

Quote from: ebb;18171...he raised the end of the boom leaving the gooseneck in its original position on the mast.  That's how it's gonna be on Little Gull.

Why? To retain more sail area by keeping the forward end low? Is that a better shape for a loose footed main? Inquiring minds would like to know. :rolleyes:

The hard dodger location seems like a winner, or, probably been mentioned somewhere here, how about incorporating a traveler and a boom crutch?

Mike,
I don't really know.
It's a pretty small main.

Also at the same time I asked him to do the geometrics and areas on flying  jibs on a three foot bowsprit.  That lowers the original stay on the stem to a baby stay position on the mast and moves centers of efforts around.

If you are interested in seeing the Ariel-as-a-cutter math I'll make a copy and send it to you.  The sail plan retains Alberg's original circle-and-crosses.

Maybe you can make sense of it from a sailor's point of view.

I would really like to see it CRITQUED.
(I don't mean necessarily by you unless you want to of course - but by ED or Craig, say, who look at sails a lot.)

If it's not too much trouble, Ebb, please do. I'm certainly no sail maker or yacht designer, but I'd love to see it. I really like the idea of a cutter rig. Seems like it would make sense for you long-term cruisers, too. You could fly 2 head sails on your downwind legs. (I like the idea of an eventual double headstay for my coastal cruising ambitions too. Or really, a roller furler and an inner stay just aft of the original position that could fly another head sail or a storm jib if needed.)

It seems like you'd need a mizzen to balance a 3-foot bowsprit. But what would be really cool is your 3-foot bowsprit cutter with a mizzen mast to balance it out. Not sure what that would be called - a cutter-rigged yawl? Or, how about increasing the size of the main to balance the bow sprit and make a gaff rigged cutter?? That'd be soooo cool.

(Oops! Sorry Tony - back to our regularly scheduled thread.)

Don't recall if Mike Goodwin rigged his Ariel as a yawl before he sold her.  There was talk and photos here on the Forum.

There would have to be a boomkin added to the stern.  But the idea is intriguing. Being able to tune the rig with smaller sails is good for a cruiser.  And in light winds having even more wings and balance would make it that much more fun.

There's a cost in adding weight to the ends of an Ariel.  I've got a beautiful pipe bowsprit ready to be fitted to the fordeck.... but I wonder sometimes if it can be made lighter as a single spruce spar.


Tony, like Mike I apologize for the sidebar!:o

Tony, Mike,
I didn't respond completely to Mike's remark in post 285 where he says that perhaps the dodger top that extends over the companionway into the cockpit
can be designed to have three major functions?

It can be a place for the traveler.  
Tony's original proposal for his dodger which is wide across the top would be ideal for a wide versatile traveler.
Boom gallows support
could be built in there also..  While not ideal, the boom could be immobilized well enough for a storm sail to be rigged.  Perhaps with a temporary crutch added at the cockpit end.
And of course the bimini

Finding the ideal point over the cockpit to terminate the dodger, making it tall enough to make it easy to get in and out below, yet aesthetically pleasing and comfortable to sit under... is the challenge.
Having a traveler there will mean the dodger edge has to be designed as an arch to take the loads the mainsheet will put on it.  The dodger will be structural, not a casual addition.

But it does seem like a natural.  
Maybe the only real problem is going forward with the main sheets at that elevation over the side deck.  It's am arguement to keep the sheets at the aft end of the cockpit.

  I'm wide open to your ideas and solutions.  Our dodgers are definitely part of the solution.  May be it IS the solution.  I'll be watching....and hoping...
___________________________________________________________________________________________
By the by - You can't have midboom sheeting if you have a loosefoot main.

MG did not get around to rigging a mizzen on his old Ariel.  Initially I thought that would be a great addition to the sailing arsenal.  That highly coveted mizzen spinaker you know.  But once you tack on a grill, some adjustable solar panels, boarding ladder, rod holder, parasail platform(?), well, there just wasn't enough room!  A removable inner stay and a short bowsprit for the MPG would probably be complimented by a mizzen for balance.  But I'd hurt myself with all those lines and stays!!  

Dodger topics never get old and go away.  I personally would over build a dodger/gallows/traveller arch to the extent that if Dream Weaver rolled she'd stay bottoms up!  I lack the engineering skills that others here possess.  Seriously, because of the cost of a new boom and the fact I live in the middle of the country far, far away from any reputable, economically feasable mfg/shipper plus  we already own a brand new Hood loose footed main, our traveller will stay in the aft end of the cockpit.   If the whole coaming 'thing' comes off like I envision, having the traveller there really shouldn't be a problem.  Think the dodger will come from a Steve Marshall concept with the lines a little closer to a tube framed traditional. UNLESS!  Someone can post a picture of a really sharp looking hard dodger on the dodger thread [hint hint].  It aint over yet!

Sorry, no hard dodger pics. I'm still stuck on the boom crutch/traveler/wrap around coaming. Maybe these pics are useful for some ideas? (I love catboats.)

You're on to something here Tony!

A Com-Pac sun cat, a 23' Menger Catboat, then a 22' Marshall Catboat...

They say we dodged the bullet this weekend.  Meaning we only got 4-7" of snow, minor blowing and windchill temps around -40F:eek:  It gets worse!?!

Nothing like winter weather to get me thinking boats and such.  Back to this cockpit grind that I just can't get over...

IF 26
Hey, who is that handsome devil?

Hey Tony, I'm about to tackle my rotten sole on my Ariel. I've been checking out your great progress. What type of wood did you use on your sole, braces, etc. I like the way you braced up under the sole.

mike

Mike,

The braces were made of white oak and the decking for the sole is 3/4" baltic birch.  In hind site, 1/2" baltic birch would have been more than adequate considering there is still a 3/16" solid lay up to go on top of the sole for a finished surface.  The braces were attached to the hull with 3M 5200 and the sub-sole(?) was attached to the  braces with the same.  Of course the whole thing gets tabbed in on the top surface.  Everything got two to three coats of epoxy depending on where it resides.  Thanks for the kind words and if you have any questions feel free to pm me.

P.s. Man, am I chomping at the bit to get started again!!!
............................................................................................
If you can access Good Old Boat Sep/Oct or Jul/Aug there is an article that I stole the support idea from...

Thanks Tony, I'll be letting you know how the progress is going!

Just when I thought I'd focus on more 'important' jobs or bigger aspects of this get-to-sea project I ran across this while perusing some of my usual boat-porn sites.  Now I'm all hot and bothered to make new moulds and cut more holes in Dream Weaver.  Sure hope the economy bottoms out/levels out starts doing something so I can sell some parts, buy some other parts, and get this show in the road!!!

HA!  "boat-porn"  
 
I can relate.  I think there's treatment out there for this addiction.

I don't understand, Kyle. You say that like it's a bad thing.:confused:

This is way out of sequence but I ran across this pic that brought me back...This was taken by my dad the morning we picked-up the little gal.  Ahh the fond memories.

A gem in any form Tony :)

Well, it's not that I'm afraid of commitment.  More afraid of being committed!  

It took forever to find the line we were looking for.  This is what I've come up with so far.  I took as much as I could from the Cape Dory 36 because it has that strong Alberg influence or characteristics.  But, being our cabin is shaped considerably different from the CD 36 it wasn't a straight transfer from the specs.  My first strike was more in line with the coamings of a Shannon 28.  Nice but not what I really was looking for.

There is an aft section still waiting to be built and shaped that the traveler is incorporated into.  That section will be much easier to layout.  WOW!  Nothing is symetrical on this boat.  Six different stations for each coaming, not a single angle duplicated!  I thought it would be easy to 'throw' a couple of coamings on her.:o

N I Z E
curves!
That'll be gorgeous.

Fibberglass with mahogany top???

Thanks, Ebb.

I'm leaning toward glass with wood caps from the winches forward.  That would give me a chance to use some of the original coamings.  Probably insert some ash strips for a designated 'step here' spot.  insides of the cockpit kept smooth fiberglass with trim around the cut-out for the storage cubby under the winches.  Thanks for reminding me that I need to order the turning blocks which will get their own mounting pad like shown in the following photo...thusly:D

Finally got some real time in working on the girl again.  Got some matt and fabric in the winch cubbies and in the turning block cubbies.  Drilled holes for the drains that tie into the locker lid scuppers.  Shaped the styro corners, although far from final, and got the outer skins on and the traveler mount glued in.  Now some serious shaping, serious grinding and serious glassing and fairing.  Seriously...

Tony, I really love those coamings!
Your modeling is  to my eye very pro (as in profound:cool:) - from the eye-pleasing fronts to curvaceous  back.  For instance: adding a bit more arch to the traveler 'coaming' across the back is masterful.  Really.

Ability to find a higher place to sit in the cockpit area is an important safety concern.  Especially if the perch is  comfortable.

You'll remember Zoltan saying, when asked about his huge cockpit on the Commander, that it wasn't a concern for him because as much green water that came aboard in rough weather got tossed right back  out of the cockpit.

Have a similar problem with getting rid of green water with my remodel in the back of the cockpit on A338.  We have to find a way to get water out quickly, VERY QUICKLY, when the water gets higher than the companionway threshold.

I'm not sure that an OB Ariel can depend on the OB well as an ultimate scupper.  It certainly is that.  But as Zoltan implies: as much water enters the cockpit as exits.  It is, however, those split seconds when inundated that the water getting out might also be getting below.  And there are I-don't-know-how-many-stories of water getting in to the cabin.  Who's to say that in the excitement the drop boards aren't also going overboard.....?


My mahogany extra-tall coamings got screwed up when being surfaced by me.  Asleep at the sander was I.  So I am thinking of blatantly copying those marvelous coamings of yours.
 BUT the way I go I'd get totally focused on the problem of fabricating fiberglass moldings and it would take me another forever to come up with something at least comparable to yours!   There are a lot of good curves that could indicate a relatively light molding.  But then there's the wood on top and the bracing for the winches....etc...etc.

Regular coamings that extend above the companionway, on other boats I've seen opening scuppers worked in.  Deck level scuppers that only open with pressure from the cockpit side.  Not at all sure if they would have enough volume capability.  Or if they are really efficient?

Water weight and height in the cockpit has to be GONE immediately.
There's some math to figure the volume of weight a cockpit contains,  it's huge.  Enough probably to cause some strange and dangerous trim problems - when too many problems are coming down.


Anyway, just tossing this in to boost your paranoia tolerance:eek:
Looking good!

I think that with a little thought one could design a drop in hatch cover ( for the engine well front opening) with some one pretty large one-way valves that would allow water to drain from the cockpit into the well and out while keeping water out.

 A nice looking teak or mahogany cover with horizontal slots cut in, and rubber strips over the slots fastened top and sides on the back would be a good flapper valve. Wouldn't be a perfect seal but the rubber would flex to let water drain out while keeping most water from coming in.

 Top-hinged wooden flaps with light elastic to keep them closed could allow for larger openings with better sealing.

Ken.

Hope you don't mind, Tony....
Kendal, yeah, I've seen wood coamings cut for swingout scuppers.  Made from the coaming material,  the sides were cut on a bevel so that they couldn't swing in.  In a normal coaming you can't have many of them in that style.  But if done well they would look the best of all alternatives.  
We A/C's sail on our ear at times with the rail in the water.  Hinged scuppers would  open up by their own weight and would scoop water.  A hazard.  Resistance to opening with a spring or something imco would be difficult to make work.  

Attwood and Seachoice make ring scuppers with rubber flappers.  OK in a bassboat transom.  More interesting are the floating ball valves where returning water pushes a floating ball against the scupper opening.  Deck drains and maybe transoms.  Looks like there is nothing off the shelf.

It just flashed that if Tony has a concern about water being contained over deck level he could DORADE those boxed coamings.  He'd loose some  cockpit storage, I think, in the coaming interiors
BUT if said interior was set up like an ondeck Dorade vent box  they could be made open to drain and still (unless totally inudated) easily let water out and discourage water in without any flapper or ball gizmos.  The width of the coamings allows designing  baffles in the drainage channels that could keep water from re-entering.  I'm guessing ofcourse.

With molded coamings exits could be bigger and useful.  Imagine that they need not be very tall off the deck, maybe an inch or two.  But would be some inches long for volume.  And more numerous.  Imagine a double 'floor' in the coaming box: deck level drain system, upper level storage.
Hinged lids might yet be called for, because water could enter back into the cockpit thru the scuppers from the up side when the boat is tilted.  

When the cockpit is filling with big greenies,  remove the seatback cushions (if they're not overboard already.)

Tony,

Those coamings look fantastic! You've got the curves just right. A-113 is going to look stout AND shapely.  I love that last shot. You can really see how the coamings follow the curve of the deck, no accident, I'm sure. ;)  

PS. Keep the pics coming!!

Tony,
Is there any rule for the angle of line to the sheet winch?

Some coamings are slanted at a rediculous and unattractive angle.
While other winches seem to sit square and upright..
We've even seen sheet winches horizontal off the coamings - instead of vertical.

If a wedge is used under the winch on flat coamings, there has to be a companion wedge underneath somewhere so that fastenings are square. Complications getting that right.

The line has to want to winde UP on the drum in an orderly fashion, correct?

When I was crewing on Bill's boat there was a cleat thingy on the winches.  I never thrusted the convenience thinking a digit could get caught in the jamming process.  I imagine a separate jamcleat  (like I've often seen) that a singlehander could whip the sheet around and get tight without having to actually touch the winch.  With the exception of the winch handle.
Seen winches with a flying camcleat coming out of the base.  
How you gonna do it?

Any tips to getting the lead perfect?

Ebb, I purposely keep the word perfect out of my vocabulary.  Was it CPete that said perfection is the enemy of progress?  

The winches I have call for an ideal line angle of 3-8 degrees to prevent overriding.  The science used here was plopping a winch on the coaming along with the turning block in their designated spots.  Then I ran some 3/8" line through turning block wrapped the winch and worked backwards to the height of the lead blocks on tracks.  That was, of course, for the large percentage head sails.  For the smaller head sail we skipped the turning block and moved the lead block forward.  I putzed with it for half a day so I hope I got it right.  If not, who the #&!! cares we can work with it, let's git 'er wet!

As far as winch placement I figured we'd need a 1/2" pad under the winch and a 1/4" one below the turning block to give a fair lead to the sheets.  I have seen some horizontally mounted winches too and it screwed me up!  I'm still not the same!:eek:

Cool temps and low humidity inspired me to cash in one of my vacation days and break out the grinder.  Nothing makes me feel like we're getting something done like a bad itch!

Just some more photos of the same old boring stuff...  Finally decided how to handle the 'space' below the traveler.  The fiberglass skin will hopefully act as, or should I say form a strut to spread the stress over a greater area.  That's how I see it happening anyway.

Once we get the coamings encased we will start on the cockpit storage in the forward end of the footwell.  That'll be interesting.  Gotta work backwards from the seacocks to the scuppers in order to find some hoses that will work.  Currently I'm thinking of using radiator hoses like Tim L. did on Glissando and making my own scupper drains.  Those manufactured drains are outrageously expensive!:eek:

The last two photos are of the final layer of glass to go on the coamings.  I know, I know, not too exciting.  It's worse to think it is about the only thing I've accomplished on the boat this summer.  

Next up-a hole...

Tony,
Really looking good!!!  I always say a good home addition is one in which you can't tell has been added on. It should look like a part of the original design. You've made the new coamings look as though the boat was intended to wear them.  Are they higher than the original wood coamings? What are your plans for this fwd cockpit storage locker? I must say I'm a little nervous about that.
Mike
C227

Thanks, Mike.  They are roughly 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch taller at the forward end and around 3 inches taller at the aft.  They seem bigger though.  I'm starting to like them more and more the closer they get to being finished.  But it has been sooo long since we've had coamings on the boat that 'comfort factor' may be more perceived than actual.

Sheesh!  I'm already leary about cutting a big hole in the cockpit, how about givin a brother a little love!:eek:  I'm planning on making some scuppers like the ones you'd find under the factory locker lids.  Got a 'water proof', heavy duty latch to keep the lid on things.  The bottom portion will be an integral water tank much smaller than the 40 gallon version I originally thought about adding.  Above that a 'dry' storage area.  The locker portion will extend aft from the bridge deck around 18-20 inches and come up to just below the factory locker lids.  Seems like a nice spot for some teak decking.  This part is all straight forward...it's the scuppers in the footwell that are adding a dash of frustration to the mix.

*************************************wait a minute***************************************
Nope.  Changed my mind.  The locker will only extend back 16 1/2 inches and will be flush with the cockpit seats.  Still adds plenty of storage and the lower water tank will be sufficiently large for a second tank.  The site gauge and plumbing will be accessable through the wet locker under the companionway.  The original cockpit scuppers can be cut out and transferred to their new location.  This design get a 99% confidence rating from me, this morning.

Well, my buddy wanted his hammer back so I figured we better get some wood working done.  Same as always, start getting nervous, then shaking, worried about screwing something up.  Or cutting off a finger...

It's the last teak the hardwood supplier around town will bring in.  Then I mixed in some of the old Ensign's cockpit parts for luck.  Luck, ha!  I couldn't afford to buy any more teak if I wanted to.  I always liked the look of the Cabo Rico interiors and their doors look strong and dummy resistant.  That's exactly what I need!

Of course these are pictures of a bunch of pieces just lying there.  But you get the idea.  Making one board many pieces is the easy part.  Making many pieces one.......

First class joinery there Tony!
Want to see the set mounted IN the boat.....

There you go, sir!  Done with tape, but, mounted none the less.;)

This one might require a bit of a stretch on imagination, but, I found this pic that kinda, in way, if look past all the other stuff shows about what the cockpit locker I've been babbling about adding would look like insitu.  The towel even has lines in it that mimic(in my mind)teak decking.

Ok, maybe I should lay off the Gosling's and get back to work...

We've decided to ditch the hard dodger and go with a canvas drop-top style jobbie like the folks at Gemini canvas make(//www.geminicanvas.com).  That will reduce some of the weight and be much more flexible as far as going below and going forward.  I want to add a bimini too so being able to drop the dodger if not needed to increase airflow seems like a plus.  

It started to look like things were progressing way too fast here, so these ought to add a few more weeks (read months) to the 'project'.

The first shot is the basic layout just trying to get a feel for room requirments and if everything will fit in.  The second shot is a wire chase that run wires up to the compass or display heads whichever route I decide to take.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's not AYBC (or is it ABYC?) approved, but it was late and the hardware stores were closed.  I would have much rather used flexible conduit and I might change it before the cap goes on.

Absolutely amazing Tony!

  I LOVE the lines, and the way they complement the combings... which look like the curves Carl drew there...

  The drain tube integrated into the dodger combing is a great idea.... it looks like you plumbed it into the recessed area where the standard nav lights sat.  Good thinking... I imagine the tubes run down through the old wire chase that is molded into the cabin liner.

  Lucky is the dodger that will sit on such a base... tough propisition for one on the 'stock' Ariel cabin top.  I used a sail batten sewn into the hem with hold downs on either end.  Works ok, but nothing like it would with that set up....

  WRT your cockpit locker.  My recommendation is that you mock it up and go sailing with it before you commit to it.  I know Atom has fuel cans there, and James certainly has spent many moons in his cockpit... but that is a Triton.  The corner of that locker is the natural helms man position (IMHO) and I would not be willing to give up room right there for anything but my legs.  Just one guys opinion... worth exactly what you paid for it.  :D

Tony...you got it go'in on!

Tonio, you got harmony going on there with those fairwaters.

Elegant curves.  Fine and fit.
It looks like you're having fun with the ole girl.

Can't wait to see what she looks like with her hat on!:cool:

Tony, those "fairwaters", as Ebb called them, are remarkable!  Very graceful and "appropriate" for all the changes you're making. What a great idea to incorporate a mini-coaming off the sides of your sea hood.

Looking at those double curves makes me think of a ripple in a pond or an echo of your bow wave - a work of art! You have a great eye. Can't wait to see A-113 when you're done - she'll look right at home in her element...

Thanks for the kind words Captains.  

Hey! Don't let the sunlight fool you!  It got COLD last night!  The epoxy was still tacky this morning:mad:.  Oh well-I go through this every year-it'll be cured by tonight.  

I did replace that first 'wire chase' with something a little better suited for the job.  Got the tops on and shaped and then a layer of 6oz. too just to hold things in place for the time being.  I am still undecided if I want to locate the compass above the companionway, the instrument heads, or both.  I find it comfortable to sit in the cockpit facing aft with my back against the cabin so putting the instrument readouts there will ruin my backrest.  Plus I'd like some sheet bags there to keep things tidy (I said sheet bags:p).  At first I was concerned the 'robust' size of the readouts would block the view if they were mounted above the companionway but then I realized that view would be of the mast and vang anyway.  Maybe mount them right along the companionway trim?  Let's put it to a vote.  What says you?

Very nice and shapely Tony.

Above the companionway seems like the logical place to mount the instruments. But, I think visibility forward is a concern, depending on how many instruments you have, and how tall you are. See how it looks slouching in the cockpit without a cushion.

You could even recess the instruments in the bulkhead, maybe something vertical and close to the companionway so the crew and the lines don't block them.

Quote from: Tony G;20289Oh well-I go through this every year-it'll be cured by tonight.

Wrong!  Didn't work out like that at all.  I found a sticky, tacky, still soft mess when I arrived at the boat.  Overly hopeful, I tried sanding it off first, but the pads gummed-up in about a minute.  After trying finer grades and then coarsest of grade I resorted to utility knife and scraper.  Dismal.  Tore up the form significantly in a couple of places.  All in all, a pretty unrewarding evening.

Spent my day off repairing and catching up.  I think...  Came to the conclusion that the instrument readouts wil have to be mounted on the aft bulkhead.  The function buttons would be too hard to reach from the helm if they were mounted over the companionway.  I really only intend to use them when necessary and that's probably the time I don't want to leave the helm.  Besides, that will put the compass on the centerline.

More tubing and dodger parts should show up Monday.  When things start getting too cold to work outside we'll have to make a bender and take a crack at it.

Search motorcycle (HarleyDavidson, eg) sites and forums.

check this out as a lead in.
google> Hand Tube Bender Manual (MS-13-43, R2)
It's a manual bender that they say can handle 3/4" to 1 1/4" tube. Swagelok
No idea what they want for the tool.  Maybe it can be rented.  Maybe a more advanced model can be rented???

The simplicity of this tool makes me think even I could use it.
But bending 1" by hand will require hiring a 300# biker.

Considering the tube choices:
1" X .065 (.66#ft) /  1" X .046 (.50#ft) / 7/8" X .065 (.57#ft) / 7/8" X .046 (.44#ft)*. - this is the usual stuff used for bending and is commonly available in welded 304 for about $5 a foot.  Anything else costs too much.

Amazing isn't it: a foot long piece of 1/16" thick 1" tube weighs in at three quarters of a pound!  The thinner alternative, 3/64" wall, is half a pound a foot.


Custom pulpits and pushpits are astronomically priced at local marine fabrication shops.  Was impressed by Geoff's extended pushpit, still am, but could never afford it.

But I'll wager you can't find one sailor who has actually bent tube for his pulpit.
All the help net nuts (boat design forum, woodenboat, ehow, etc) are cross threaded.

I did find, but lost it, a site where a guy had complete plans for a stand-up bender that used a bottle jack capable of doing smaller radius that can't be done by hand.
There is a bit of science to bending tube.**  A bit more to planning the job.  And some extra expense if the design calls for welding by an expert.


Did find a memorable piece of advice where filling the pipe with wax was recommended before any serious bending to keep the tube from collapsing.  He suggested icing just before the work began.  Filling the tube with sand is often mentioned - but sand is sand - you'd have to solder caps on the ends with sand.  Worth experimenting with the wax idea,  melt it out when done. (what kind of wax???)
_____________________________________________________________________________________
*Pretty easy to see how weight adds up even for tube.
**Harbor Freight is a source for cheap pipe roll benders.  Don't know if buffed stainless can survive a crude pipebender.

Ebb

I have been putzing around with this idea of DIYing a dodger, a bimini, a pulpit, a pushpit, a..., and a ...   You get the picture.  So having access to a unit that has the ability to do multiple radii is a must.  I have decided that other than a anchor platform, thin walled tubing is plenty strong.  A few years back we ordered some 7/8" thin wall for some project I've since forgotten.  But I can tell you a 8foot length isn't very heavy, by my standards, and is still pretty dang strong.  Put a couple of bends in it, and give some thought as to where the weak points are and you can make a piece that will do the job just fine.  

I'm trying to keep the 1" stuff very simple as far as bends go.  Instead using it in straight runs that can be cut and, here's the wrinkle, welded.  The dodger and bimini are definately going to be 7/8".  The hand rails on the cabin top will be 7/8" too.  On our boats its all short lengths and that alone will keep it plenty strong.  Just about anything is going to bend if we start running into stuff.  And having a 'crush zone' that is something other than our beloveds sounds like a good idea to me.

Back to the hand rails.  I've had this love affair of making the hand rails, dorade guards and mast pulpit all one continuous sweep with a single strut coming off it near the dorade vents to stabilize it.  Dash it all-it might not work because the RBV might clip the tube where it bends up from hand rail to dorade guard/mast pulpit when the main is eased all the way out to the aft lower shrouds.  A full sized working mock-up of the lower 3' of mast and a model of the RBV and a line substituted for the aft lower shroud and the hand rail/dorade guard/mast pulpit.  Whew!  I don't get that much done in season!

If Don Casey knows what he's talking about,(and I believe he does) his diagram in This Old Boat is a very simple unit that may do the job just fine with a low introductory cost.  I'll just keep looking...

If you head over to the Technical threads I posted a link in the Bow Pulpit/ Stern Rail/ Pushpit thread to a crotch rocket forum  where a guy discusses his DIY tubing bender.  One thing he stated that no one else has is his bender fully surrounds the tubing while being bent.  Somewhere in that post they discuss fillling the tube with sand and the 'author' states he did not, and did not believe it was necessary as the tube is surrounded.  But sand would be cheap and easy to deal with.  Wax would eat up too much boat money for me.

Tony,

MY vote is for the "dashboard" style on top the cabin.  If I could move my current instruments on my current boat, I would in a heartbeat!  That way you don't have to take your eyes off the road.  Also, if you pick instruments correctly, I doubt you will be punching buttons ever.  At most you will want Boatspeed, Depth, and Wind (3 total).  Granted, if you want to switch between apparent and true wind, you will be punching buttons, so just pick one and learn to love it!

just my opinion.  
When I had my Ariel (#3), I mounted the depth on the aft face of the bridgedeck (in the cockpit well).  
What a bad idea!
Whenever we were motoring out I liked to stand to get visibility, but then had to bend way over and stick my head down in the cockpit well to see if we were running aground (depth)!  Poor ergonomics.  The cabin-top dashboard (or even like the true-racers: on the mast) is the way to go!

-Keith

Agree.  The IDEAL place for instrument is over the companionway, at the front end.  For coast sailing at night I wonder if there is a better location for an illuminated sounder - certainly not in the cockpit well.  On an Ariel there aren't too many places.

Tube Bending.  
Looked up router bits for making mandrels.  There is nothing available to make a deep flute for 7/8".  It is possible to have a custom bit made. $$$.  So we're stuck with a readily available 1/2"R cove bit.
  Shaper bits is another story.  If you have access to a shaper, you can more easily find an outfit to custom a 7/8" round nose bit.  They would make an absolutely perfect cradle for the tube - While having to make two passes with the router cove bit makes it possible to have a problem with the curve.
 So it is likely that 1" tube is what we have to bend.
Making the mandrels will take some doing and care.  I would guess the most versatile material is meranti, or birchply. You can glue it up to create a mandrel that has thicker sides, maybe even enough for the flute bit to roll on.  We can glue on stuff, fix mistakes no problem.
Another great material is polyethylene - just bought a piece 1" thick, not too expensive.  It's cutting board.  Can't glue it, but it's as close to wax as solid plastic gets.  In the photo of the green bending ap, the white mandrel must be polyethylene.  
[Do you notice a little extra radius bend at the bottom of the mandrel?  Maybe to take care of springback, right?  Give the bend an extra kick in there.]  
Stainless tube will love to be bent in this stuff.

And then there is making the bender itself.  Are you thinking of doing that?

Found a Utube bending video where the guy filled the tube first with water, then poured in the dry sand.  Said to pack in better.

As to wax.  Paraffin  can't be all that expensive in Minnesota.  And for freezing it, all you have to do is open a door and stick the tube outside.


Dono what I'm going to do.
 Reinventing the wheel over and over (total remodeling) is taking FOREVER.  I have run out of time.  I just know that a tube bending guy can take the tube, bend it just right, hold it up in the air over the pattern or the boat itself, and come up with a perfect stern pulpit. - 5 grand!
I will have a full 3D ply pattern that took me a couple months to make, and who knows HOW LONG it would take me to translate into nicely bent double axis tube?  Just having to trim 1/4" off the end of a tube seems a chore. (Dang...forgot about the sand!:eek:)

Go forit, Tony.:o

Keith,

Thanks for the realworld input.  A couple of years back I lucked out on a sale and got the Navman 3100 series wind, speed, depth with a 'repeater'.  The display heads are something like 4 or 4 1/2 inches square.  So the main three of them and a compass will be a tight fit above the companion way.  Also, I incessantly worry about the compass being thrown off by the readouts.  Craig (c_amos)suggested mocking up the dash on a piece of plywood and 'swinging' the compass:confused:  Some reading may be in order before I try that.  The tally stands at two above the hatch...

Ebb, sir!

I cobbled together a woodie version of the bender in the technical thread.  I had hung onto a collection of old plywood cabinet doors from years ago because they were nice, solid chunks of material.  Now I know why I carted 'em around for ten years!!  A bender they are now!

In the noodling I did, I found all of 'commercial' units did both 7/8" and 1" on the same platen/form/die, whatever you'd call it.  So I suspect that 1/8" just don't matter to the pros out there... a million here, a million there...  so I used a 1/2"radius cove bit and glued and screwed the two halfs together.  A 10" radius seemed like the best bet for what we got planned here.  (although there are a couple of 5-6inch radius bends I'm hoping to pull off with a conduit bender)  It seems that the crowning machine is the one that will make a big difference in the bow shape and bow strenght.  And I haven't started making one of those yet, but it's a pretty straight forward machine.  A couple of bolts and a couple of pulleys.

B.s.  it's only been in the 40s for the last week.  Utterly depressing....:(

Tony,  Yer DOING IT, way to go!
Now here is something we ALL want to see, I'm sure.

Want to see how it goes, lots of photos, OK?


I got the terminology wrong,  tho there is some confusion by others too.
Those curved pieces that you bend the tube into ARE dies, CORRECT.

A mandrel is an interior piece like a ball or egg shape or a series of connected rings that just fit into the ID of a tube that keep the tube from distorting or collapsing.  I think sand is NOT used in drawing the tube into the die form.  Sand filled tube is bent in the 3 roller or where a single point force pushes the tube into a curved form.  No roller.

I also read that we need to use the thicker tube if we are using the roller/draw method, because the metal is actually stretched on the outer side to make the curve.  This may only be true on very tight radius bending.

The difference in thickness between the thinner and heavy wall s.s tube is .01563 or 1/64"  How significant is that in terms of, say, stepping on a short straight piece in the stern pulpit?  Can't find any data.  Heavier is not always stronger.


Wanna see what happens!:D

Tony:

We had 85 here today. Ever think of moving your outfit a bit to the sutherd...extended working and SAILING season my friend!

I'm a transplant from Ontario so know the 40's and 30's and 20's in Oct all too well!


Andrew

PS I have been following your progress... great stuff...your work is always inspirational!!!

Tony,

Look into using MDF for your tube bending "forms".  shapes easily, and at the thickness you need to grip the tube (1.5") plenty strong.  plus you can glue 2 sheets of 3/4" and get your form easily.

I would worry too too much about the compass.  My compass is right on my binacle, with all my instruments surrounding it on the old-fashion Edson pods.  plus the wheel, along with all it's internals (chain, brakes, screws) that sometimes have ferrous materials.  Your nav instruments can't be too bad screwing with the compass.  if they are, just get your navman repeater to spit out GPS heading.  Close enough for most uses!

-Keith

-m

I just hate it when these threads start to die out.  So...here is a picture I took this summer of some front-end hardware.  

I'd really like to put a bowsprit/anchor platform on her.  I noticed the Nor'sea 27s have a very sharp looking sprit that is not integral to the head sail layout.  Finding other examples of the same has proven to be difficult.  Anyone here have other examples?

Hey Tony, glad to see they finally got electricity to ya in the shop.
Got to put away those ole kerosene lanterns , eh?
Nice looking boat!:D

I've been digging around looking at dodger designs that will fit my particular needs.  Having a convertible or drop-top feature is pretty easy to accomodate into nearly all dodger designs.  That is the 'easy' part.  However, the areas that needed addressing here are the extreme 'sweep' outward these new, fatter cockpit coamings have and the not-so-typical mounting location of the dodger main frame on the cabintop.  I purposely provided a solid mounting pad on the aft end of the cabintop coamings for mounting hardware being it was easy to do while I was in the area.  But, as you all know, traditional dodgers frames are typically mounted on the cabin sides below the plane of the cabin top, or, on the breakwaters at the forward end of the coamings, or, on the coaming itself.

Years ago Ebb brought to our attention a company called Iverson Design and they had this photo of a Dana 24 with a dodger design that looks like it will fit my needs pretty good.  It should be possible to add some removable 'wings' that will extend the dodger sides from the aft bow to a point just forward of the winches if deemed necessary in weather.  Otherwise, I think going forward would be a little less restricted by the dodger sans wings.  I think a bimini would be a nice addition too for sunnier climes. (read NOT Minnesota)  And I am totally with Ebb in the cockpit version of a three season room.

Canvas dodger folks can go around or solve any challenge you come up with - if you are going professional  $$$$ with it.

Probably get a bunch of say 3/4' PVC tube and mock up a structure.  Play with the angles, curves, widths and height.  Maybe use blocks of wood with the appropriate tube size drilled in them to act as bases.

PVC is easy to bend into permanent curves with a heat gun or a gas bottle.
And you may be bending the real stuff yourself.
Bases for tube come in standard angles - you can plan for them when designing.

When we get above the deck we have a proportion problem with any permanent structure.  But in your shop you'll be able to see your model from every angle - except maybe 30/60 feet off the side where many fotos are taken.  The bimini always looks awkward to me.  Imco any camping-out structure is forgiven because it's taken down when sailing.
The dodger, if it's permanent has to be proportional.  Doctor Alberg's ROUNDED cabin design imco implies a rounded rather than a squared dodger.Wiill look better especially if it has to be bigger than expected because the Ariel is so small.

I think the pulpit Pearson put on the bow is only about 24" tall.  And it looks right.  But it's too short for me unless I'm crawling on the foredeck.
With the forest of chrome and polished stainless planted on modern cruisers it's becoming more acceptable to our eye to have extra stuff above the sheer line.

The dodger is not only an aesthetic but  a windage problem.
I don't think you'll have any problem with the aesthetics!
An all cloth dodger/bimini may be the only solution for an Ariel.
The 'pram' dodger folds forward and out of the way
and the bimini is taken down like a tent and stowed when not in use.
So stanchion bases or even permanent low s.s. tube 'seat backs' around the cockpit can be attachment points for the taller but temp binimi structure.
Think I want low (but high enough to put an arm up) stepover  tubes on the sides of the cockpit placed to lean against when sailing or lounging.

So I would plant PVC pipe around wherever, and add and remove.  Play it out.
I'd try double sided carpet tape to stick the mock-up wood 'bases'.  Use the more expensive stuff that has a fiberglass cloth inside, it allows you to peel it off.

I've come to see the Ariel as a 3/4 size boat.  
Nearly everything I put in or on lit'lgull must be the smallest size that works.
If  cruising in a rainy area or heading for the tropics a bow to stern bimini would make the whole deck into the 'extra room'.  Bigger projects could be tackled or going topside at any time could save your marriage;)  I'd have a closable cockpit salon in any case
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Here's something else to consider for camping out
//www.mosquitocurtains.com
Go to 'PhotoGallery' Unusual #1' for a couple pic of noseeum netting used on a bimini.  Some ideas on the tube framing also.

Wow! it's the end of April allready!  I finally got to go up and see the love again.  Spent some time just sitting in different spots wiping away the accumulation of dust, dirt and any unsavory sign of Old Man Winter's recent visit.  I'm still okay with the fatter, taller cockpit coamings.  The dodger coamings are still 'on', although I wish I had installed a MUCH larger conduit for the instrument bundle wiring and may have to do a 'radical, post-attached, ectomy of some sort.  And the cockpit stowage in the forward section of the footwell?  Still leaning in that direction in a not-quite-so-obtrusive design.  I know, Craig, I know...

But down below I still don't have a place to lie down comfortably.  And that's a very big thing if one is hoping to gain any restorative powers from sleep.  The hard, cold fact of the matter is I've screwed-up!  The good thing is all those hours of studying (looking at pictures of) larger boats exposed me to  design features I liked and thought useful.  The bad thing is I tried to duplicate a +/-40 foot boat in a 25+ foot boat.  Maybe it can be done but I haven't done it here.  It might look good through a camera lens but doesn't wear well when you're in it.  Crap!  Crud!  Which ever.

The long and short of it is I'll have to remove a good deal of the work I've done and start over.  Hey, it's not such a bad thing.  Could be worse.  I'll just look at it from the stand point of this boat deserves better and I know I can do better.  Realisticly it's going to be a few years before she gets to meet the briney anyway.  Besides, with all the captains on this forum doing all work that's going on there will be some really cool ideas to steal!:)

Thanks for listening to me snivel and drone on.

Tony....please feel free to vent anytime you need to, but please don't leave us hanging like that. What do you have to take out to accomplish what goal?

Hey Tony,
Taking off from Jerry's byline, which sounds very Edisonian to me, and spot on: maybe adding a paraphrase from Edison, The Man and His Work by George S Bryan 1926 on his electric light improvement:

"The electric light has caused me the greatest amount of study and has required the most ELABORATE EXPERIMENTS
....Altho I was never myself discouraged or hopeless about its success, I cannot say that of my associates....
Through all the years of experimenting with it,  I never once made an associated discovery.  It was deductive...
The results I achieved were the consequence of invention - pure and simple.

"I would CONSTRUCT and work along various lines until I found them untenable.
When one theory was DISCARDED,  I developed another at once.

"I realized very early that this was the only possible way for me to work out all the problems."


Perhaps a little long, this - but it describes a process of handling disappointment.  Or, obviously, of not getting into that, not giving it any weight,  just a step in the process.
It's the process that's important,  that's where the breath and the brain is.

So if you glued it in, you can take it out,  it's only SNOT as Herreshoff called it.

You have the boat,  you have unique ideas, you like the PROCESS,  working in the shop,
otherwise you'd be selling mortgage insurance.

Edison also is quoted as saying he liked his phonograph invention best.
Rest assured, there will be music and dancing when launching day arrives!

Does anyone remember how this all started?  I found a little bit of rot at the base of the main bulkhead.  Okay, in reality I could peel the plys  apart with a phillips screwdriver and not much effort.  So just like 10 years ago, one single event precipitates a whole sequence of events, or, changes in this case.  

Without turning a blind eye to what I've known for some time, this is what I feel has to happen.
1) Raise the remains of the v-berth to both widen the sleeping platform and increase storage.  Then add a filler piece, which will make using the head an exorcise if using the v-berth for, I dunno, sleeping.
2)Excise the plastic water tank.  I never tested it for leaks, it's all my water eggs in one basket, has no baffles.  Make 2 smaller integral water tanks and still have room left over for storage.
3)The platform reserved for the head needs to be lowered just incase I have a windfall and get a composter.  But incase not, build an integral or 'fits like a glove' holding tank.
4)Re-reconstruct the starboard storage in the main salon to allow my feet to fit under the cabinets with a mattress underneath when sleeping athwartships.  This one really hurts but I think the louvered doors will work up front in the v-berth after the changes come about.

Those are the wrinkles that I feel absolutely need to be addressed.  But it is not inconcievable that something in the main cabin and galley area might need attention too.  Like sub-sole storage to name one.  Well, what's another 10gallons of epoxy among friends.  Right?

QuoteDoes anyone remember how this all started? I found a little bit of rot at the base of the main bulkhead. Okay, in reality I could peel the plys apart with a phillips screwdriver and not much effort. So just like 10 years ago, one single event precipitates a whole sequence of events, or, changes in this case.

I can relate to that! I bought the 'Mephisto Cat' not only because I thought it was a beautiful little yacht, but also because I could go sailing on DAY 1 - and DID NOT HAVE TO DO ANYTHING TO IT!

Then I found a little soft spot on the lazarette floor and that got the snowball rolling!

- That's what happens...

Can't leave things well enough alone!

Your re-fit looks amazing... And soon you'll be sailing and all the hurdles encountered will be forgotten history...

Tony
 
I truly feel your pain. I spent 20 hours working on C147 this weekend and the longer I worked the more I decided I wanted to do. If we allow them to these things can literally go on for ever. But I enjoy sailing more than I enjoy working on my boat so I'm starting to take the approch of "I will do this much this year and then when I pull her at the end of the sailing season I will do these things".
 
I don't know what your sailing plans are after the refit but I had the same issue with the head under the v-birth because my wife and I are getting older and find that the head is more frequently needed in the middle of the night for both of us. I mostly daysail but two weeks a year I go on 1-week long mini-cruises. so I decided to simplify and solve the problem by doing away with the marine head and using a porta potty under the v-birth during the day and pull it out into the cabin during the night. Less plumbing and less things that can go wrong while at the same time solving the problem for us. But we also tend to spend at least every other night in a marina so we can get a good shower and hot meal before we head out for two more days.
 
I can't say I can offer any suggestions for number two on your list but my resolution to number one also takes care of number 3 on your list and possibly number 4.
 
You are the only one that can determine what is right for you. So of course this is offered only as something to think about. And as a good friend of mine likes to say "Your mileage may vary" :-)
 
Sail on _/)~~~_/)~~~

Jerry,

Boy I wish I could only do 'this' much then go sailing.  But I've got a loooong way to go before that can happen.  Well, in this boat at least.  Thanks for the kind words and heart.  We all could use a little of that!

Rico,

You bought a sail away boat too?  I wonder if we took a poll here of how many of us purchased our boats in said shape actually did?  Ha-Ha

Ebb,

You're still one of my mentors...

Tony,

Fear not the gathering gloom.  Watch lights fade in every room.  OOOPs, that was a line from one of the old Moody Blues songs, maybe Nights in White Satin???  Anyway, it doesn't apply to you in any case.  You know what?  I'd do what you have to do to go sailing!!!   Looking at the insides of racing boats that have literally NOTHING inside them means that you can do something with whatever is left to do inside your boat!  Trust me, when the wind is blowing, especially after dark, and the water is rushing past the hull in the darkness with starry skies above, what is below doesn't matter a bit!!.    I sail with a bunch of Hunter Beneteau sugar scoop transom-ed,  entertaining oriented 46 footer plus folks in a cruising club here in Texas (and they all have blenders, sat TV, radar, and dinghy's) and my boat is the smallest, least sophisticated, oldest, cheapest, and probably slowest boat on our cruises.  But guess what?  Everyone loves my boat because it goes where the others can't, takes the seas just as well as theirs, doesn't need more than my hands on the tiller, and looks GREAT when tucked amongst the white massive vessels with all the jazz inside them (see that little blue boat amongst the biggies?).  Sooooo! Your goal should be to get the exterior in shape, step the mast, and go sailing.  You can have a project below that no one will see or care about!!  Go for it!!

It's good to hear from you again, Kent.  

Because we bought this lovely lady in 'sail away' condition (see above)I have much to do yet besides the re-re-redo.  New furler to install, sail track and cars for the main, running rigging, outboard, rudder shoe issues, then we'd have to go East to Lake Superior (too cold) or South the Mike's neighborhood near the twin cities of MN just to float!  Hundreds of miles either option.

No.  This is something to do now.  Strike while the iron is hot.  There will always be a project somewhere on the boat.  That's just the reality of owning a boat you care about.  Take tonight for instance...

Not being one to just 'dive in', after arriving at the boat I waited about five minutes before digging in.  I started with something mild like unscrewing the hinges in the flip-top for the head.  Then a finish screw here and there.  Then it was controlled mayhem removing cleats and pieces and 'carefully' cutting tabing with a utility knife(yeah, right).  it wasn't too long before I was peeling off laminate and launching pieces into the cockpit...okay, launching probably isn't entirely acurate.  But what is acurate is the peeling off the laminate I had applied to the cabinetry in the v-berth area.  I had sealed the wood pieces agianst water intrusion with a couple coats of epoxy then applied a formica laminate with, what else, contact cement.  Well folks, that was 2-3 years ago and it came off tonight with little effort.  Therefore, by the mere act of these laminate pieces figuratively 'falling off' in my hand, my urge, nay the necessity to correct these issues has been justified!!  (Not long ago these words would have been followed by the townspeople crying, "Burn her!  Burn her!  She's a witch!")

So next is the grinder to really get things rolling, followed by some serious sanding and paint removal.  A clean slate.  I feel good about this.  Like Gene wilder as the young Dr. Frankenstien said, "It! Could! Work!"

I got serious about this tonight after work.  Busted out the 4 1/2" grinder to cut the tabbing that was holding the furniture in.  Even with a full face respirator on I could smell the acrid smoke and fumes of the heated epoxy-yuck!  I can honestly say polyester grinds more flavourful.  Before I proceed with anymore grinding we will replace the carbon cartidges.

It was good to open up the area to help visualize the changes we're goin to make there.  I was hoping to use several of the transverse bulkheads tabbed in from the recent previous furniture but it doesn't look as promising tonight as it did last night.  But, armed with confidence a complete denuding of the forecabin isn't quite as daunting as it was several years ago.  It certainly doesn't wear on me like the nagging feeling of knowing that the space is just 'not right' in more ways than I can really explain.

The pieces left in place will serve as references or landmarks to help lay-out the patterns for the new configuration.  At least until they are also removed.  Yes, I said patterns.  Full sized and accurate!  Hopefully this will help eliminate, or at least reduce, wasted time and materials.  And speaking of materials.  I'm thinking about using some 1/4" and 3/8" plywood this time around to spare some unneccesary material weight.  Let's face it, it doesn't all have to be 1/2" and 3/4".  The weight of the pieces I hauled off tonight was a bit worrysome to me in the past.  Certainly when you consider there was still more cabinetry to go in!

I'll gas up the camera tomorrow and try to remember to snap a few pics.

Quote from: Tony G;21281....Before I proceed with anymore grinding we will replace the carbon  cartidges. .....

Please do Tony... please do.

Tony...Dude...I'm just in from a sail with an good friend who brought entirely too much Surly beer, so try to read this through the same beer goggles I'm wearing. (Good thing The Princess is moored with in walking distance!)
So...Tony... Dude...I'm not say'in, I'm just say'in...you need a plan, you need to prioritize and then let er buck! Come to terms, compromise, what do you need vs. what do you want.
I know... I feel the Caribbean's pull and I know its pulling you harder! You have to finish her so you can work on all the other B.S. you need to wrap up thats keeping you from going! You've got a great boat, cool innovations. You can keep innovating or live with the flaws. Is the goal to build a really cool boat, or to take a really cool trip? Both are valid goals, but one might keep you from the other.
You need to make your escape from these latitudes so I know it can be done and follow you!
I need you to make it! I have resources, what can I do to help?
Quote of the day; "buy the ticket, take the ride," Hunter Thomas.
Living vicariously through what I imagine are your dreams,
Mike

Quote from: c_amos;21282Please do Tony... please do.

Absolutely, Craig.  I was shocked at how potent the fumes were in an instant.  I vacated the boat in search of the mighty box fan and popped it prostrate on the forward hatch blowing down-and on high!  These are last years cartridges and there is such a paultry amount of carbon in them to begin with.  I worked as a printer through my extended college years so I'm tired of chemical stink and hope to be done with it for good.

Mike!  Surly beer and a sail in April?  In Minnesota no less!?!?  I live vicariously through you, my friend!

It's a brand new plan with the same goal.  We are switching from a floating, weekend camper to a boat you could live aboard for extended periods if, heaven forbid, we had to! nyuk nyuk nyuk.  Given your height you surely know what it's like to semi-sleep in some sort of twisted, half-crazed fetal position.  Too many nights like that would ruin the best of sailing grounds.  We got a sound grasp on what we need.  The 'wants' as far as amenities will just have to fall by the wayside if they don't fit in with little effort.  Again these are small boats and I just need to be honest with myself about what is important and what is silly, mindless, consumerism.  You are right.  The destination will make the trip that much more rewarding.  

I truely appreciate your offer.   Thank you.

There was this famous swim coach who for many years taught hundreds of kids how to win at the sport.

One day a happy group threw him into the pool.  He drowned.
He had always been afraid of water and had never  learned to swim.


But I know about the bad side of mentoring too.
I once did the Justin Sterling Weekend:eek:
I feel we be equals here

except  that maybe  I  made many  more mistakes than most.

First up.  New cartridges.  These made all the difference.  One other thing I noticed was switching to my 8" grinder that spins way slower than 10,000RPM 4 1/2" produced much, much less of the acrid, nasty @$$ smell I noticed the first night.  Glad to report I could smell nothing but coffee breath with the repirator on.

Posted here soley for the enjoyment of others.  We've all seen this before, kind of.  I think I may be addicted to grinding.  I even grind my teeth at night....
Still more to come out but first I'm going to lay out some lines.

I'm going to weigh the pieces that came out of the v-berth.  Here are two crappy photos of the poluted work shop and said pieces.

Bought 2 sheets of 1/4" Baltic Birch to go back in.  Of course there will be sections of 1/2" ply where needed but I'm pretty sure what I want to do can be accomplished with lighter material and a little more thought given to structure and design.

Dibs on Tony's cast-offs...

They'll be better than my finished product. :cool:

Quote from: epiphany;21328Dibs on Tony's cast-offs...

They'll be better than my finished product. :cool:

Now you're just being silly, Kurt.  I don't think you want all 103.8 pounds of it!  Yeah, over one hundred pounds and not a filled locker, water tank, no ceiling strips, nothing!  I wasn't even done adding cabinets and storage up front yet!!!  Hopefully things will work out a little better this go around.  But heck yeah, Kurt, they're all yours.  Pick up or deliver?;)

I've been giving some thought to really changing-up the cabin layout from where we're at now.  I like the open forecabin layout of the smaller Gozzard's, Nor Sea, Flicka type interiors.  Of course that would require two major changes (at least) from the current layout.  First would be doing away with the strongback and main bulkhead.  Easy enough to tear them out and install a compression post.  And I really, really like the idea of opening up the cabin that way.  But that would really hinge upon part 'B' which would be adding an enclosed head by the main hatch.  So to that extent I mocked-up some cardboard bulkheads and made another attempt at defining a space for the head.  Now I've done this once before but it's been a number of years since that try and for some reason I guess I thought something had changed with the hull shape and size since then...  No surprise.  It just will not fit.  Well the bulkheads will fit but then I won't fit inside the space.

I used the opening of the sliding hatch to define fore and aft bulkhead placement and then used the space between the two portlites as the location for the athwartship bulkhead.  It really took a chunk out of the interior!  But if one opened up the fore cabin it wouldn't seem that cramped to me.  However, with these dimensions the head compartment wouldn't be functional.  This brings me to the conclusion that one would have to move the hatch over 5-6inches port or starboard to use the same landmarks for bulkhead placement.  I wouldn't hesitate a minute to do that if I hadn't allready put the seahood, rails and dodger coamings on.  Maybe we can talk Frank into doing this.  I think Marvin Gaye said it best, Let's get it on...

After proving to myself yet again that the enclosed head idea just wont work for me, and, not being able to think outside the box enough to formulate a new, revolutionary aft head set-up, I set off in a new direction.  

Given that the widest point on our hull (on the Ariels) is about the mid to aft section of the main cabin it the makes most sense to me to locate an athwartship convertable berth there.  Right about where my galley is now...  So I tossed around the idea of moving the galley to mid ship across the main bulkhead much like Geoff did on UHURU.  That would allow for 2 quarter berths that could be used underway or pull double-duty as storage, as I understand most do.  I can easily bridge the walkway for a queen sized harbour berth, and, keep my hanging wet-locker under the companionway which I believe is my only original contribution to this project.:D

As for moving the galley forward I have to give up my standing headroom while preparing those exquisite, gourmet meals I'm known for....right.  But I recall Geoff's rational as food prep. being a 'sit down job' anyway.  I can do that.  There is an illustration in one of Ferenc Mate's books of a galley slave stool that was just a bit higher than setee height that allowed one to work without having to stand.  Ingenious!!!  Most of the employees here would LOVE that!  My other concern with regard to moving the galley forward is ventilation.  Not only because I'm a lousy cook and the smoke and the smell, but also the heat.  Heat from the cook stove and the refer.  I do have the two dorades located directly above and those used in conjunction with the forward hatch, the bow ventilator and the main hatch will move some air through the interior.  But I remembered I still have the 13" Bomar I tried to sell a while back.  What if I dropped that into the seahood?  If the sliding hatch is only partially closed I could have full venting capacity from the smaller Bomar.  Sure the RBV is an issue, but that's easy enough to handle.  It could work!

Another issue I've been throwing about my brain pan is moving the anchor chain stowage back a little farther.  Let me be the first to admit I've had some hare brained ideas!  But this one might just work.  Because I have the port side storage lockers going in along side the, what was the V-berth but is now a '\-berth' I have a way to add a chain pipe that wouldn't be in the middle of the 'bed'.  If the locker works it would pile the chain about where the aft end of the original water tank would be.  Right now it's just an idea.  I have to see if I can get the chain to 'spill' to the center of the space.

Only other great shake is moving the original chain locker bulkhead forward 6-8 inches for more leg room on those berths if they need to be used.  I want to add some support in that area for a deck eye so we can add a removable solent stay.  And, well, as long as we're in the area....

Just some ideas and conclusions.  But this isn't a true study so I could be wrong on both parts and all of the above.  Mull it over and shoot it apart.  I think that's the only way to make it evolve and get there.

Hey Tony, I'm sure you remember the Enclosed Head (http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussion/showthread.php?882-Enlosed-Head) thread? It was A-412 (http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussion/showthread.php?1307-FS.-Ariel-412.-Virginia) that had this modification. A-412's head looks awfully tight though, like you'd have to tuck yourself in there up under the side deck.

Maybe Kurt will pipe in on the status of his aft cabin head? I wonder if he's still got it located there?

My "someday plans" are to add a compression post and add an enclosed head in the hanging locker location. I'd extend the bulkhead out to the compression post make more room for the head with an off-center passageway to the v-berth. I would pretty much keep most other things the way they are with 2 quarter berths and the v-berth. I need sleeping for 4 however, so you may have some more options as far as your galley, etc.  

If you did something like this, you could run your anchor chain down a pipe by this bulkhead and maybe store the chain in a locker built where the portable head is now?

Neat idea with the hatch on the sea hood, but wouldn't that allow water to enter the cabin from the back and up underneath the sea hood? You could probably come up with something like bulwarks or baffles to discourage that though. Although, with a dodger... That might be a nice mod in any event just for more ventilation in the cabin.

PS. I'm glad you didn't rip out your nice curvaceous cabinetry! Those are way too nice to redo!

PSS. Looks like you did away with your forward opening ports too?

Tony,

  I sure do like looking at your work.  She is a blessed ship indeed to have come under your shops roof.  

I had not noticed the port light delete before.  I had considered the same thing on Faith.  You get plenty of light in the opening hatch, I never open them, too many accounts of the latches breaking off ...

  Is that permanent, or are you installing something else there?


I think your decision to re-consider the head there is wise.  I can not imagine the torture trying to extricate one's self from that location if you were underway and just finishing your coffee while underway...


  THe hatch on top of the hatch is interesting...  Looks like it wold only get air when the hatch was closed... unless I am missing something.
 I usually just leave the hatch open in all but the worst weather... gotta love the dodger.   What conditions would you use that topside opening hatch in?

Captains, I am selfish in that I will not incorporate an enclosed head that does not give me some room.  Not that we're planning on having a soiree in there.  It's just one of those 'things' I like to do unimpeded.  I understand the concept of close quarters and hand and foot holds so you're not flopping about, but, that is one thing I've decided to be totally selfish and maybe a smidgen unpractical about when it comes to a boat this size.  That is why it just seems 'right' for me to leave the head where it is drawn.  Besides now I can seriously look at a composter:cool:

Water intrusion is a major consideration for me when it comes to the 'hatch in the hood'.  At first I was thinking about leaky seals.  But if that was the case then I'd also have a biger problem up front .  And the thought of water working it's way back around the hood and hatch, over coming the rail drains which flow into the cockpit would probably mean we're in some pretty heavy stuff.  Although it is of major importance to keep dry and comfortable onboard, I accept that it is a small boat, and furthermore, a boat so I must expect some water below in the worst of it.  

As it turns out the main hatch would only have to be about 1/4 to 1/3 closed to get full ventilation out of the Bomar.  Even with partial blockage by the slider, I'm confident that air would find it's way around.  I think it would really only be wise to open that hatch when anchored.  Maybe slightly opened if we were drifting along:confused:

And the curvey furniture....it's going as it exists currently.  But that is going to give me the chance to improve on it!  Oh yeah, you can't have a u-shped galley without curves.;)  The forward ports were in relatively tough shape.  Especially for a freshwater boat.  I had thought about replacing them until I saw the prices.  WOW!!!!  I'm absolutely fine without them.  I think the Ariels have a nice enough nose to not need them.

Tony, we just don't have the beam of even a Flicker!

Suggestions, you know me, always suggestions.....
Suppose you did have the head where you show the cardboard model.
But instead of hard sides you had soft sides.  We've got super Nylon zippers now
- you could have a zip open door in a CANVAS enclosure.
 
Knees could poke into the sides until the body is settled
 - maybe it could be large enough to turn around in.
Could have a second set of zippers that  will unzip the whole enclosure and gather it at the side.

A head doesn't get that much use, but it could be made to zip into a private space without too much fuss.  
Test it out with cloth model.  And it could be made larger because it is temporary.  Permanently temporary.

There are  many extraordinary fabrics these days there would be something for the job.  I like the tan of the cardboard.    
It could be a relatively heavy material so that it holds shape without wrinkles or folds.    R, why not Sunbrella?
By the same token,  more room can be found over where the portside cupboards used to be at the main bulkhead.  
Might even have a fold down sink there.  But it could be the same fabric enclosure that would be gathered out of the way for open space.
The problem really is that the deck gets in the way of the head.  The human head.  
The loo would be under a cushion so the function wouldn't be noticed right off.

There would always be the option when using the throne to zip up the canvas cabin - or not.

Ran up to the boat today after work.  I'm really starting to jones for putting some time in on her.  A couple of years ago one of the 'guys' pulled the boat and trailer ahead about ten feet.  It didn't matter to me at that time because I had enough of the furniture in that I could use those pieces as a benchmark or references as needed.  But being we're rearranging things below I thought it would be a good idea to level her according to the scribed waterlines again.  Simply used a floor jack, some cinder blocks, assorted pieces of varying thickness of hardwood and plywood and 50' of 5/8" clear vinyl tubing.  I didn't bother taking photos because it just wasn't that exciting.  But I will say I am happy to have that not-so-laborious yet time consuming task out of the way.

I lopped out the starboard corner head a while back, partly due to the same concerns Mister Tonygee cites; the hard walls I was using were just too much structure for so little (in use as well as in size) space...

So I bounced the head idea around a while. Put it back up front in the middle for the longest time. Then one day, when I was ripping out the sink and looking at all that space under the companionway, a Thought occurred. All that space there, and when we use the loo, we usually sit anyway...

Lately I've been experimenting with a composting head. I have nearly all the stuff needed to mount a 'traditional' wet head, and was aiming that way, but thought that just for the sake of completeness, if nothing else, I should try the composting head thing... People speak so highly of it, and all...

Well, I "invented" a ~$10 version of those phancy shmancy $1,000 heads (using a 5 gal bucket, an odd-shaped funnel, and a plastic coffee can), and have been using it for about 3 weeks now, and I can attest to the facts of why people like them so much. There really is no odor, none appreciable, other than that of peat moss, and then only if you take the time to try and notice it. And I don't have a fancy fan and tube ventilator, either... Tho' the boat does stay pretty much open 24/7...

And I've been keeping it there under the companionway, in a makeshift, temporary, 'try-b4-u-buy' construct meant to simulate a fold-up water cabinet idea I've been totin' around in me noggin.

This weekend, I took the plunge and cut out the sole platform at the base, thereby recessing the 'posting head bilgeward, so that the top of it sits less than 12" above what is the floor under most of y'alls sinks. I am imagining a curtain that wraps around it to be used as both a privacy- and shower-screen.

It's working out fairly well. I'll play with it a bit more, see what strikes as most practical, then post some photos for y'all who might be interested.

Also, (hijack warning! ;)) I got my external chainplate bling drilled and somewhat-mostly polished, and the welder is supposed to have finished my tabernacle by now. I'll be poking a stick back up into the sky before the month is out...

Sounds like it's high time for Kurt to start posting some more pics and updates himself!

No kidding there, Mike!  Not only has it been a looongtime coming, but Capt. K has pulled a lot of his photos from this site!  That's cutting into my 'research'.  

Kurt, I am thinking a composter is the logical way to go...no pun intended.  The biggest leap for me was accepting the fact that these hulls are not any bigger than they are.  Seems silly, I know, but that is the fact of the matter.  Now on we're living within our means in the physical sense.  So this guy is really interested in what you've been bouncing around in your noggin.  You've lived on board and that is the experience I need to draw on especially when it comes to living space.

And glad you brought up chainplates.  I've thought about moving them outside too.  Geoff never really addressed what he did, if anything, to the hull for mounting the CPs outside.  Some builders go whole hog laying in extra roving and glass where the CP gets bolted.  Others incorporate furniture to beef up the area.  How much extra(if any) support do you think we need being a smaller boat?  And then the nutz-n-boltz stuff like how big, did you make them yourself, how'd polish them, how you're mounting them, etc., etc..

Quote from: Tony G;21572The biggest leap for me was accepting the fact that these hulls are not any bigger than they are.  Seems silly, I know, but that is the fact of the matter.

No kidding. When I'm looking at pictures of other boats for my "someday" ideas, the 26-27 foot range is usually in the "wouldn't that be nice" category, whereas the 22 footers are more like "now that could be done". (i.e. the compression post/bulkhead/enclosed head. hint hint!)  ;)

Maybe I should start pestering Kurt over on his thread to GIMP it up! Now, I'll let you guys who are actually working on your boats get back to it...

Quote from: Tony G;21572Capt. K has pulled a lot of his photos from this site! ..

Sorry.  We lost that setting when upgrading.  Attachments no longer removable . . . unless you ask the moderator nicely . . .:cool:

I think I'm sold on the composter idea. The mega-bux unit websites claim "80 uses" for 2 pounds of peat moss, so going solo and assuming 1 use per day, that means I'll get about 2.5 months of usage before I have to empty my 'holding tank'. There's not much that can fail, nothing really mechanically, and that appeals, especially that it negates at least 2 thru-hulls, & there's no fixing costly joker valves or replacing/cleaning tubes full of crud. The space footprint is a lot smaller, too - no tubes or extra space needed for an external holding tank, deck pumpout and below waterline seacock, and tubes to reach those spots...

Right now, I have the bucket sitting down into what was the deep bilge access hole, the square spot under the sink, and so I cannot sit straight up on the throne, the bridgedeck prevents that. But there is ready room to move the contraption forward a bit, if that is needed, for comfort or for someone taller than my 5' 9". Being able to utilize that space normally below the sole really helps a lot.

Chainplates - I'm borrowing a bit from here and there. Craig/Faith has me talked in to using FRP only for purposes of longevity and no maintenance worries, and I'm taking a page from Island Packet with how they distribute the shear forces on their boats.

Their chainplates are basically a grid made of SST plate; think of a sort of elongated TicTacToe board, placed up against the hull inside. Then take fiberglass rope, about a thumbs roundness worth and say 6-8' long, weave it through the grid, and take the two 2-3' 'tails' down onto the hull, getting splayed out farther and farther as you get away from the grid. Think 'long blond ponytail', wet out, and the end spread to cover as much surface area as possible. An upside-down V, where the apex/bottom of the V wraps over the chainplate grid up and around the vertical members, and the tips of the V spread out to distribute the force across a wide area.

I'll use fiberglass pads shaped like below, shooting for thick enough to double hull thickness there, bonded to the hull, and then do the rope thing over those pads to help spread the shear out and down. Bolts come thru the hole in the middle, with big washers and etc...

Regarding the missing pictures - those were linked from my old website, which is why they aren't visible anymore, that site has been gone for 4 years or so... I still have the images floating around, need to check and see if the posts themselves list the image names or numbers so that I could re-upload them... One thing is for sure: It ain't Bills fault! :)

Kurt, you're back!

Whoa!  Just the thought of having to work on a busted and possibly 'loaded' head is enough for me to consider getting out of sailing!  Ok, maybe just sell the boat 'as is' with the crapped-out crapper and buy a different one.  And if some folks are put off a bit by the word 'composting' I hear we can call it a 'urine diverting' toilet.:D

Your chainplates sound very interesting and seem to be a new twist.  Is the diagram above your actual chainplate or the backing for chainplate attachment?  The IPs have a neat set-up for tying their CPs together and distributing the load.  Another plus is the addition of a bonding point for grounding is easily handled too.  There are a lot more questions regarding this mod. coming for sure.

I'm a composter too.  I got the first one with the miniature seat,  I'll always wonder if the name Airhead refers to the buyer.  I would definitely get the Nature's Squat, or whatever it's called because it has a more intelligent seat.

BUT, there is a thru-deck for these composters that has always bothered me.
And I have no good solution to its placement.
My composter will be in the remains of the V-berth area on Littlegull.
But wherever you put the thing you have to have a vent AND THE BLOODY HOSE.
The 3" vent itself will work with a solar nicro fan on deck (8" diameter?).  Where does it go on an Ariel deck?  And how does the hose get to it in the accommodation?

I've thought of adding some sort of half round dorade inspired vents to the outside of the cabin up near the mast.  The vent hose to the composter has to be kept in place all the time.  Unless there is another solution, that hose is a PITA.


By SST I assume you are talking about stainless steel.
I think interweaving fiberglass 'rope' into holes would be extremely difficult.
You'd be creating odd spaces that would be hard to fill.
AND, since you would not be mechanically fastening the perforated sheet to the hull,
I don't see what is gained by doing this?  Plain fiber would probably be stronger imco.

How about carbon fiber, no metal, as some of the racers are doing?
It's available, altho the methodology requires vacuum forming with the stuff.
One intriguing form of cabon fiber is that it is also available in tube form.
You decide the diameter, because it stretches like socks.

It is dangerous to encapsulate s.s.
Though total encapsulation is theoretically possible.
Aluminum plate (6061T6) comes in a variety of perforations.
40% more thickness to aluminum, supposedly equals the strength of s.s.
But you'd have the same encapsulation problem.

Then there is bronze (655).  Doesn't matter what you do to it.  AND epoxy sticks pretty well if that's what you have to do.
(Littlegull's external chainplates are waiting for me to slap them on.  They are all polished and
bling the topsides very nicely.  I'm strut bolting through the hull with meranti built-up backing inside.  You can cut and shape silicone bronze with handtools.)


Good luck with that frp 'chainplate' idea.  Have to see photos!!!

[later edit] Island Packets must have rampant corrosion problems!  imco NOT a good idea!
 Both with the weld AND with the partial encapsulation of the stainless plate.:(
Both Pascoe and BrionToss will have you keel-hauled:)

google
[DOC] View Word Document - The look on my crew's face was priceless

//www.Islandpacketphotos.compictures%5CAd_898_word doc
(pretty sure that won't come up.


Scroll on what looks like an email page to get the article.

You will also see pics of Tom's 'string theory'  in his repair.
I don't think it'll work, but there you go...
He fixed it so the same stress cracking will happen again!
it's not just me that's having problems with this idea.

Quote from: epiphany;21575Regarding the missing pictures - those were linked from my old website, which is why they aren't visible anymore, that site has been gone for 4 years or so... I still have the images floating around, need to check and see if the posts themselves list the image names or numbers so that I could re-upload them... One thing is for sure: It ain't Bills fault! :)

Four years!?!?  I just did a RipVanWinkle...

I certainly didn't want to imply that I was faulting you or anyone else nor accusing anyone of nefarious intent or activities.  I just really like pictures;)  Was it Mike (mbd) that proposed a photo exchange of everybody's personal files of boat stuff?  I think that would be an honorable economic stimulus.  All thoses CDs getting purchased uptown and then zipping around the country via the mail.  The spring before this last I got a CD from CJ & Laura and I still dig looking at the progress and ideas.

That vent may be my next wrinkle.  I'm thinking it's nothing right now but it's going to be a...a...well you put it best, PITA.  Can anyone here attest to the odor emitted by said vent hose?  Is it worse than a chain locker?  Maybe it could be vented up there.  We have a ventilator there allready and if you add a couple of holes like Frank and Geoff did that might exhaust it.  Is it a 2",3",4"hose?  If you can get a pumpout hose through the v-berth a vent hose shouldn't be that much more difficult.  If you can't hide a seam, celebrate it!

Both small composters require POSITIVE venting
That something has to draw air from the chamber to some point outside.

It's a rather large hidden extra cost if you go with a day/night nicro vent
Alternatively a small fan can be wired into the boat's system.
A caveat is that both composters need constant air circulation, so if it's wired you have a constant draw,
altho these days you can find very efficient fans. A $10 fan is included in the monster cost of the composter.
First thought is that if you're going to have a 100,000 year old toilet in your boat you might as well go non-electric as well - so I'd look to a solar powered/battery back-up fan.

This type fan and stainless cover has a substantial footprint.  In fact wherever you imagine it can go it will sustain many more footprints.   These things aren't meant to be trodden on.


But, that said, if you can figure out a way for the forward cowl vent to share the work then that's a fine idea.  
But isn't the composter an OUTIE and the cowl vent an INNY?


The little reading you can do about these heads is that they do NOT stink.
If used precisely as instructed.
Infact they can be quite neutral.  Have to spike the bottle with white sugar to deodorize!  Better be innocuous because my bunk is right over the throne!
The only problem is the legal disposal of liquid and 'solids'
and that it can get too cold inside a boat for the bacterial process in the composter to be happy.
It is another bell curve of learning,  but anything is better than wet flushing into a holding tank, pipes valves,  anaerobic smells, and ignominious pumpouts at a dock.  Even a potopottie has a sickly sweet bad smell.

Ebbster, mister, mister...

I was thinking of directing the fan discharge into the forward compartment that was originally a chain locker.  From there the ventilator could disperse the gas outward.  I guess the slight positive pressure of a computer fan would have no chance of overcoming a 10kt. breeze coming in through a dorade.  But you'd probably want that one facing downwind as much as possible to draw air out.  What about rough weather you ask?  Hey, I dunno!  That's where the self-draining holes would come in I guess.  I am planning on putting a sealing hatch on the old chain locker and using it for not-often-needed-items stowage.  You know, like clothes and stuff-Ha!;)

Seriously though, even if you had a good fitting hatch that wasn't even gasketed I bet the ventilator would handle the air exchange in the chainlocker just fine.  Throw in a chainpipe cap and viola!  Look at all that air flow!  For those with original chainlockers there may be the 'concern' of the exhaust being forced down through the bilge and back up into the main cabin.  I don't know how to adress that one...swim with sharks more often and it won't seem so bad?

Regarding the direct wired fan, I recall Kent had a similar, small sized fan wired into his system to keep air circulating while he was away from the boat.  He was not concerned with electrical draw as he has a substantial solar panel and a charge controler.  Right now I have 110watts of solar and my biggest juice draw will come through a highball glass!  So a direct wired fan makes the most sense for me.  You are top notch at making things work smoothly and efficiently and most importantly work for you.

I've never noticed how the two words wet and flushing sound rather icky when you put them together.

Ok, as promised, this time around with patterns!

I raised the platform in the 'berth'/closet/head/workshop another 2 1/2inches.  So that's about 4 1/2 inches above the original height.  I'm hoping to eek out every inch of room athwartship for sleeping.  It will add some additional stowage and a smidgen of bouyancy with water tight compartments.  At this level the tops of the compartments are a little more than eight inches above the scribed water line!
In photo one you can kind of get an idea of the height but I've noticed in the past my photos just don't depict proportions very well.  The bulkhead for the origainal chainlocker will get pushed forward about 6 inches.  Well, actually a new one will get glassed in forward and then the original will be removed.

Photo B shows where new storage will go.  Because of the height of the new furniture some of the storage will actually have two layers or the ability to take a horizontal divider out and have one big storage box (where the contents can bang back and forth and wear on the surfaces, hence the compartmentalized compartments;))

The third half photo just shows the water tankage.  Moved aft and considerably smaller than the plastic Cape Dory tank I just removed.  The water tank will not be this tall.  Only about two-thirds of this height will be tankage resulting in a little over 26 gallons.  There will be shallow storage on top of it along with an inspection and clean-out port.  While 26 gallons isn't much water this tank will be suplemented with another 20 gallons in a tank under the companion way.

There you have it.  Slow but pretty sure:o

After several days of measuring and drawing pictures (and a visit to the chiropractor) I think I have a handle on how best to proceed with the forward 'cabin'.  We'll just have to see if I overlooked some minor but critical detail that might throw up a roadblock.

First off, the original bulkhead that separated the chainlocker from the v-berth had to come out.  Last week, in some delusion fantasy I thought a new bulkhead could be glued in forward of the original such that I could use the original bulkhead to attach some 'struts' or some other means of holding the new piece in just the right place making installation that much easier....  What!?!  You see, that's what winter does to the brain up here.  Being there was a few other spots that needed the loving attention of an angle grinder and 24grit it was as good a time as any to extricate the vintage plywood.  It was not as difficult as removing the ice box but not an easy task either.  After cutting through as much tabbing as possible with the 4 1/2" grinder and the sawzall as far as I could reach the bulkhead was still firmly attached to the hull via a couple of nails driven into the stringers and some of that mysterious, funky blue bondo found throughout these boats.  So I made a vertical cut with the sawzall through the plywood from the chainlocker opening down to the small drain opening on the bottom of the bulkhead figuring that I would be able to gain some leverage and 'wiggle' the pieces free.  Much to my horror as I finished the cut the bulkhead pulled apart about 1/8" to 3/16"!  I froze thinking the bow was going to split open.  No creaks, no snaps, no light peaking in from outside.

I crawled out and took a walk around the front of the trailer to see if I noticed any change or damage.  Everything looked good.  The single bow pad was still loose as I had left it a couple of weeks ago when we releveled her.  So I concluded that it must have been some stress induced from sitting on her keel for so long.  I try not to think about it much or start worrying.  These hulls are tough!  Not to worry.

After cleaning up the dust and debris I remembered that I had always intended to continue the stringers up to the bow like Ebb had done.  So out came the grinder again to clear the way for those.  Then came the final sweep-up for the day and a good washing.  Man, I sure wish I had removed the chainlocker bulkhead before I started retaping the hull/deck seam.  It's tons easier working up front near the stem with all that stuff out of the way.

Tony
 
Never let it be said that you do anything half way.;)
 
It is always so much easier to get rid of anything in the way and start from scratch when doing a project like you are doing. I can't wait to see what goes back in.

It's too late for lit'lgull to have her forward bulkhead repositioned.

I'm convinced NOW that I want samson posts for mooring  (and maybe have the bowsprit bear against.)
It would have been  real sweet to have a sturdy bulkhead right there inside where thru-deck samson-struts could be bolted to!


Not possible to imagine how any bolt-to-the-deck bollard OR stainless samson post  can be installed strong enough to hang a three ton boat from in a blow.

I'll have to somehow connect the posts to the hull inside with braces and brackets or a molded in frp socket.  Along with doublers under the deck, maybe have a cross beam in front of the posts.
 I'll be a problem in a now really restricted area!!!

You are at square one, Tony, if you're planning a foredeck for anything but a marina tie-up!
Interested to see what you come up with.

I have about three days here where I can get some work done and then I'm away from the boat for a couple weeks.  That'll be hard being she's prime for working on and I'm prime for workin'!  I wanna see some progress.

It's all pretty straight forward, as far as what's going back in.  No frills and a mess less than I was going to try the first time around.  Striving to stick with 'form follows function' philosophy.  You know-KISS ;)

I am planning for on the hook and off the grid and into some diving again.  As much as I loved SCUBA we'll be leaning toward free diving out of practicality.  That's how I started anyhow!  And I remember having a blast doing it too!

I like the the idea of a sampson post, Ebb.  But I am trying to reduce the number of things poking up through the deck.  I suppose there is an easy way to keep them water tight and dry.  And they sure would add to the stability of a sprit.  I'm just looking to add a secure eye for a solent stay and a bit more room to stretch out if I have to take to the v-berth.  Although, I really like the sprit(?)/anchor platform on them thar Nor'sea 27s.  If we put a sprit on the nose I'm contemplating switching out the stem fitting for a simple strap like the backstay.  What do ya think about that?

Stem Strap. Yes many boats have that.  Would save weight if you're going with anchor roller/channels.Remember you have to incorporate another attachment point for the foot of the sail.
Another plate.
Bingham, (the Sailor's Sketchbook pg80/81) has idea drawings of  stem and double anchor roller weld ups which might be very useful for a small cruiser.  Something like that would slip over the Ariel nose.
And maybe even reuse the 8" bolt for the major attachment.  That's the one that goes through the top hole in the original and exits through curve of the toerail/nose.  Imco a VERY strong forestay attachment method.


If your Solent is coming from a lower position on the mast but to the stemhead fitting, don't you already have a third hole in the fitting that can be used for that?

Quote from: ebb;21613If your Solent is coming from a lower position on the mast but to the stemhead fitting, don't you already have a third hole in the fitting that can be used for that?

Our current plan is to attach the solent as close to the top of the mast as I can get without interfering with the furler.  (I know the furling vs. hank on argument-but I have a new furler and new head sail cut to it so I'm going to use it.)  Then put a (what do you call it?) fitting about two feet back from the stem.  A line drawn through these two points would intersect a point on the sheer a few inches above the waterline .  That point is about as far as I can comfortably reach over the side of the bow.  So I think that would be a good place to mount a sturdy 'U' bolt or eye that an anchor chain snubber could be attacted to.  The backing hardware for this snubber attachment point could serve as an attachment for even more hardware that would secure the solent's hardware to the hull as well as the deck thereby taking some of the strain off of the deck whe the solent is being used.  If we add a couple of inches of teak into the mix for an anchor platform/sprit that should strengthen everything up a little more yet.

GOT IT!
Actually got it backwards.
If the reason for a solent stay is because you have a permanent furler on the forestay, then in theory the solent will be used for the storm sail - hanked on.
That would mean you can put the attachment point for the solent as far forward as you need to and even get a decent sized staysail.

The attachment for a storm sail in the Ariel deck is pretty technical, I think.
 If the solent is more forward then the 'U-bolt' can be backed up with a turnbuckle to a strongpoint built into the stem.  I mean a turn buckle more forward would be less in the way in the chain locker.

[At one point I imagined a reverse eye in the stem, attached thru the stem with the eye inside!
Desperate measures - don't know if it is practical - but you do need imco more backup than what you can get with our composite deck and plywood.]

A Solent stay is a movable stay.
ABI is out of business and their Hyfield lever no longer available.
Johnson makes a nice backstay turnbuckle with integrated levers for tensioning that have been used for Solent stays by others.
Might be worth looking into.  5/16", $400!

wether you spell it hyfield or highfield it is high bucks and hard to find!  I've run across a few used ones but they have been for a much bigger stay diameter than practical for my needs.

Some plan-B, C and D ideas include:

Instead of a Hyfield, consider perhaps a small (say 1/4"w sheaves) high-load set of blocks w/a 4 or 6-1 purchase, reeved with Amsteel or other synthetic line. Use a normal 1x19 shroud made up shorter than needed with a thimble on the low end, attach blocks with to that with a shackle, and same attachment* for them to your deck fitting. That line could even be led aft so that you could slack the solent when tacking.

Just a thought...

---------------------------------------

*...what's the strength rating on a lifeline pelican hook?

Bosun;s Supply have  6" UNRATED CAST 316 pelican hooks for about $24.  Bet they are chinese.
Maybe it or something more substantial could be used with a gun tackle?

Can't see having a rope tackle permanently deployed because of UV issues.  But why not?
But I'd like to see the set up visavis the staysail and the gear.
IE how and where is the storm sail hanked on?
What pounds are needed to get the stay taut?

In a blow the solent also is helping to keep the mast UP.:rolleyes:
In fact that redundancy on a cruiser is  it's selling point.

Storm sail should have a set of reefpoints.  Correct?

Kurt, you're there!

My latest google search for solent stay brought up a page with Super Duper Joe Cooper (as I like to call him*) using a multi-purchase block system and high tec lines for both the tensioning and the stay.  There was a photo of the 'stay' after some use and it looked pretty worn where the hanks had been working but Joe states that when they stress tested the line to failure it actually parted somewhere other than the worn spots.  I believe it was vectran and sspectra lines they used.  Now I'll probably find out in a couple of years that this sort of set-up is absolutely outstanding and dependable but right now I just worry that the lines will wearout too quickly.  Although it would be easy enough to repair/replace as long as the sails or other equipment doesn't get damaged beyond feild repair.

I was going to add pictures but here is the link.  //www.practicallysailing.com/blog/solent-stay-offshore-sailing-rigging

I don't think a pelican hook has the strength we're looking for.  Ironic isn't it as they are part of the 'life line' set-up.  Figure 9.5 above is in the Pardey's Capable Cruiser 3rd ed. (diagram courtesy the www).  I did buy the book and they claim it can easily be made using stainless or bronze and a bandsaw.  ?Don't they realize that people like me buy their books?  I'm leaning in that direction.

*Joe cooper was the 'customer rep.' that I dealt with for 113's new mainsail and foresail.  He would actually check in with me to see how things were going and give me an update on sails and stuff.  He was a real personable guy and has a great sense of humor to boot.

I agree with Epiphany,
We have been replacing wire standing rigging and lifelines with spectra and relatives more and more. Its cheap, incredibly strong, easy to throw in an eye splice or a bowline, you can keep a spool on board and replace anything your self on the go. There are coated varieties that are better with the UV or you can use Rob line or similar and have the spectra core and a nice UV and abrasion resistant cover.

fiber (from the Dynamica site).
5/16" has a 6600# breaking load which is about equal to wire of the same dimension.
If steel wire can take 6500 50% breaking loads (....before what happens?)
Dyamica, dyneema can take 10 million cycles at the same 50% level.  That's their comparison.

Very little stretch.  If it breaks it won't whip like steel wire.
After two years of constant UV exposure 80% of strength is retained.

Bends recommended at least 5 Xs diameter of rope.  Bends for 5/16" Dyneema should be minimum 1 1/2".  Sheaves and/or thimbles. Visavis Joe Cooper's experiment.

Defender has a Samson dyneema called Am-Steel-blue for $2.09 ft.
This 5/16' rope has a 13,700# breaking strength.  Just repeating the numbers.
It's a 12 strand braided line.
Defender price for 316 1/4" 1X19, 6900#BS = $3.09.

later post....
[Dyneema is seen as an all purpose polyethylene  rope.   Versatile, bullet proof, floats in water, 40% stronger than Kevlar.
Climbing, towing, mooring, hanging, winching, standing rigging, running rigging.
and picking up on your next post here - why not LIFELINES? Both on the stanchions and tethering a life-ring.
Wouldn't it be nice if our backup rigging is a spool of blue plastic rope that can be used for nearly everything?

Would you do the standing rigging with soft eyes?
Which begs the question, if Dyneema is sensitive to UV why not parcel (friction tape)l and serve (marline) it in the standing rig.
 I'm positive galvanized wire is still parceled and served somewhere.  Dyneema's downfall is everything SHARP.  Serving it would stiffen and protect it.
Real Dyneema comes from Denmark or Greenville NC and is heat set and coated with polyurethane.]

Anybody care to compare wire rope VS Dyneema in terms of replacement?
Dyneema's loss of 20% strength after two years UV exposure IS SIGNIFICANT imco.
But what has happened to 316 stainless in that time period?
Is the Dyneema (as standing rigging) signicantly easier to replace??? Does the mast have to be lowered to do it?

Have to see a tutorial on replacing stainless steel wire with Dyneema rope on an Ariel/Commander.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Dyneema and Spectra are the same, yet not the same.
google>
PDF Spectra & Plasma Ropes Introduction Puget Sound Ropes (PSR) began...
This paper will give you the lowdown on this fantastic plastic rope.

That's good stuff there, Ebb!

Well 20% is significant to me also.  What about four years?  I trust my ability to assemble a Norseman fitting or similar correctly.  My splices?  While I see them as inherently beautiful and a miraculous feat when I finally crank one out, I would not be as confident knowing my standing rigging is relying on my splices.  I do like the idea of a complete standing rigging on a spool in the cockpit locker!  My standing rigging was upped to 1/4" two years before I bought her and it has spent it's life indoors since then and I'll bet it has a good bit of life left in it.  If it aint broken don't fix it.  

I will serioulsy consider using high-tech line for tensioning the solent.  Rethreading a couple of blocks every couple of years seems entirely doable for me.  I mean, come on, there's only one splice to complete. :)

I would think replacing standing rigging could still be done one stay or shroud at a time.  I just don't want to go up the mast when it's swinging and I can't afford to pay someone else to do it!

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Quote from: ebb;21631I've always thought the skinny 3/16 wire rope littlegull came with was.... skinny enough!
I'm upweighting to 1/4".

The thing that gets me, as the host on anything sailing.com said... you could tack your genoa and have the crossing sheets melt your forestay.
Suffice to say that even UHMWPE is still a plastic
and very vulnerable to anything hot or sharp.

I feel that creep is a problem too.  High static load deformation.
Instead of turnbuckles to have adjustability you have to go with a clippership inspired deadeye system using thimbles.  Joe Cooper.
I feel all those turning points are not really healthy for any rope.

They say you will have to replace Dyneema standing rigging every 4 years in the tropics.  Because of  UV degrading that the blue polyurethane coating can't really stop.
Not what a cruiser wants to hear.   But maybe some can hack that.

Somebody with a pocket knife can bring your mast down!:eek:

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Well at long last.  Pretty insignificant but it is square to the centerline and plumb based on the water lines!

There is a 1/2" styro pad between the hull and the bulkhead.  Standard fare here, all of the edges were sealed with two coats of epoxy.  My scribe job on the top edge left a lot to be desired :o but we'll fill the gap with thickened epoxy before we tab the top to the overhead.  I 'planed-out' two two inch wide bands to accept the tabbing on the aft face.  One layer of stiched matting and one layer of 7 oz. glass.  The new position of the bulkhead is just forward of the original, heavy tabbing layed by Pearson on the forward edge of the chainlocker.  Being their tabbing added a good quarter of an inch I didn't feel the need to use roving on this side.  The forward side will get the glass, matt, roving, matt lay-up to add thickness and strength to the forepeak.

That opening looks tight but I can fit through it alright.  Maybe I should find a small monkey that would like to travel...artemia salinas

Once again, most of my boat work has been ordering supplies and trying to scavenge ideas.  I need the input and ideas from people with regards to what works for them and what you find that turns out to be a waste of space (or time).  

I like this...bin(?) behind the galley sink.  Looks like a handy place to put things you don't want 'getting away' from you.  Some folks have stated that hammock/nets are less than favorable.  I can see their point.  

I try to live by the adage, "A place for everything and everything in it's place."  But maybe that doesn't mean out of site.  I might have to accept that open storage and shelves may be more realistic on a small boat.  It's not that I was difficult to potty train, or anything, I just feel things are more secure when enclosed and therefore afford a higher degree of safety.  But then I counter that reasoning with the less ventilation and better hiding for unwanted pests...

Chime in and chuck a photo or two at the wall.  Let's see what sticks.

How about a midships galley with folding table? These counters even have nice curves resembling the ones you put in. However, rather than the full blown folding table, I think I'd go for a fold out counter or two, and have a portable table that could be used in the cockpit as well.
PS. Notice the compression post? Let's you pull that bulkhead out a bit. :rolleyes:

That wooden spaghetti strainer is a nice touch!

Tony
 
I'm with you on the bin behind the sink. I like the idea of putting things like mayo and mustard, lettuce etc. there while you are making sandwhiches where they can't escape from the "cook" when the boat heels. You could do a fold up table to the side of the sink where the sandwhices could be built and you would be close to everything you needed. And when you put all of that back in the cooler you have a place to store dirty dishes until the end of the day when they get washed and keep them out of the sink so it is still available for use.
 
The other thing that there never seems to be a good way of dealing with is the trash container. I am working on an idea for a trash container that is easily accessable from the cockpit but out of the way.

Mike I just knew that you could contribute a photo (or two or three, hint, hint) here.  So far I see two spots for a fold-up counter that will add some work space.  I used to dream of a big galley table a few folks could sit around swapping stories and ideas while eating a good meal.  But these are small boats.  A folding cockpit table would be great though!

Ebb, you might recognize that basket from the Scott Sprague cutter listing you brought us from yachtworld.  Lots and lots of beautiful stuff there.  Like all of the room I thought we had.  What I wish for is Little Gull's masterfully planned and finely executed interior, but I've learned to accept that my brain pan don't work that way.

Talkin' trash with Jerry!  Laura and Charlie Jones did a real nice install on their boat Tehani.  They used a squared pail that was tucked into the galley cabinetry under a step.  Easy to get to but otherwise out of sight.  I don't think it would be easy to reach from the cockpit though.  so how about a sneak peek at your idea?

There used to be roughly 50,000 photos of the Bristol Channel Cutter galley with fold-up counters but this is the only one I can find now.  But here's a Falmouth Cutter galley too.  Following Mike's suggestion of looking at 22 footers for ideas that could realistically fit in our hulls.

Tony
 
I really like that fold up table that crosses from one side to the other. I think I'm going to use that idea on Destiny, thanks for posting that picture.
 
As far as the trash idea I was simply thinking of a fold up bracket that would be mounted to the inside of the bulkhead at the aft end of the cabin just inside the companionway. During the day this bracket would hold a plastic trash bag that you could easily toss things into from the cockpit. At the end of the day the trash bag is removed the bracket folded down and out of the way.
 
I was also thinking about your bin behind the galley sink idea and it occured to me that you could make the bin removeable and build a upper cabinet right above where it goes to store the bin when not in use. Then under the bin area you could have your trash container. The trash would stay there even when the bin is dropped in place for use. Just tossing out ideas. :-)

A "For Sale" Ariel a while back had its trash in a cockpit locker, and a hole through one of the aft bulkheads to access it from the cabin...

I remember that one, Mike.  If I recall correctly they also put the batteries under a setee.  That one also spawned a rather heated and opinionated discussion over 'rebuild'  vs. 'remodel'.

I never expected everyone to like what I've done, I just wanted to know if I've done something really stupid or potentially dangerous!

Free beer for the first one to post photos or a link to said boat!!!

Quote from: mbd;21777A "For Sale" Ariel a while back had its trash in a cockpit locker, and a hole through one of the aft bulkheads to access it from the cabin...

That's ex-"Che", now "Mariah", Tim D's Ariel. The one where Adam (when she was "Che") put the hard dodger on her.

I had considered putting the batteries under the aft-most part of the v-berth berths, but instead now have them on the cabin sole, just aft the bulkhead opening. A box over them makes a nifty step-up spot that aids getting in and out of my raised v-berth, and there is also the benefit of their weight being closer to the boats CG.

Gimmee beer! (http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussion/showthread.php?1120)

Hey, I wasn't at the computer!  :mad:

**********

Another pic from the "ideas" folder:

Aft galley, and you could gain extra foot/storage space by making the v-berth a "shelf".

Mike, if the aft head would have somehow fit I was definately planning on adding some cubbies under the v-berth/setee forward lounge area.  If the ideas had only come before the seahood and rails got added...  Maybe another Ariel in the future being we sold the Ensign.

Kurt, I'll set one aside for you.  As soon as you stop by and drink it I'll set another and another and another....well, you get the picture.

Then there's the fold-up sink. I always thought this was a very clever and ingenious space-saving idea. Doesn't have to be in the head either, you know...

Hey, you asked for pics!  :rolleyes:

That's right, Mike.  We'll take photos of any boat.

Finally got to spend a day at the shop.  All of this is still less than one 4 x 8 sheet of 1/4" and a ton, well, maybe not quite a ton, but a whole lot lighter than what I tore out this spring.  

Gotta sand off some of that nice white bilgekote for the locker(s) drain tubes and make a clear spot for tabbing.  The water tank goes in next, I believe.  Then chain well divider followed by v-berth deck.  I think...:confused:

I think she's ready for water!

Dang Tony
 
You are moving right along with putting her back together again. What you're doing looks great. Very impressive.

Thanks, Jerry.  I'm sweating bullets trying to get back on track being I wiped out one years work on her.  I've been trying to swing like a five day deal of just boat work, but it somehow backfired and now I'm the only one at the store today?!?

One thing I can say is 1/4" baltic birch is plenty strong for what I'm doing.  The water tank will have 1/2" fore and aft bulkheads.  But after the baffles get tabbed in I'd bet you could do it with 1/4" material no problem.

Keep on it.
If you are making built-in water tanks where you will use epoxy and glass to line the tank...
I would consider using plain fiberglass sheet for the baffles - no wood, even if covered.

You can make up flat sheet by laying out cloth on MYLAR film.
Douse it with epoxy, squeegy it with as many layers of cloth you want
 then place another piece of mylar film on top.
Then a piece of flat plywood with some weight on top of it.
Wait til you see what you get!!!  Wonderful!

Small tanks with a surge baffle supported on all sides can be fairly thin imco,  like maybe 1/8".
That's what I put in mine.  Have fun gluing in the top with the baffle(s) in place!
If you plan on coating the inside with a potable-water epoxy, that thin baffle will fatten up and be amazingly stiff.

Ebb, do you mean 1/8" thick baffles or 1/8" thick walls?  

I have planned to use 1/2" for the fore and aft bulkheads because if you're pounding to weather or just up onto the beach I figured most of the stresses introduced by the force of the water sloshing in the tank would be in the forward direction.  But I have read some claims by individuals that a couple of layers of fabric on 1/4" ply is all you need.  

The NSF paint!!!  Something that is more expensive than epoxy! :o

Hey Tony, I do mean the thin baffle plates.  If they are supported - filleted and tabbed to the inside walls of the tank they will be plenty strong.  Obviously they get thicker at the walls because of the tabbing and the coved bead of gell fillet makes them even stronger.  You do need to have 'relief' holes in the bafflle so that the surge is broken up but free to circulate.
Think I remember leaving the top corners open (just because it was easier to fit and tab - and slip the top of the tank (plywood covered on the inside with frp) which had a shallow groove in it to receive the top of the baffle.
I opened the center of the bottom of the baffle to allow water to drain wherever it's going - and to aid cleaning of the tank.  I put access plates on either side of the baffle through the top.
Can't remember what the recommended distance between baffles or what volume of liquid needed to be controlled.  Don't follow rules anyway.

It's possible that water tanks will get fouled and need cleaning, washing, or at least stirred up with a pressure hose and pumped out. Sludge lurks in corners.

FRESH WATER rots wood.
 If you put plywood in there, you could be adding flavor to your water.
Remember epoxy is not entirely waterproof.

The potable water coating I used came from epoxyproducts,com.  It is actually called 'tank coating' and rates in the US as OK for 10.000 gallon tanks.  But it's pretty obvious other private parties use it for smaller tanks.  I think that is intimated somewhere in the site literature that the limitation is a quirk of the FDA..  
It is a thick white 2-part 100% solids glossy paint that is difficult to apply because it goes on so thick.  Costs too much like all coatings and paints., I guess. But look it up.  The company is in NH so there is S&H to pay for also.
But I thought of it as a sealer against  laminating epoxy.  You can't trust anybody's epoxy to be free of leaching chems.  
Look at my nemesis Pest Systems (whose epoxy blushes, uses petro solvents and carcinogenic extenders like nonylphenol which might not catalyze fully when hard - and have formaldehyde in their hardeners.  Why do you think I've gone nuts already?
What's NSF?  Not So Fantastic?
LOL (lousy oil lamp)

I may be mistaken, but, in this case the S is for 'Stand by!  Your wallet is about to be accosted.'  Not too sure about the N.  But the F is for the first thing out of my mouth when I saw the price.  Lousy oil lamp

The forward tank measures roughly 22 inches square and the bottom follows the hull form in that area.  I'm going to run the baffels in a simple 'X' shape fore and aft and athwartship.  A 10" diameter inspection port and cleanout hatch will get centered on the 'X'.  That way I can access each section to clean or gawd knows whatever.

True to form, I way, way over engineered the water tank at first.  Fortunately common sense kicked in and now we are looking at making a tank that provides what we need not some silly contraption with a top-heavy cost to benefit ratio.  Ugh!

Dang!  Just about forgot.  The inspection port I stole from your chain locker design.  so thanks!

Got a couple of shots of some 'bote stuff' goings on.

For some reason I had all sorts of crazy ideas of how I wanted to handle the drains for the former chain locker and the new chain locker.  In the end I just got some Spa-Flex tubing and glued it in place.  Simple enough.  I don't know what all of the confusion was about:confused:.

The forward locker drain just follows the centerline of the hull.  Just aft of the water tank's forward bulkhead it veers to port and progresses relatively straight to the intersection of the hull and the top of the fiberglass 'cap' over the lead ballast.

The 'new' anchor locker drain starts just forward of the water tank's forward bulkhead in the anchor locker (duh-me...) and veers starboard reflecting the port run.

At first I was going to fillet the sides with thickened epoxy but then why waste the product.  So I made some fillets from 5/8" square styrofoam.  I simply hot-glued the strips snug to the PVC then sanded a taper with a sanding block loaded with 40 grit paper.

These photos are dark but you can see the runs of pipe.  The anchor locker drain is under construction here and the port side forward locker drain is sheathed in 7 oz. and stitched matt.  You can see the working end of the sanding block on the far left.

Late in the game I decided to divide the chain locker.  First off there just isn't the need for that much room pulling single duty on a boat this small (in my totally inexperience opinion).  The other side could still be used for storing additional rode and/or what not.  But more importantly the divider provides nice support for the water tank's forward bulkhead.  And the added surprise-the forward compartment drain makes a nice fillet!  I have to add a small 'ramp' at the forward end to help the anchor rode spill but that will have to wait untill things are glued in place.  

The top edeges of the 1/4" ply gets reinforced with mahogany strips with a triangular profile.  The rational being the flat top provides a nice, wide surface for supporting the decking or hatch lids and the bottom has no edges to catch things on or split knuckles with.

Here's a shot of the anchor locker drain.

The water tank bulkheads drop into 'grooves' formed by triangular cleats.  Of course all of the edges get sealed with two coats before assembly.  And there will be plenty of thickened epoxy fillets for the bonding here for the strength.  I've been reading and re-reading everything I can find on building water tanks.  Turns out it's the same as building plywood aquariums:D  I can do that!  I have done that!

I'm really looking forward to getting the tank done.

The tank will only occupy the bottom( duh-me..)two thirds of this area.  The top area will have the inspection port, the filler tube, a vent, the pick up tube and the fan and ducting for the composter.

ESTA DE PELO, Senor!

On the port side in the berth/head/storage area I plan to have a couple of shelves to put totes on for storing items.  That idea came from Craig Amos-thank you Craig.  Being that happens on the same level as the berth decking I thought I'd add some access panels so we could have some 'deep' storage under the totes.  

It's tough to see in these photos because I didn't push the 'flower' button on the camera, but, there is a 5/8" wide by 1/4" deep recess for lids to rest on-lids yet to be made.

Because the hanging locker is just forward of the main bulkhead there is only three 'bins' on the port side.  The starboard side has four plus the wee-little triangular shaped spot at the very forward end.  It too will be used.  I have been tossing around the idea of adding horizontal dividers to the aft two bins on the starboard side just to keep things a little more organized.  As a matter of fact I just decided I have to.

Here are a couple of photos taken earlier that show the 'wee-little' trianguar bins in the berth area.  They look deceptively cavernous in the photos but are about 550 cubic inches in volume( 2.3 gal).  The starboard side will be covered and have access through a hinged lid being that side of the cabin is a berth.   The port side will be open to the berth area and will essentially be a open topped dump bin.

Tony
 
It must be nice to work on a totally stripped out hull to build everything in new like you are doing. I think my biggest challenges are dealing with what is existing that I don't need to remove but need to work around.
 
And as expected from you it looks like you are doing very nice work there.

Detect little drops here and there.
Are they drops of sweat or blood or both?:D

Quote from: Commander 147;21861 my biggest challenges are dealing with what is existing that I don't need to remove but need to work around.
 
[/QUOTEYou got that right, brother!  I didn't utilize patterns as much as I should have the first time around.  Second and third generation patterns, while eating up a lot of production time, help make the final piece fit into place much nicer.  And having the room to work....even if I'm going to repeat some feature already there, I'm going to rip it out first just to have the room to get it right!

Quote from: ebb;21862Detect little drops here and there.
Are they drops of sweat or blood or both?:D

Ebb, even with muh trusty box fan I've been sweating away pounds.  Down on the shop floor it's not that bad...but when you're a couple of feet below that metal roof things tend to warm up!  I've got these two ice packs that came out of a shipping box that I've custom molded* to fit the bottom of my mixing cups.  They are helping me out more this year than any of those winter friends that say they want to 'come help on the boat this summer'.

Jerry, I find that nothing original seemed to be in the same plane or dimension that I needed.

This goes back to the 'dashboard days'.  I noticed  the Hallberg-Rassy 31s get a windscreen and an instrument dash but the HR29s don't.  Maybe a moulded dash would be the way to go...  More to come, but first, pictures!

Enough with that dashboard crap!

we glued in the fore and aft water tank bulkheads.  That involved multiple applications of thickened epoxy to build up to the desired fillet radius.  It was just way too hot to mix up large enough quantities to get the job done in one pass.  so I'd lay down a layer, shape it, wait a couple of hours then add another layer, and so on.  In between 'sessions' I worked on various other odd jobs.  Like the port locker lids and the starboard locker horizontal dividers.  The later divide the aft two starboard lockers into a 10" deep compartment on top and a 'deep storage' compartment below of about equal depth but with a tapered bottom.  It's also where I keep extra dust and dirt these days.;)

While far from complete, here is the tank lid.  I added 12, 1/4" stainless bolts bedded in thickened epoxy to hold down the lexan inspection port.  The opening is 10" in diameter and I like that!  I want to be able to reach all over insde the tank once the top gets glued down.  You can see where the water filler goes.  The other two holes are for the vent line and up-take line.

I also put some of the basic pieces for the forward compartment hatch together.  I'm gonna make a simple cam latch for it that can squeeze down a gasket.  Waterproof?  No.  Water-resistant?  Hopefully.

Love those PROGRESS pictures!
More, please!

Quote from: ebb;21895Love those PROGRESS pictures!
More, please!

More pictures?  More progress?

As much as I was leaning toward a midship galley arrangement, it appears that I will keep the galley aft, allbeit reararanged.  That's progress!  I made a full circle! ;)

Tony,
Man, you are smokin right along!!!
Really looking good. I love all the separate compartments, It's like that thing Dr. Who has thats bigger on the inside than the outside.
You're going to able to be so organized.
Mike
C227

Sorry.  No pictures of the latest work.  All I got done was to sheath the inside of the water tank and underside of the tank top.  Then I started rolling on layers of straight epoxy to coat all of the surfaces.  Even though I was trying to do my best I still ended up with a couple of 'sags' in the final coat.  

I hope to make a fiberglass sheet tomorrow morning using the technique Ebb described above.  I allready have the patterns for the baffles and that should allow me to get the pieces cut out and installed this weekend.  Then I can let everything 'stew' for a couple of weeks before painting  and then finally sealing the top on.

We picked up some more plywood this weekend and I am excited to get started decking the forward berth area.  Then I will have a surface to work off of in order to sheath the anchor locker(s) so we can check those off the list.

As if waking up to temperatures rapidly approaching the Fourties isn't depressing enough, these are the two token photos I have of what's going on.  I thought it was kind of humorous when I snapped them, but in retrospect, I'm now finding it kind of disturbing.  Why is progress so slow at times?

Anyways, burried under the motor and the weight and the extra pipe clamp pipes and the sheet of plywood is two layers or 7 oz. glass, two layers of stitched matting a layer of 18 oz. woven roving sandwiched in between two poly sheathed layers of formica.  And a gallon of epoxy...

The other is a pile of stitched matting and woven roving waiting to be installed.

Still hoping for a five day push before it freezes.

Dang Tony
 
Sounds like we need to blend your temps with mine so we can both be better off.  I am really getting over 95+ degrees every single day with humidity levels between 50 and 90%. But we will will not get a break from these temps until Oct. sometime. And Novemeber is when it really starts getting nice.

The DIY fiberglass panels are cut to size and shape.  They ended up being just a hair over 3/16" thick and surprisingly uniform considering the crude nature of the platens used and the clamping method.  I would have prefered to vacuum bag the sheet of stock, and if my 5' x 5' x 3/4" piece of laminated glass hadn't mysteriously disappeared I would have.  But that's another story for some other time...

Here are a couple of photos showing what the pieces look like in place.  If somebody sees me doing something wrong or otherwise stupid don't hesitate to let me know!  

All four chambers communicate on the bottom via openings.  And the semi-circle cut-out(s) on the top, where the panels meet, will allow for 'breathing' between the chambers as the water level in the tank varies with boat motion.  I had been vasilating as to wether holes were needed mid-panel but after looking through a reference manual we use at work I am confident it will work as planned.

You can see there is easy access to all four corners of the tank and the deepest 'sump' area is not more than arm's length away.

I hope to get the panels glued in this weekend and fashion a nice, fat fillet on the top edge to tie the top, walls and baffles together as one when we lay the final beads.

Tony,
Great solution to a baffling problem!
Nice work, nice frp sheet work!
Easy, but expensive, huh?:cool:

Thanks, Ebb.  When I looked at McMaster-Carr I thought the sheets seemed kind of expensive once shipping was factored in.  But I had all the supplies on hand (minus my sheet of glass:( )so why not just make it myself?  Capt. Kurt said once, a long, long time ago, just use cheapo polyester to make sheets out of.  But being this was for the water tank I figured I'd keep it all epoxy as everything I've read had refered to epoxy.  My bad on the resin amount though.  It was only one half of a gallon....

I glued in the baffles last night with some big fillets so I'm curious to see how stiff everything became once the epoxy cured.  Next up is some kind of 'fillet forming jig' to thicken up the top edges where they'll meet the tank top proper.  This ought to be amusing!

Here are a couple of photos of a simple little jig I put together to help make some wide fillets on the top edge of the baffles.  There is now a full one inch wide pad to bond the baffles and the top panel together with.

Very creative Tony!!!!
 
And very nice work. I'm always impressed by the abilities of the people on this forum.

WOW


Nice work goes into that jig. Tony - and no surprises later when you have to reach in there to clean the tank out.

In fact your design makes it easy to pull maintenance on that nice  s m o o t h  interior
without any surprises in the overhead fillet work that can leave snags and hollows and ridges because it's almost impossible to lay in a wet cove unseen and upside down.

Great solution!:cool:

First time we ever see a filleting jig?

Au contraire, sir!  Stolen from YOU.

EBB's PHOTO GALLERY, post number 170, photo #2.  Ha!  Or should I say, "Thank you"?

Don't think so, man.
In that pic you see a single piece jig frame laid on top of the up stuff.
Had to reach into the tank and do the filleting upside down - and essentially unseen.

It worked out OK but I didn't end up with the beauteous fillets you have here, post #434.
Had many filmy extensions of epoxy that had to be sanded back to the cove after the jig was removed.
Told self nobody would ever see the sloppy work!

The problem really is how do you get the gel into the corners you want filleted.
My method after epoxy priming and wiping dry the corners was to use the 2" brush
and dab gobs of gel directly into the corners.  Precise method!  Then use the filleting spatula to smooth in a cove.
Messy.
The trick was to custom each plastic former, cove maker,  to the space the cove former had to run in.
I use the pliable green spreaders most suppliers have now. - cut to fit, including 'sharpening' the rounded 'finger'  The idea is to scrape clean the sides as you press in a decent cove.

In the pic at post 170,  the cove along the hull had a custom spreader of less than a right angle because it had to ride along the hull, which  tilts inward.
Mini bulkhead/baffles across the tank  used a right angle cove maker.
Custom cove makers that bear on both flats of the corner almost eliminate clean up.  Otherwise you probably leave behind a hard ridge  of material you didn't pull into the corner.

But making sure you also get a completely filled-in cove is a problem.  
This, Tony, you solved with your jig what allows making  fillets from the GRAVITY side,
 the TOP.  In plein sight.
These fillets spanning the top,  are put there so that the lid has plenty of surface to be glued to.
In case somebody wants to know.  After you butter up the lid and get it in place, it's so easy to reach in the access hole to wipe off the squeeze out with an alcohol damp rag.
Any gallon of liquid will be proud to splash against what you are creating inside your tank.  Huzzah!

But then what are you using to seal the tank?

Well see, Ebb, you're a craftsman.  I'm inherently lazy and unfortunately forced to work.:D

The bilge is a whole other can of worms.  Part of me says leave it.  But the lazy part of me says there is too much wasted space down there the way I have it set up now.  Luckily I have given up on the sealed battry/sealed box idea... I'm embarressed just admitting I was thinking in that direction.  We are still tossing around the idea of adding tankage in the bilge and your job is the impetus for the act.  But then I think maybe just partitioned storage for heavy dry goods like cans and wine.  (And, oh yeah, wine too.  Did I forget to mention wine?)  Seriously though, there are just too many ideas to implement.  So I try to run everything through the mill a couple of times to reduce it down.  You know, simplify...KISS.  What has worked best for me so far is to lag behind you and some of the other members here and just steal ideas.:cool:

I had planned to seal the top of the tank with good old fashoined epoxy.  If I really felt the need to I could paint over the seams once the top finally cured.  I don't think that will be necessary though.  Most of the strength holding the top piece on will actually be on top of the top.  Some more of the triangular cleats along with thickened epoxy and fabric willhold things down and contain any stray water from the filling process.  Mind you, this is all in theory.  Should I even mention that one point in time I actually thought about sealing the top down with silicon.  HA!

Quote from: ebb;22036But then what are you using to seal the tank?

Oh.  Did you mean seal as in put the top on or seal as in coat the epoxy?  I bought some of the Epoxy Products tank coating NSFin' what the... paint.  Lousy oil lamp.

Some will say that it is not a bad idea to have an actual bilge in the Ariel.

If you have removed and cleaned out the old Pearson paint then you can imco just seal the area with epoxy and come back to it later.
You can put in the sole easy to take off.
So if you have to alter the bilge you won't have to grind on it.

Quote from: ebb;22042If you have removed and cleaned out the old Pearson paint then you can imco just seal the area with epoxy and come back to it later.

I don't remember any paint down there...  My main pain about the cabin sole is I glued those spiffy timbers I made to the hull with 3M 5200.  Then I glued the sole to them with more 5200.  I might try the guitar string method to slice the adhesive.  I don't really want to buy another toxic product designed to soften the 5200.  What would it be called?  6300? ;)

Well it's getting to be that time of year again.  I stole away for a few hours at the shop today and actually did something.  We found an electric heater this last weekend on sale for a few peanuts, a couple of furs and a flint so I bit.  It's only a 5kW unit so it's not going to beat back the ravages of winter but it will take the edge off once the days start getting a little warmer.  Honestly, it's an over glorified hair dryer, but, it's as realistic as one can get for the task.  I mean-there is only so much you can do to stave off sub-zero temperatures aside from dumping a grand into a heating system.  And that is something I will not do.

So, armed with the new heat, new workshop and four layers of clothing-(R.I.P. nude honky workshop) I set forth to organize this cuby into a workspace.  First up is a miter saw station and router table combo.  I know a lot of people like to mount their router in a table saw wing but I see a lot of long pieces needing shaping in my future so it seemed to make more sense to drop it into the miter saw bench.  I'm striving to keep things simple here but I need everything and a good deal of time and money have to go into outfitting a modest shop.  Everything.  Tables, ladders, etc., etc..  Even with heat it's still way too cold to glue anything so I can only get so far for now.  I'm hoping to get things organized and in working order so I can get a jump on boat work this year.  This year's goal is 'hands-on' before mid-April.  I promise we'll post some pictures as things come together.  The new camera is worth more than I am right now and I don't think I can be responsible for it's safe keeping with all the hub-bub going on at the shop as I'm way out of practice.  

Cheers!

Glad to hear you're getting back into the swing of things. It's guys like you who inspire guys like me. Feel free to start posting pics too, cause you know we love 'em! ;)

There is some really beautiful and inspiring work being done by a lot of other captains out there.  Though I haven't posted much lately I have been watching and waiting.  I have been focusing my energy on a new job and moving (and consequently, down sizing) again.  This last week we were caught up enough that in a 'spur of the moment' I put in for a couple of days off.  I knew that staging would be ncessary sooner or later and the oportunity presented itself via odd sized pallets in the warehouse.  You know what they say,"One man's trash is another man's treasure."  So we have staging now.  Crude looking but suprisingly stable.  I added a layer of cardboard to brige the gaps in the decking.  Its hard to believe but a single layer of cardboard adds a little security under foot too.

This shop that once seemed as large as a dance hall is filling in fast.  It's getting hard to spot the 30 foot long, bright white tailer in some of these photos!

During the cold winter months I had to build, and/or rebuild, a couple of tools.  

Because of space restrictions we needed to move the table saw to the side of the outfeed table if we were going to cut any stock over six foot long.  My old saw stand, while sufficient in the old shop, didn't lend itself well to moving from one position to another.  So we had to build a new table saw stand.  I still need to finish the stand with some paint and hooks to hold blades and throat plates on the slide outs.

The outfeed table didn't fit through the door of my old shop so we cut the legs off!  So they had to be reattached.  That was a rebuild.  Also because of space constraints, more than a foot had to be cut off of the length.  I just added plastic around the bottom this weekend in an effort to keep vast amounts of saw dust from settling on the tools stored under the work top.

Until the mahogany rails and rub-rails go on the boat there is a need to store the 14'-6" lengths somewhere, somehow.  So I decided to make an extra long miter saw table with storage below it.  The fences are removable, and, the whole thing separates into two 24" x 72" tables and the 24" spanner that the saw is mounted to.  It seemed like a good spot for a router insert as well being most pieces I shape are either lengthy or else small enough to fit on a 24" wide table.  There is a separate fence for the router.

I never would have thought of doing this mod, but, I saw a picture of someone else's project that used a stock craftsman tablesaw stand and I just happened to have one lying about.  Besides, the drill press comes with a dangerously small bed.  The block under the drill bit can be lifted out and replaced when it gets too chewed up.  Or you can put in a custom block if you have chucked a sanding drum.

Instead of "T" track I used 3/4" x 1/2" channel to add a fence and/or hold downs.

There are some things that aren't worth the effort to build if you can find something that is close to what you need.  This work bench is a 24" x 48" shelving unit split in half (height wise) and mounted side-by-side.  I added a 3/4" thick work top and the 48" x 96" peg board to the back.  In hindsight I wish I had spent the extra $12 and bougt 1/4" peg board as the hooks are continuously falling out whenever I grab a tool.  I've tried bending them to hold tighter, but, little improvment.  Crud.

I added a 2 x 2 in one corner to hold speed clamps and another to the other end of the top to hold the pipe clamps.

And here's another thing that was cheaper to buy and modify rather than build.  It is a direct result of down-sizing.  All of this stuff used to be at home in a back room.  No more back room.

But this is a boat site, isn't it?  So where are we at with that?

I am still freaking out about the mast beam.  I just can't shake the paranoia of it coming apart because I glued it with titebond II.  I could 'fix' it into place like Ebb did, and, that is the most favourable route as of yet.  Tearing it out to relaminate will be destructive to say the least.  No way around that as it is epoxied in there pretty good.  Further more, if it comes out I have seriously entertained the idea of leaving it out and adding a compression post and bulkhead much like a Cape Dory 26.  That would aleviate the caving in but necessitate hacking out my hanging locker and a good deal of the two level storage lockers I last added to the forecabin.  Who knows, maybe we don't really need a hanging locker.  I have to really think about this one before I tear anything out.  But sometimes the quickest, most direct route forward starts with a step backwards.. Arrrrgh!!

So let's focus on the stuff we know is going to happen.  We are going to add a solent stay to the mast and that is going to mean adding an attachment point on deck.  That will get tied into the point on the shear of the bow above the waterline where the support for the bow sprit termnates.  Also configured into this assembly is an attachment point for an anchor snubber.  

A bow sprit and achor roller(s) is highly desired here.  Nothing too fancy.  Just some wood and a tack for a cruising asymetrical.

A  sacraficial mahogany rub-rail capped with the original stainless hardware and a toe rail.  The toe rail will not be as attractive as Ebb's handiwork.  I'm thinking utilitarian for safety purposes largely.

Over time I have bought oodles an oodles of parts for a soft dodger and bimini.  I really think on small boats like ours you need to make topsides another room as often as possible.  With a addition of screens and leeclothes you got a split-level condo!

Here is the basic design of the toe rail profile I am adopting.  I want to separate the toe rail and rub rail with a wide cove stripe that contrasts the hull color.

That is about all I've got for tonight other than these hangers we made for the mast.  That was a real joy to place by myself given I don't have a ladder in the shop yet...

I am open to suggestions regarding the mast beam and anything else you might throw my way.  Cheers to all of you and it feels good to finally do something boat related!

Quote from: Tony G;23884There is some really beautiful and inspiring work being done by a lot of other captains out there....

And you're tops among them!  LOVE toe rail and the staging - you even used it for the ladder!!!  Hang in there Tony, crystal blue water and white sands await...

Glad you're posting progress again.

Tony,
What a work space you've created! A great place to hang out through the winter months.

Tony
 
It's really good to see you are getting back to it. It is amazing how much having to relocate from one shop area to another can set back a project and all of the things it can effect (like your tablesaw out feed table for instance). When I look at how you have set up your work area I see a lot of similarities to the way I have either done things in the past or do them currently. And even though this is a boat site it is nice occasionally to see the shops behind the scenes that help to create these restored small yachts. As a matter of fact we should start a thread on workshops that those of us here use to do this work. It could be another way of helping each other to see ways of handling things during the process of restoring these fine boats. Before the economy dived I almost built a new shop for myself and I would have had all the delays you experienced.
 
As far as your mast beam dilemma here is my take as a fellow wood worker that has used Titebond II on a lot of projects.
 
First you need to look at it and decide if ripping things out now and replacing them would be significantly easier than it would sometime down the road. If it would be a similar amount of work either now or later then my vote is later (and maybe never). Titebond II forms a bond (especially in the large surface areas in your situation) that is most of the time stronger than the wood itself. It has been used in many structural applications in home building where it helps to support roof structures and never failed unless it was an obviously poor design in the first place and then it was not the fault of the glue. Your biggest concern should be keeping it dry. If you meticulously maintain the bedding under the mast step and make sure you have no leaks there I seriously doubt your mast beam will ever fail as a result of the glue. And if it does fail I doubt it will happen in one fell swoop. I would be surprised if you did not see some tell tail signs of a problem prior to an actual failure. And if you saw those signs then is when I would quit sailing her until I resolved the situation. That's my take and what I would do in your situation for what it is worth. Of course you mileage may vary. :-)
 
I really look forward to watching your continued progress as you get back to work on her.

Tony,
Must feel so good to get the workspace transformed into a working space.

I'm envious.  There is nothing better than an organized workshop with all tools, floor tools especially, close to hand.  Close to the boat.
Of course now you won't have any excuses!:D

In the 'old' days when I ran the shop on this estate....  there is now an upgraded, upscaled, nose in the air, shoparoony here you won't believe.  I don't go in there much to work any more.

.....but in those days I had a shopvac that was a 55gal cardboard drum on wheels with a big motor on top and a few custom lengths of hose.  I'd take it to the tablesaw when needed, wherever.  It had an out hose (that slowed the suction on the other side a lot) that I could lead the exhaust, which had dust in it, outside.   This was before HEPA filters.  What it had was capacity. A single job with a jointer, planer, tablesaw can choke the small vac.  Emptying a vac is a universally hated task, so capacity stretched those episodes.  It helped  make a dust controlled (vs dust free) shop.  Rigid Vacs arer OK and affordable,  I don't know thieir micro dust collecting capabilities,  but you have a problem in an enclosed space.
I'm one that hates wearing filters.

The old ebb shop had one wall cabinet that was constructed to be dust free.  It is still there, acrylic doors, magnetic catches and foam weather stripping.  In those days it housed the music system.  Nowadays you can tune in a source from the computer that plays your exact taste without messing with dvds.  So its use in a normal shop can be for cups, utensils, the computer, whatever wants NO dust.  Water boiler, Coffee maker, snacks?  The cupboard was installed right at the entrance to the shop - less dust  collected there.

However the greatest asset a well run shop can have is its "moaning chair".  
The term comes from  wood boat days,  I think the Atkins, father and son, stole the term from one of their customers.   It's a place to sit and contemplate the project,  what you are going to leave and what you have to rip out!
You take a break, relax with a pal,  have lunch,  a beer, or a fresh cup of coffee and plan the next step.  And it's near the heater.

Hope you've got good ventilation!
ONWARD!!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Tony and Jerry are refering to aliphatic glue being used in a boat.
Yellow glues get cautioned in laminations because they (or actually the wood) can creep in a moist environment.
How to fix or immobilize something like a laminated beam is a problem.
Prebent laminations where you prebend the pieces in a stack before gluing is what we should do.
My epoxy laminate oak beam in A338 was put together under tension.  Not smart on many levels, invented a system I thought would work and it didn't - and I also wasn't going to rip it out!!!
It is smarter to use a glue that likes pressure, like aliphatic glues.  My choice in the Franklin glues is TiteBond III, which is sold as water resistant/ water proof.
Before installing my mast beam I should have bolted it together, thru the cured and shaped piece.
In theory, we can stop creep by doweling.  Drilling perpendicular 1/2" holes vertically thru the piece and knocking in 1/2 dowels of the same material the beam is glued up with.  The perpendicular dowels will be at different angles with each other spaced along the arch.  This imco creates a pretty good lock, and the laminations theorectically won't move.  But wood moves anyway.  So anything that can happen will happen.   Poor Ebb had to bolt his thru the cabin deck with bronze.  Rediculous in a way!  Now, in theory, the beam is encapsulated with epoxy sealer, paint, etc. to keep moisture at bay.
But I'll always wish I did it right in the first place.  'It's all in how you go from one mistake to your next mistake.'

Quote from: mbd;23893Hang in there Tony, crystal blue water and white sands await...

Glad you're posting progress again.

Thanks, Mike.  It's the thoughts of blue water and white sands that keep me moving.  I like pelicans too.  I always know I'm on vacation when a see a pelican giving me that, "Damned yankee", look.

Mike M., you are only a few hours away!  I could use your input and experience!  I know I wanted to head your way this past summer but, work being work, I ended up..working.  Next year will be much smoother sailing for me.  The guy we rent this space fom rescinded his "no flame" policy for my unit just because the electric heater takes so long to heat the space.  So we're going to add a LPG unit to quick heat the air and rely on the electric to maintain the temperature.  My only concern is we sealed the space too well so a CO2 alarm will be mandatory.

Jerry,  Thanks for the real world input.  I'd like to believe this boat would never go under the knife again in my lifetime.  Wether its now or later, removing the mast beam will be a major project.  The mast beam is epoxied to the cabin top and epoxied and screwed to the main bukhead.  The support beams are epoxied to the mast beam and epoxied and screwed to the main bulkhead.  Removing it is going to result in a lot of 'collateral damage'.  That is why I would do a drastic deviation from the current layout if I had to remove it.

A shop thread would be cool!  Actually, a method and jig page would be a HUGE time saver for me.  A good deal of time is spent sitting there, brow scrunched, staring off into the distance saying, "How the #&!! am I going to do that?!"  

Ebb,  You are right.  This space does need an area to just sit and converse or take five.  I'm always running against the clock trying to get things done in the little slice of time I've been allowed.  Ventilation, no.  Resperators, yes.  I know, I know.  This is big problem we run into starting about this time of the year when we habitually start closing doors and windows.  My old shop(s) were so leaky I couldn't keep the snow or water out! So I've been thinking about adding a canvas based, bellows-like contraption to the walk through door that will allow for ar exchange without significant heat lose.  I have thought about a shop-vac dust collector that exhausts outside and would passively pull fresh air in through some sort of heat exchanger or recapturing thingamagig.  If a guy could just find the right demolition site where they're thowing away copper base board radiators.  I could see a route of parallel pipes against the ceiling bringing fesh air in...  I dunno.  Hopefully we're a few weeks:(away from that.

I was down at the shop today clearing up a 'furniture malfunction'.  It didn't take long before I had lost all focus on that job and climbed aboard 113 to think.  I have been trying to position the engel refer so it will fit the proposed galley lay out and still be able open it all the way without interfering with, or, being interfered with by something else.

It has been so long since I purchased the engel but I believe it is a 35.  I climbed out of the boat and turned my attention to the refer itself.  I started tossing around different ideas.  It dawned on me that if the top was hinged on the long edge like a typical cooler that would help it fit my plan a little better.  I unscrewed the hinges and played around for a while with the idea of moving them to the side noting ranges and measurments.  I made a cardboard two dimensional model to try a few ideas on board.  This configuration work much better but not quite there yet.

down on the shop floor, at the refer, I began working backwards from what I wanted to what I had.  The opening top is roughly 14" x 19".  If I had an opening in the neighborhood of 14 inches square that would be just about ideal.  So I though,"Why not build a new top?"  After closer examination I noted the top hatch on this engel is 2" thick, but due to the shape of the moulded plastic liner on the inside there is only 1.25" of thickness.  If you account for the thickness of the metal outer skin and the plastic inner skin they would be hard pressed to get anything more than an inch of insulation in the hatch!

However, if I went with a smaller 14" square top I would have to deal with the inconvenience of reaching under 5.25" of lid to fully stock the refer.  From what I've seen elsewhere most ice boxes have at least that much of an overhang around the loading top.  I think I could fab a 2 inch thick, hinged, gasketed top for the engel.  Now I know what this does to the warranty and I certainly don't intend to drill any new holes in the existing chassis.  Instead I thought about using high strength adhesives to attach the necessary hardware.  A sliding tray built into the galley top will go over the top of the refer and keep it sealed (mostly) in the event of an inversion.

So what do you all think?  Is this a crazy idea?

Also, for those of you that have an engel.  I noticed toay that the unit has a sticker on it that saskeep 2" of clearance around it while in operation.  Does that pertain to the compressor end that has the venting?  I am assuming that is what they are concerned with.  I had intended all along to place the unit in a cocoon of additional insulation minus the vented end, of course.  Do the units have warm spots elsewhere?

Nice work shop Tony.  Looks like you've created just the environment you need the get your Ariel finished.  

I'm with Jerry on the the Titebond 2 question.  Since A-113 isn't a submarine and immersion in boiling water unlikely, I think you have nothing to worry about.  In the old days they used casein glue, from cows milk, to put together structural wooden parts from sailboat masts to aircraft, the de Havilland Mosquito.  Titebond 2 has got to be way stronger and more durable than those old casein glues.

Ah yes,  took the garbage out.

That's exactly what I was thinking today!  Who needs a hinge if the refer is built in?  Most ice boxes only have a hinge so you can open a smaller hatch (say half of the whole lid) to grab things versus popping open the entire top when you don't really need to.  Granted the big opening is necessary for loading block ice but we're making 'electric' ice here with the engels.  

As far as what I think of the engel.... It's a great idea.  I have never even plugged it in to see if it works!  I will one of these days, I suppose.  Just out of curiosity I looked at their web site recently to see if there was anything new as far as developments thinking this thing might be outdated by the time I fire it up.  High carumba!  I payed about $600 and choked a little but rationalized it away with time.  Current pricing would make me hesitate to pull the trigger but you said it, the price we pay for a coldie!

Hopefully this weekend will find me squeezing into the space where 113's refer will reside with a new, modified "mock up" in hand.  I'm finding our slack bilge to be the common culprit when it comes to reconfiguring our layout.  Wether it be an aft head compartment or a low profile galley there is just less room than I think.  Oh well, perseverance should pay off eventually.

This is what I'm hoping to achieve, but, I will accept less...By the way, this is a photo of a Dana 24!!!

A while back (page 26) in this thread we were talking about different ways to tension a solent stay and yet have the capability to move it out of the way when not needed.  Cap'n K suggested using some blocks and high strength line.  Great idea!  And somewhere "out there" it was happening.  

I grabbed this photo the other day when the above "refer madness" was found.  It comes from the same Dana 24.  Is he going to donate that anchor?!?

Well "they" started talking about snow again this last week.  Gawd!  I hate it when they do that!  Some friends are down in Key West for MOTM and I'm out buying another heater for the shop.  It really all started with buying some replacement blades for the ocillating mutifunction tool and then I saw those heaters staring at me from down the aisle a ways. I'm getting impatient and it seems there's just too much to be done to take another winter off, so we gotta have heat. I'll post a heater action photo but hopefully that won't be for some time yet. ;)

This is kind of lame but it was the impetus for me heading out to buy more OMT blades.  
It's time for the interim galley and salon to come out.  What goes back in will have signficantly more consideration for the refer unit.  Well, the working half of the refer that is.  I'm going to try to design a work surface/chart table that incorporates a home made lid that pulls double, maybe triple duty.  It is a small craft after all.  So we cobbled together this life size model to move around in the mock-ups.

The dotted plus the solid diagonal lines are the factory hinged lid and the solid diagonal lines indicate the 14" x 14" lid that I think will suffice for stocking and retrieving goods from the refer.

OK Tony, you pushed and I ordered the Engel.  Parts of it are arriving, the blanket and the mounting plate in separate cartons look like they came round the horn.
So I haven't got the fridge here yet....to see what alterations could be done to the lid.
I will also have to do something - my install has even less top opening than you have.
First, immediate solution is to remove the hinges.
But accessing that way means dealing with a big chunk of hard slippery plastic.

So: instead of a hard top, why not consider a soft top?  One that replaces in form the supplied lid.
There is an expensive but very nice looking/feeling polyethylene CLOSED CELL foam called Minicel. No smell.  Non toxic (no cfc or hydrocarbon blowing agents) - impervious to mold and bacteria - and can be found in 'skinned' versions.  This is the foam used in athletic equipment, knee pads, seats.  Kyackers use it and expertise and ideas to be found on their DIY sites.

Could do a slicedbread design with separate pieces side by side and contact cement or MarineGoop  webbing material OR vinyl upholstery material,  OR Sunbrella, on top that will stiffen/unitize the pieces into a bendy substitute lid.  Also keep water from entering.

In bun form Minicel foam can be shaped - so if there is a rabbet jog needed around the edge, that can be done.
Different densities make for stiffer foam that can span the fridge opening without sag.  Research.

OR the foam lid can just be a single piece of whatever thickness required.  Could even be a little thicker I'd guess.  You know, so the champagne cork will be accommodated in a dimple with the lid shut.  Would be easy to remove, and a nicer thing to have floating around the cabin.

California is beginning its winter rain season with near freezing temps at night.  They say  global warming will bring on a new ice age.  Has to do with ocean currents changing their customary routes!

That's thinking outside the box, Ebb.  So you're talking about mixing a roll-top desk, Roman shade and a roll-up garage door?  Why the heck not?!  It surely will be as insulated as the original hinged hatch is and far more "Ebb friendly" for your install.  It's not like you're going to be standing there with the lid rolled open staring into the fridge wondering how old that slice of cheescake is.  Go for it, man!

I just spent the morning cutting out our galley and salon.  Carried a lot of weight off the boat again...reminiscent of a couple of years ago when I cleaned out the forward compartment.  Looking forward to redesigning it and putting it back together(again).   The shining star was the ocillating multi-tool.  Virtually no dust or odor at all.  If I had hooked up the shop-vac I would have been spoiled rotten!

Spent the day in Southern MN at a meeting grinding out details of the upcoming season with 9 other people.  Got home and could not wait for the therapeutic release of clearing out the rest of the salon pieces.  I don't have my small scale anymore but I think I will haul this to work this weekend to weigh it.

Once again I was tickled with the ocillating multi-tool's ability to cut through tabbing without kicking up a cloud of dust or choking fumes.  

I had used hot glue to tack some things in place before fixing them "permanently" with epoxy and cloth.  After cutting the tabbing and extracting the baltic birch plywood, I switched to a scraping blade and removed nearly all of the hot glue reminants left behind.  I say nearly all because there is undoubtedly some hot glue left in the deep weave "imprints" of the roving.  How am I going to remove that if need be?  Heat gun and brass brush?  We'll have plenty of time to figure that one out.  It is going to be way too cold to epoxy anything back in for about 6 months.  This will give me some time to play around with cardboard models and mock-ups.  

Gotta do this over only miniaturized this time:confused:

And speaking of models.  Here's my old friend "Bud".  Get it:D?  Bud?  Oh, well...

Leaning towards a u-shaped galley again if we keep it an aft galley.  Otherwise we'd go for a port side galley.  The reason being, and I just read this the other night, if you go below to fix a quick bite you can heave-to on a starboard tack making you the "stand on" boat and  your galley will be down hill from you giving you another inch of safety.

This spot for the refer will give plenty of room for another 2"+ of surrounding insulation and a good 2"-3" thick top yet still have enough clearance to open it.

Tony
 
You are a better man than me. After going through the work to rebuild my interior I don't think I would have it in me to tear it all out and start over again. Now I have redone my design drawings several times and made individual pieces multiple times to get them right, but to do the extensive rebuild you are doing is more than I would be able to talk myself into.
 
That being said it looks like that is a really good location for the refer. I hope it all comes together exactly like you want it to this time.

I agree with Jerry. Wow that must have stung to pull all that out. Once I make a decision to do something a certain way it stubbornly remains the absolute best or only way...forever! (I also never had the patience for "test fitting" and dry layups)
Beat it fo fit and paint it to match is my motto. You just have to discipline yourself to never look back. It also helps if you can refrain from looking too far forward as well.
I don't know maybe with enough head scratching you'll figure out the Tardis puzzle (Dr. Who reference. You know... Bigger on the inside than the outside). Keep the progress rolling Tony, Soon you'll be throwing a dart at a map.
Mike

Replacement HINGES AVAILABLE.
 The two lid hinges  on the 27 are ALREADY 'take-apart' because one leaf attaches to the box and its one leaf buddy attaches to the lid.  
The pin is loose in one and attacht to the other.  They are handed left and right so the lid is not removable.  Engel has the pintel leafs screwed to the lid.
A couple of gudgeons & pintels.
Assume that similar hinges are available for the 35.  
Called up ENGEL in Florida  (1-561-743-7419)  and Nancy set me up with a spare set.  
Will  change-out  the hinges and make both left/left so when the lid is lifted just a bit the lid will shift left and come free.  
Of course the hinges can be reattached so the lid slides off right.
 
Thing is, this alteration isn't a one way street - can always go back to what it was.
 
Could just reverse 180 one of the hinges,
but having anextra set,  they  can be swapped around so that both pintel leafs attach to the box,
 The lid can have the gudgeons and be right or left side removable.  How easy is that?
Can't be the first fool that has wanted to do something like this - Engel makes it too easy.
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later EDIT:  Hinge arrives. Assumed I paid for a pair, but only one in the pkg.  One was enough!
Took 6 minutes to change-out and turn around leafs.  Leafs are interchangable.  This fridge will be mounted athwartship  under the counter,   in front of and next to the batteries which are under the cockpit.   Looking down on plan view it would show the fridge under the bridgedeck.
Facing the cockpit the lid will open on the left side -  when lifted will slide forward.  Not sure what final access there will be directly thru the top.
BUT the lid has to be tilted up barely two inches to  slide off the pins which are on the case.  And slid back home  the catch snaps the lid down for an original tight seal.
yessireebob!

Started putzing around with some ideas and cardboard models.  To make better use of the bilge and to get rid of the ridiculously heavy 3/4" thick sub sole we had to begin with a little destruction.  If you're only destroyin things you made yourself the whole karma balance should be unaffected, right?  So this is what I accomplished.  We cut through the 5200 with, what else but the OMT.  Wasn't easy as pie (or pi) and involved using a mallet and beefy screw driver and a good deal of prying-Tenacious...
 
If I was a better man I think I would have done it right the first time:o

I will use 1/2" baltic birch for a sub sole this time around.  Those support timbers are going to come out and a new set will be made.  We're going to drop the works 3/4", not that it will give me standing head room but it will be a full inch lower than where we were headed.  I'm going to widen the access to the bilge too.  There is just too much storage potential there to ignore, or, not give due consideration to.

Well it was bound to happen sooner or later.  Today we got big, BIG, wet snow flakes that turned everything outside white in about 10 minutes.  Having said that, here are the actions shots I hoped I would not have to post for some time yet...



I think tiki's face says it all-disgusted.

Last time around we went with some curvey furniture.  The jig we made back then (was really crude) used a 4" PVC pipe as the mold to form the radius.  Four inch pipe has an outside diameter of 4 1/2" and we wrapped 1/2" of wood around it so we ended up with a pretty fat corner.  Nice on the knees but I felt it was a bit too much for a small boat.  

I liked the feel and the looks of a 2" radius bend.  To get that we switched to a 3" PVC pipe which has the outside diameter of 3 1/2".  Being I've dropped back on the thickness of the plywood I'm using from 1/2" to 1/4" baltic birch, we end up with the 2" radius I desired.

I still got to use the 4" PVC.  I just built a little jig that allowed me to run it over the table saw and cut out 1/4th of the wall lengthwise.  The black UHMW stock I had lying around just happened to be 1/4" thick same as the PVC pipe wall so it transitioned perfectly.

With the old jig the 3mm plys were allowed to run wild when I glued them up with the intention of trimming everything "square" based on the radiused corner.  That ended up being a giant PIA.  So this time around I added a lengthwise guide along the bottom edge and some alignment tabs on the end.

What's the most important tool in the shop?  DeWalt?  Craftsman?  Freud?  Nope Black and Decker...steam iron.  Yeah.  Tool of the hour tonight.  

Multiple individual plys in a laminated curve add stability.  Even though there are 3 plys in the 3mm plywood we are using there are actually only two indiviual plys in our new curves.  While it seems it would spring back less because it required less force to pull the wood into the form it will actually end up being a less stable laminated piece.  So I decided to pre-bend the plywood before gluing them together.  That should remove much, if not all of the springback.  

I don't have a steam box.  Fortunately a rag, a little water and the added persuation of a steam iron soften the resistance of the plywood to being pulled into the form.

Love the bright work!

Tony
 
I'm not sure I'm following you so let me see if I have this right.... you are prebending 2 pieces of 1/4" baltic birch plywood prior to gluing the two pieces together which is the 2 plys you are talking about. Is that correct?  And that will give you a little under 1/2" thick corner piece for the furniture (plywood being under nominal thickness like it is).
 
BTW sweet jig you built for the bending process.

Need a metal brake to bend 1/4" Baltic.
But why birch?

Thank you Larry.

Jerry, we are attempting to prebend two 1/8" sheets for the total thickness of 1/4".  It only held about 45 degrees when I released the clamps.  So it looks like another round of water is in order.  This time I won't be quite so conservative now that I've seen the results of lastnights trials.

Ebb, it is resiliant!  I buy baltic birch because that is the only thing offered out here in the middle of no where.  I introduced an extra 3 degrees to compensate for any spring back...yeah, right.

Because it isn't feasable to keep a decent temperature 24hrs a day with the little 5KW heater we have, I've been trying to think of ways to at least get the chance to glue small peices together.  Some of the small electrical heaters still use 750 to 1500 KW and that's a lot of juice for what you get.  So I got a couple of sheets of 1 1/2" styrofoam and cobbled together a "hot box" that is 36"w x 48"l x 30"h.  The corners are pinned together with 1/8" x 18" rods which makes it easy to put together and pull apart.  It is heated with two 100w bulbs in reflectors.  I don't have a thermometer handy but it was nice and toasty in there this morning while the ambient air temp in the shop was near the mid thirties.  (outside temp was 14)


I still have to come up with a way to heat the hull and cabin this winter if I want to lay down some epoxy. It may be just a different version of this as I don't want to invest in a bunch of heaters.  I can heat up the outside of the hull by directing the gas heater toward it for a short while as we bring the shop up to temp before going to all electric heat.  Then it may be up to some more reflectors and a means of clamping them in place for twelve hours.  I've even thought about getting some electric blankets and draping them over the hull adjacent to where we're working to see if they could hold a constant temperature.  Any ideas out there?

Tony
 
It is rare that I need to heat my work area for Destiny most of the time my problem is that it is so hot I can hardly breath let alone work and the epoxy kicks much faster than I want it to, but I have had a couple freezing nights since I started this project and I may get a couple more soon. But heat lamps directed onto the raw epoxy was enough to make it kick properly even though it frooze overnight. My shelter has no way to heat it since it is open on both ends. You are enclosed and insulated so work on the inside of your boat might work out with just the heat lamps like I used. 1976 was the last year I lived in the cold county so I have probably forgot a lot of the pain involved in working in that enviroment but you asked for suggestions so............

Tony,
           We had an extreme winter here last year and my girl wasn't inside. I was able to maintain a good temperature inside by just wrapping her good and tight with tarps. I was really surprised what heat I absorbed from the sun this way, even with snow on top. I had one small heater and a type of brooder bulb I use to keep my chickens warm. At freezing temps it would be 65 degrees by 9:00am. Under twenty and/or the wind blowing I didn't even try though. At 14 that certainly is a challenge when trying to spare expense. But being at 30 in the shop you should be able to get the inside cabin warm.
          Stopping escaping heat will benefit mostly I think, and closing off the berth and access to other areas where your not working whereby minimizing the space.
          Your right the tiki says it all.:(

Quote from: Tony G;24073...  Any ideas out there?

Move South? :)

I'm still trying to get over the shock that you tore out your previous gorgeous and curvy interior...  

On the constructive side of things, I don't know about exterior hull work, but perhaps, if you're planning on it, you could make insulating the interior your first order of business, then keep it nice and toasty inside?

Quote from: larry;24075Stopping escaping heat will benefit mostly I think, and closing off the berth and access to other areas where your not working whereby minimizing the space.:(

I tried to do a multiple quote reply because all three of you hit the nail on the head. "Move South"!  For some reason I never thought of just sealing off the area we're working in.  This deserves a closer look to find out what kind of impact just filling in those big holes would make.  I think we may need the assistance of a low/high temperature recording thermometer.  I wonder if it will be necessary to insulate the hull?  Would it be better to insulate the outside vs. the inside of the hull?  My reasoning is, will the cold hull "wick" the heat away if just the inside is insulated?  Will I have to heat both sides?  I could use heat lamps on the outside directed at the hull but eventually I'm going to have so many lights burning I may have been better off to get another energy hungry heater...

It looks like progress may take a back seat to investigation for a bit here as the cold weather hasn't really hit yet.  Even though it is bright and sunny this morning it is only 1 degree above zero!  I'm confident the hot box is doing just fine but the shop is going to be cold and we're going to burn through some gas today!

Tony
 
You might be surprised on how little it takes to keep the inside of the boat toasty warm. Blankets over open hatches or uninstalled ports would probably be all it takes if you use heat lamps directed on the work. I've been overnighting on my boat in some pretty chilly conditions and body heat was enough to keep her comfortable inside.

this is your gallery spot - I have no quams and would not be angry in the slightest if you wanted this ebb stuff, any of it, removed, which I can do from here,  OK?  Really.]
You want to see what temp your glue/epoxy will set up at.
Could do  tests by gluing two small pieces of plywood together at right angles and see what happens with them in various cold locations in your shop. and boat.  
I'd try setting up something on the workbench with elcheapo aluminum/clamp worklights (100W  incandescent.)
While epoxy can be gummy for awhile (and you think you've screwed up) at low temp it will eventually set up.
I have always assumed that 'all' 2-part bisphenol epoxies will eventually cure - whether the work was done at 50 degrees or 100 degrees.
However that may be just the experience I have with my stuff in the non extreme temps of mid-coastal Calif.
Most material data sheets will give the maker's safe application temp range - which could probably be stretched a little.  Experiment.

With inside/outside heat & cold you could have moisture (dew) settling on your work.  That could mess with your bond.

Guess that actual jobs you do on the boat will be locallized.
Not overall priming/paint jobs.  They might be safer to schedule when it's warmer, and the doors can be open.
Setting up lamps close, but not too close,  to a glue-up on the boat can easily be done.
I use cheap lite polyester quilted pads - that have found a number of non-furniture-moving uses on the boat.*  Casually drape/tuck one of these over the lamps but not touching the lamps and when you come back in the AM the epoxy will be hard.

Could drape an electric blanket on the outside of the hull where the work is inside.
Cover that with a quilted pad and prop them close to the hull.  No problema, senor.

Halogen worklights produce a tremendous amount of heat.**
Not so sure they can safely be tented over with cloth and left alone.
Sears/OSH  halogens I've used are too hi-temp aggresive imco.  A few of the old-fashioned worklights (purchased new so their wire connections won't become an issue) will be safer to tent over an epoxy job.
After burning myself a bunch of times I've 86ed halogens from the boat and now use flourescent work lights.  Which tend to be bigger and even more clumsy then I am.  !*%^@$*?.. cords!  
In fact when dropping the halogen worklights  had the stupid poisonous bulbs break  making it too big a frickin deal to change the bulb out - so trashed them.

I don't think it's too big a deal to get the epoxy to cure.
If you are not already: use only 100% solids epoxy in your shop.  100% solids means no solvents.  Less chance of blushing with slow hardeners.
Cold conditions will cause epoxy to blush.   I never use West Systems.  Non blushing epoxies can be purchased
- but attention to your tenting procedure, getting the right amount of heat for setting the epoxy up, is probably easier than you think.
A large-dial  outdoor thermometer can be propped close to the glue-up.  Santa maybe will drop a little digital one in your stocking over the fireplace.
[I always cleanup with denatured alcohol (and may be paying an ugly price for doing that).  I tend to clean up the job before leaving so that there is minimum sanding/scraping prep when I come back for my reward.  It is imco the least lethal of available solvents.  Maybe there's a non-explosive cleaner to use by now.  I wouldn't use water/vinegar, since epoxy is alkali, vinegar acid, and water soaks.  There may be a citrus product,  but needs research.]

But you scare me when you talk of  buttoning up your workspace,  you want 'fresh air' to work in.  There is probably enough in the shop - BUT
I would especially be wary of solvents that can flash  (obviously alcohol as well) - and fumes that can kill.:eek:
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*Quilted Protective Pads. (McMasterCarr, Cat Pg 1272)  The ones I have are the lite weight cheaper ones, about 6'X6' and 8'X8'.    Stuffed with something polyester-wool, they don't attract moisture and dry quick.  Originally got a bunch, cut them in half and drapped them from the toerail around the whole boat when the awlgrip topsides were new.  
But now I fold them to make a soft seat,  to kneel on,  to lay on (zzzz  z z ), to put non-scratchable work on  like the cabin windows,  and to tent a localized glue-up with lamps under.  Certainly can consider these as 'insulating' also.  Always a couple floating around in the back of the truck.
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**If you tent the boat wanting to come back to a warmer boat interior, halogen worklights (smaller ones with clamps) left on all night as space heaters might be cheaper to use than an allnight heater.  Safer???

Well here's what I'm trying first.  I rolled out to the box stores today and picked up a couple of cheapo digital min/max/current thermometers and one big dial thermo.  The dial one is for the shop so I know the temp in house.  One of the min/max thermos went into the hot box.  With two 100watt bulbs running in there and a shop temp of 55deg the box temp was 92!  Warm enough.  

I also picked up a sheet of foil backed 3/4" styro and cut filer pieces for the four ports in the cabin, one for the main bulkhead, a piece to fill the opening from under the cockpit and one that covers the main hatchway.  I put 3 more reflectors with a 100 watt bulb in each securely clamped in the main cabin and closed her up.  After about 45 minutes we were up to 60 degrees. I will swing by the shop tomorrow before work and note the max and min temps.  Fingers crossed.

Tony,
how about the heat cable for roofs and gutters. you could tape it in zigzags to the outside of the hull and cover it with Ebb's moving blankets. It would be like having in floor heat, and little worries of explosions.
Mike

Well here are the preliminary shake outs.  The shop stays "relatively" warm overnight if I go there for a couple of hours after work consiering the outside temps.  The ambient shop temp was 45 degrees at 7:15 a.m.  with the outdoor temp down around 17.  The hot box was 69 degrees, which was the 24 hr. low temp., with just one light burning overnight.  So the hot box will work for gluing or coating or what have you. It appears the limiting factor is going to be it's limited volume and in response we will have to make a racking system that glue and epoxy doesn't like.

The boat was a bit different though.  With three 100 watt bulbs going over night the high temp was 60 degrees at the level of the side deck turn-out from the cabin trunk.  That was the temp when I left her the previous night in a pre-heatd shop.  The low temp recorded, and the temp I found the following morning was 52.  Not good enough.  So I fashioned a stable stand and adjusted all three reflectors to shine on an area of approximately 2' x 3' of the hull and set the thermometer slighly off center of the "hot spot".  The following evening the shop's air temp was close to 50 degrees (outside temp of nearly the same!) and the thermometer's low recorded, high recorded and present temp was 79 degrees.  That would work.  One problem I see is fashioning a stand that will allow the reflectors to be aimed with the propper orientation.

Quote from: Commander227;24086Tony,
how about the heat cable for roofs and gutters. you could tape it in zigzags to the outside of the hull and cover it with Ebb's moving blankets. It would be like having in floor heat, and little worries of explosions.
Mike

I really like this idea, Mike.  I had completely over looked the concept. You saw the Moorhead store when you picked up the Ensign hull.  That building taught me a lot about winter water pipe "maintenace".  I had also used heat tape and a variable rheostat in one zone of our reptile room for an under-tank heat source.  Coming up with a way to hold the tape against the hull is important as contact is necessary and the heat will probably over power the tape's adhesive.  I keep going back to the idea of gluing it to a blanket of insulation and then tying or strapping that to the hull.  But the more I look at he curves in that area it would take quite a network of lines to hold it in place.  And I can't overlook the fact that there is a good deal of cost involved to build it.  Ok, less than $200 but that will buy a lot of light bulbs!  But there is a certain "elegance" to your idea and I keep weighing the results of my light/thermo tests against the heat tape idea.

As an aside- I was completely baffled and thuroughly disgusted that the second curved plywood corner came out of the form nearly flat! WT... I certainly had checked the flex direction before cutting the flat stock and had that right.  I double checked the off-cuts and verified that the orientaion was correct.  But it was just flat out stubborn.  It wasn't until I held the two pieces side by side that I noticed that they were two different products.  Both were sold as 1/8" Baltic birch plywood but one had face veneers that were twice as, if not three times as, thick as the other.  Crap.  So hopefully Black Friday will find me at Valley Hardwood with the correct stock in hand.  I just hope he doesn't have a stack of super thick veneer sheets.  

Hey, have a wonderful Thanksgiving all!

1/8" ply you have to bend, if bending is possible, WITH the face grains.

You may have to cut into the compressed side of the ply with your table saw.  Like cut with the grain 1/16" in on the side that will be on the inside of the curve.  The tighter the curve the more slices you must make.  Like 1/2" spaced cuts.

If you are encapsulating, which I would heartily recommend, you will gain 90% of the plywood's strength back.

With tight curves you may still have to presoak the ply in boiling water to get it close to keeping bent.
Don't know about keeping its curve.

To keep the curve you may have to augment your jig.
Use mylar or seran wrap to separate the pipe form from the work.  Epoxy the cut side
On your second or third try you might be adding  strips of glass over the curve INSIDE.  It would be a composite you are making.
All in an attempt to keep the wood from spring back.

Good luck.

Be easier with plain 1/16" veneers (Constantines).  Ending inside with an added layer ie a piece of 10oz cloth.


You saw my cheat.  I glued afro mahogany veneer right onto PVC pipe.  Wish now I had used drain pipe rather than sched 20.
But the choice of diameters would have been limited.

For bigger curves you can get ready-made curves out of poplar - they come in quarters and halves.  And the stuff is thick.
Poplar has the same rot resistance as birch, so it has to be totally isolated from reality.

Hey Ebb

I tried doing 1/16" deep kerf cuts every 1/4" on a what if mission in addition to steaming with the iron.  It ended up with a sharp (8 degreeish) bend every quarter inch through the radius.  Sure it could have been filled and sanded to work but it was a disappointing result for the amount of additional work that was put into this piece when compared to the other piece that came out of the form smooooth and shapely.

You used PVC?  I didn't know that.  I***assumed*** you either laminated your own or bought them ready made.  I found a source for quarter round, 2" radius, 1/4" thick stock but the minimum order and shipping would have kept me in quarter round and full debt for a year or two :0

Another couple cheats: One is wigglewood.  Fully stocked lumber stores.  Concrete guys use it to make forms for curvey walls. The ply is all one  direction no cross veneers, uni-direction layers are glued to unwoven cloth scrim, easy to form any linear curve.  Meant for forming, not to include in a composite.

Incorporated a cardboard mailing tube for a radius right angle corner on the 1/4" plywood  cupboard front in the galley. [pix @ ebb's PGT/pg17/#336]  
It was 'easy' to glue the paper tube to the 90 degree front & side connecting the pieces.  
BUT first  the setback ply edges were feathered inside to the tube's diameter
which made a pretty good curved surface in those edges to glue the tube onto.   Turned out this feathering for a 3"D circle on  1/4" ply is about 3/4" wide, coming to a sharp edge.  The cardboard radius, the tube,  is epoxied to the inside of the ply panels.   Think that's important.
Glued that way,   the cardboard appears to be on the same plane as the outside ply surface.  Not obvious what material makes the fancy corner.
 
So, a WHOLE 3"D white USPS mailing tube - including  plastic endcap inserts - was used to glue  the prepared  ply pieces together to make up this OHSO upscale  radius corner (insert end caps make the paper tube quite stiff.)  
After cure, cut off top, bottom and sliced away the whole inside unglued portion - which was at least 66% of the tube.   It's called: 'cutting corners.'  
Voila!...round cardboard corner.  (Careful! It's a bit limp at this point.)
 
SHOCKING!!!, you call this fine woodworking?

The corner outside has no visible seams after sealing and priming.  
However,  the  unseen 'inside' of the glue-up  has two or three overlapping glass pieces laminated around the corner for strength - tieing it together, beefing up and stiffening the cardboard.  The whole thing is saturated and encapsulated  epoxy and cloth.....and cardboard.
It seems to have worked well enough to make me think that the method could be used on exterior fiberglass projects - if the weather-side of the panel also had a layer of cloth & epoxy  - instrument  covers, dorades, vents,  even small hatches.  I left this interior  piece well sealed but one sided in way of fiberglass.

  Still haven't installed the cupboard front with its short side piece and  nice but rather thin  corner (when you look at it edge on.).  It's stiff and doesn't bend or flop.  It's  been in and out of the boat and truck a number of times.   That fake corner  hangs in there - plenty opportunity to have torn it off already - nope!  Knock-on-wood.
There is NO movement, springback or change in radius on this cheap shot.  It might as well be solid wood......but why?
(Tony, it certainly seems like I'm a paper tiger beating his chest here.  Sorry.  Had to point out that cheating is a fact of cabinet making.):rolleyes:
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OnlineMetals ships stuff in thick/heavy cardboard tubes which I've used pieces of for forms.  But those tubes are way too thick for even thinned epoxy to penetrate and soak.
This Gov'mint issue thinwall cardboard tube material transforms into another animal when it's  absorbed epoxy juice.  And shelled with glass cloth.

Ingenuity, man, ingenuity!  Hulls were once made of wood. Then all plastic models proved themself.  Why not a plactic corner?  Who really cares what the mold was made of!  You're still at the top of my list, Ebb.

Totally bummed out.  Mike at Valley Hardwood had a 5 inch thick stack of 1/8" Baltic Birch plywood that turned out to be the "wrong" stuff for what we had in mind.  He stated the lumber industry has some inconsistencies. In his defense, he does an excellent job of supplying this area with hard to find exotics and a good deal of bread and butter stuff too.  So we'll spend a little time this week trying to find out how much "one" sheet of plywood is going to cost to get here.

But on the up swing, here's the one piece we did have enough of the "right" stock to work with.  It's funny how much of a difference 3/4" in radius makes.  But these corners are a much better fit in our smaller boats.

I don' get it.  I put in three good days of work and these photos look like a hodge podge of pieces just cobbled together.  Probably because it is just a bunch of pieces cobbled together.  But it gives you an idea of what's goin' on.  The port side will have the sink and an Atom Stove.  The starboard side is refer and electronics.  You can see where the original settees were tabbed to the hull to give you a reference point for dimensions.  I had to cut holes into the aft bulkhead to accomodate the sliders in the counter top that give access to the refer and the stove.

In the old days we had FinnPly and RussianPly
FinnPly birch was put together with Phenolic glue.

Russian aka BALTIC birch  ply is glued with urea-formaldehyde  (but who knows?) and would be considered INTERIOR grade plywood.  It eventually will delaminate.  'Eventually' could be very  short term in a damp environment.

FinnPly was also known as AIRCRAFT grade birch plywood -phenolic-formaldehyde - EXTERIOR grade.  This grade is often  stamped with the panel's ID, down in a corner or on the endgrain.
It is obviously going to be more expensive.
These are both imported panels.  The best grade will have BS1088 stamped on it, especially the thinner millimeter panels that are  used for wooden aircraft building.

You can't use the interior baltic stuff anywhere permanently   on a boat. Even encapsulated with epoxy.  Beware!


However,  
the Ariel douglasfir bulkheads and tabbed-on plywood cleats that Pearson  used for the chainplates was/is standard exterior fir  ply.  Settees and other furniture may have been a similar grade but I'm not sure.  In my opinion the structural plywood in A-338 was whatever  HomeDepot of the '60s had in stock.  Believe douglasfir is rated moderately rot resistant.  And the glue had to have been urea-formaldehyde.  Still MUCH better stuff than baltic ply.
Except for obvious areas of rot (chainplates) the plywood has lasted pretty good for almost a half century!
(The difference imco is that fir has resin in the fiber, while birch has sugar in the fiber, which composts and black molds immediately.)

In that case, I am seriously screwed.  Stem to stern. Port to starboard.

Can't be all bad.  Here's 10 posts at
google:
Birch Plywood in boatbuilding - Boat Design Forums.

Tony, encapsulate where you can, all eight sides. (IE, the surfaces of what you are connecting both have epoxy - either cured or wet, but both.)
I've always used my laminating epoxy - but there has to be a waterborne epoxy with NO VOCs so you can work and breathe at the same time.
I'm thinking that a good primer is the way to go.  But still use 2-part 100% solids for inaccessible areas that will collect damp.

MAYBE screw on epoxy-soaked flat panels  so you have easier take apart access.
Go lite, thinner panels might well absorb thin epoxy into their core - and actually become rotproof.

Good paint.

Fillet ALL angles and joints.  No cracks, no square joints.  Make it so no water can stay in any locker.  Angle bottoms to drain.
Design in VENTILATION....  Maybe even forced air.  I'm using port and starboard inline blowers.

Design open lockers for air circulation.

Do all your FRAMES in less rot-prone fir or hardwood.  Attach 8-side encapsulated birch ply PANELS on that.  Keep bottoms away from any water collection areas.  
Drain those areas.  Drain Plugs.
Seadog makes  tidy 1" black nylon, screw in O-ring plugs, The 'plate' for two screws is triangular - and they are nice and they are cheap.  Every one of my lockers will have a drain that can be opened and closed.

Don't poison anything for mold proofing.

Favorite saying from a famous furniture maker:  It's all in how you go from your last foul up to your next foul up. Foul up isn't spelled correctly here.

THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY OUT.;)

Aside from making removable panels it sounds like the M.O. I've been following.  Every edge gets coated, then allowed to cure, lightly sanded to remove any of the grain that wants to stand up and turn into a wick followed by another coat.  No sanding hard enough to shape the wood done at this point unless we're going back to step one with the coating.  Then at least one more coat before we bond anything together.  So in reality when it comes time to tab the pieces together we're talking three applications of resin.  The flat sides get the same attention because there is so much more standing grain after that first coat of epoxy.

I had used white oak for some of the framing last go around.  But I've come to accept that I have a crap-load of teak and mahogany that needs to get used.  I've been squirreling it away for "something" and grabbing it when ever I can find it on sale or have the weight of a few extra coins in my pocket.  Everything solid from the forward locker back is teak or mahogany now.

Jeez-if we can get at least 10 good years out of her I'll be grateful...

P.s. Hey, Ebb, if you have a part number for the drain plugs that'd be great.  fowlin' a

There are two or three Seadog drainplug models.  
I have the plain all nylon ones (520010-1) which have a short collar (3/8") that fits into a 1" drilled hole.
 
A plug screws into the collar with a short non-snag handle and has a thick  flat red washer that seats good into the fitting and sure looks like liquid would be kept from coming out or going in.  
Has a couple 'legs' that loosely captures the unscrewed plug  in the fitting when open so it doesn't run off down the scupper.  
Standing up it looks like a cute little one-eyed robot.  Smart design, imco.  
Bedding surface thoughfully incise-molded  to hold caulking.
Nothing much sticks/bonds to nylon, so I use non-curing always sticky butyl tape or tube to ensure a seal.

Can use polysulfide on nylon, but imco it will eventually cease to stick when rubber finally cures.  That may allow disassembly, but also water to get thru.
 
Defender has them for $2.95.
Somebody else has them for a better price....like around $2?  
Drill 1" hole - goop the fitting - push it home - add two #10 FHscrews.
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EDIT.  Just came off a search (using 'the Find' engine).   One outfit (never heard of) called //www.northeastmarineparts.com has them (w/ a gray washer) for $1.81 - nothing on  S&H.  There are other makers of this type of plug - Seadog (from the pix) still looks the best.
Being plastic the plug can be altered.  The legs can be snipped off to allow complete removal of plug.  Or the molded 'ring' on the legs can be cut to allow the legs to be compressed for takeout.  And putting back.  
A locker whose bottom is where the hull is rising at an angle may need a legless plug. (snip 'em off)
On thin ply panels a backing block may be necessary to increase thickness for the screws to get some bite and also not poke thru.
Hope they work for you!
http://www.northeastmarineparts.com/seadog-520010-nylon-drain-plug.aspx

SeaDog Black Nylon Drain Plug - 520010-1
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Teak and white oak are truly indestructable $$$$$ marine woods.  
Pearson used honduras mahogany $$ for hidden cleats/painted framing and such in A-338.  May seem wasteful, but milling produces a bone pile of strange pieces that can find a place in  framing and blocking.  No splinters, holds fastenings good, easy to drill for fastenings, forgiving, doesn't warp, smells good, hand planes easy, glues good, doesn't need epoxy soaking, rot resistant, yabbadabbadoo!  Love the stuff.
Next to walnut, it's a great treat to work with the highest regarded furniture wood of all time.
Never see a rudder or cockpit coamings made with walnut.  Orchard walnut is probably just as durable as honduras and spectacular grained.
Asked a yacht designer why we never see it on boats - he said, it is 'unlucky'.  Never verified that.

Thanks for the links, Ebb.  Sometimes I keep going back to the same old haunts.  Even though they've served my needs well, we are stuck with the same old choices for products and limitations.

Well here's a first.  I recieved a 4 x 8 foot sheet of plywood in the mail (UPS actually) today while out to lunch...

Tony
 
Looks like you found bending plywood. My wife does custom window treatments and I've used it to build some things for her in her business. What are you planning on using it for? Even bending plywood will only go so small on a radius before it wants to break.

We found some that wasn't outrageously expensive to purchase and ship.  It is just going to be cabinet corners below.  I think we can tease it into the jig with less trouble than the baltic birch.  Then it will either get scarfed into the flat panels or joined in some fashion suitable.  It isn't structural by any means but I'll give it the "fall against" test just the same.  That's where I pretend I lost my balance and give it a nearly painful hip check once it is in place.  Hey, it's going to happen sooner or later!

I grew up inder a sewing machine!  Even when she worked outside the house for a number of years, my mom has been a seamstress all her life.  She has her work hanging in three countries.  No kidding!  From a little podunk town in Northern Minnesota!  Kewl stuff, you and your wife.

Wood update...
Mike, at Valley Hardwood will get either marine grade fir plywood or meranti for me (and any other local nut-jobs) after the first of the year.  I don't know what caused the change, but, not having to put the extra attention into the panel faces will be nice.  The edges will still get two coats of epoxy though.

Tony,
Have you looked into MDO plywood for your interior stuff? My understanding is that it was designed for outdoor signs and such. Waterproof glue, no voids, the big Menards carry it, pretty cheap, nice stuff.
Lund use it for the floor in their aluminum boats. We use it for all sorts of stuff.

Mike,
I had no idea MDO had those kind of specs.  I realized last winter what a good product it is by comparison to a lesser alternative.  Several years ago we used it on the outfeed table and it has held up remarkably.  In fact, I feel I am forced to scrap the MDF I used on the miter saw/router stand and replace it with MDO just because there is such a HUGE difference between the two products (what was I thinking?!?!)  
But, I struck a deal for the meranti or marine fir and we will have to keep our word.  I do sincerely apreciate the offering though.

Hey, Happy Holidays to all of you!

We had some unseasonably warm weather here the last two days and being I had today off it was a must to at least get out to the shop for a couple of hours.  Made a couple of new models to see how things fit and get a feel for them in 3D.  trying out a new variation on the toerail and it's growing on me.  It is another inch taller than the original "design" (to use the term loosely) giving a more pleasing look and a bit more safety.

 Lately I have been trying to find a design for a new mast head.  There doesn't seem to be one out there that will drop into the top of our extrusion that isn't just a cast replacement.  So I'll conceed to having one welded that can be bolted in place.  That will open up some options.  Any way I cut it, it looks as though we will end up shortening the fore and back stays a couple of inches.  I knew we would have to put a new end on the forestay to install the profurl so it's no big deal to do the backstay too.  Then I thought we could raise the upper shroud tang attachment point about 3.5" being the chainplates are going to be about that much higher.  That puts the stays and shrouds up at the top of the mast for more stability.  

The one question have is will 6061 T6511 be dissimilar enough from 6061 T6 to cause corrosion issues?  I don't want to have the fitting welded to the top of the mast.  Transporting the mast would be a pain and I don't think I really want to pay the welder to come to me.  That seems like an unnecessary expense at the premium they charge.  Any ideas out there?  Chime in, please.

Nice Job Tony! I have masthead envy!
Since you are going to the trouble of fabbing a new masthead, you can give yourself the luxury of good attaachment points for your kites and smart access (for a tricolor, & instruments perhaps?). I know I am typically against electronic toys, but proper room for them makes the idea very tempting!

Re: your question; The additional numbers are post manufacturing processes for the alloy... You should have no issues at all with corrosion.
For reference:
http://www.alcoa.com/adip/catalog/pdf/Extruded_Alloy_6061.pdf

Whoa! Wait a minute, Rico.  That,unfortunately, is not my mast.  But that post is a little miss leading...they are just examples of options I am leaning toward.  Of the three on the work bench, the one on the left would probably suit all of my needs.  But I gotta admit, I have a bit of a case of masthead envy from looking at all of the different pictures out there on the web, in the cloud, where ever they are!

My original masthead fitting looks like it was dumped into a bucket of acid.  Worst corrosion there than in the cast fitting in the bottom of the mast.

I had Ballenger Spars fabricate a new one.
They started with a 3/4" thick piece of aluminum loosely cut to fit into the mast.
Then there is a 1/4" cover plate shaped to the exterior mast dimension SCREWED onto the insert with 4 #14 flathead screws.
They are well INSET on the plate so that fastenings thru the mast wall will less likely run into them.
If you had trouble getting the old fittings out you may have less options for new fastening placement.  

Welded to that plate down the length are twin vertical 3/16" plates that almost exactly follow the tipped-hat style of the original:
the front being tipped lower than the aft.  Like the original.
The twin plates have a space between them 9/16" wide. Outside to outside measure is 15/16".  Just like the original.

The high end, about 3 3/4' H measured up from the cover plate has two holes drilled through, one for the backstay.  The shorter (2 1/2") front end has one hole thru for the forestay.
There should be two.  I'm trying to find a reason why the jib block cannot be hung off the masthead?
It is an excellent fabricated rendition of the original casting.

The two plates are welded together  across their flat top with a narrow strip. My copy has the welded piece go all the way FORWARD to the rounded tip.  So while the original casting has 'ears' on both ends of the plates, the Ballenger version has the plates welded together further out over the hole for the forestay.  The radiused end tips  have been lopped off and corner rounded.  The reason being that
immediately above that we've added a single loop spinaker bail.  Which is fastened with three 1/4" bolts thru 1/4" s.s. plate of the 5/16"D rod bail ....and thru the extended welded strip on top the fitting.  Honking!
The holes for the stays are the original 3/8".  I may be going larger.  

It weighs in at 3.10lbs. With the old one actually slightly heavier.  If I had immediate access to a laser cutter I'd unscrew the 3/4" insert and have it hollowed out like the original cast one.  But as a  straight side 7/8" wide donut .... that might take  two or three ounces off the total.

Hope this gives you some ideas.


This description assumes you want to reproduce the original masthead fitting.
The dimensions of the various aluminum plate were well chosen by Ballenger to end up with a new fitting that is lighter than the original.
And perhaps stronger than the original if not only for the fact that it is built from plate and not cast.
//www.onlinemetals.com can  supply you with  small pieces of 6061T6 plate.  If I felt I had the time, it wouldn't be two big a deal to cut and shape the pieces.
Yours truly would then go to a pro with a TIG to have them welded.  I might start with a mock up  out of plywood and cardboard to be sure
of dimesions and create patterns for jig sawing and/or router.  And to think about whether I wanted to slavishly copy the  Pearson outdated original.
For an exposed cast aluminum fitting that worked hard for more than  45 years it's amazing how well it lasted!

The obvious option is to call Ballenger to see if he can make you a copy.  His work is always delivered anodized.   He would probably have the specs for what he did for A-338
No idea what it would cost!  //www.ballengerspars.com

Here's another option that could be made from a section of U-channel flipped upside down.  One could chop off the top 2-3 inches of the mast and use it as a sleeve to attach the mast head fitting to the mast.  Of course the numbers on this drawing would have to be tweaked to fit our mast.  There is not a very elegant way to attach an anchor light, VHF thingy (can't spell antennae), wind instrument/annenometer though.

Here's a few photos of the toe-rail idea I've been tossing around.  The styro model isn't complete as I ran out of time last weekend.  Even though I get the idea and see it whole in my mind, I will finish the entire run asap.

It has evolved from the  original plan of a 2 1/2" tall by 1" wide mahogany toe-rail we cut several years ago.  After seeing Ebb's installation it became very clear that there had to be a way to clear away any shipped water held on deck by the higher toe-rails.  Ebb has some very classic looking scuppers added to Lil'Gull, and I was ready to start sawzalling my molded toe-rails but chickened out.  Then this idea came wandering by.

I can still use the rails we already cut by simply pegging and gluing pre-shaped risers to the bottom edge.  Because of the limited contact area between the factory toe-rail and the wooden addition, it may be necessary to steam them.  Hurdle one.  Then there is the issue  of the chainplates. That one isn't so difficult as longer chainplates (external) can reach to nearly the top edge of the toe-rail as they will be shaped outward around the rub-rail before bending in again and heading up (middle CPs) or slightly inward (fore and aft lower CPs).

So far the most difficult task is how to handle the jib sheet tracks.  I had intended to bolt them to the top of the toe-rails, but, I don't know if this higher set up could handle the stresses.

Here's what it looks like.  Open for suggestions.  Comments.

That is bulwarks.  Great word, huh?  Ebb didn't get bulwarks, after seeing your mock up sure wish I had.  Assume you will not cut the scuppers into the original toerail, down to deck level.
Don't believe it necessary as volumes will still leave the deck and exit aft.

My toe-rail (extensions) are 1" at the top and 1.5" at the original toerail and will they were difficult to bend, they bent on COLD.
Used the deck for stand-up jigs and just used clamps to pull the mahogany into position.
I would predrill the holes for the bolts befor you bend them on.  It gaurantees at strate hole thru the fiberglass.  But I had real problems with some holes not ending up where they should have
and had to redrill holes with the bulwark already partially in place.  I aimed holes to come out in the middle of the toe rails inside with I had previously filled to the level of the inside of the deck.
The hull changes shape continuously and the bolts often enough ended up inside too close to the hull.  Just couldn't judge it from ouside.
I believe you must predrill your bulwark bolt holes OFF-CENTER so that they do not enter the top of the old toe rail at 90 degrees - but are slanted inboard.  The drilled hole will probably should go into the fibeglass quite close to the inner edge of the old toerail.
I would definitely make two of three drill jigs (especially for the bow and stern where the topsides really curve inward)   and try them out - easy enough to fill the holes in.

If you are going to have stanchions you can also design the bases to be part of the bulwark structure.  Not only can the base be attached to the bulwarks, but also attach to the deck.

Altho I did bend on most of the mahogany toe rail extension cold,  I did attempt to steam the bow pieces
for about 8' back in a plastic pipe steamer with an aluminum turkey fryer boiler on a propane burner.  Built a jig to bend in the hot pieces but never got the front ends to take a currve.  The plastic pipe was I think 8 or ten inch D 3/4" wall.  It got hot enough to get the pipe soft and limp.
The trick is to bend the wood long and once it has set the curve then cut the end.   But you have to waste the wood.  I also began the cold bending process from the bow where the bow has the most radical curve.
I made it hard on myself by having a truncated section, rather than a flat section.  Flat will be easier to bend.   The slightly triangular shape will not want to go flat on the top of the toerail.
I did cove the bottom of the bulwark.

I jigged the whole job so that the right angle jig pieces (You may not have actual rigtht angle pieces
but custom the angle of your bulwarks so that they bend outwards at the bow and straighten up at the chainplates and back to the the stern.  Sorta did it, maybe nobody will notice that I screw up ! !
But what I'm saying is that I had the whole rail bent and suspended over the toerail so that
holes could be inspected, chamfered, caulking applied, moaning compleated, bad holes filled.
Must have taken photos.
I mean I jigged the whole one side and used those pieces for the other.  Used grabbers that pierced the top lamination only.  A lot of holes but easy to disappear.

What I ended up with will have no difficulty having T-track lagged on to it.  One inch thick bulwrks ought to be just fine.  But if not,  it would be easy to glue on a doubler 'cleat' to put more meat under the track.

Agree your design gets the green water off just fine without having to cut the original toerail.

Ebb,

I bet that tapered profile was a bear to wrestle into shape and position.  The deck-mounted jigs are a great idea and I will definitly try to make some.  Given the present shape of 113's deck we can go all the way through with the "grabber" bolts without any concern.  Yeah, there has to be some angles introduced to the toe-rail's' position, if you will.  I tried to use the angle of the hull to deck orientation as a guide to the toe-rail's attaching angle.  It does flare out more at the bow than midship.  As far as attaching I was planning on filling in the bottom side of the factory rail at the same points as the wood rail meets the plastic so the backing plates have a solid surface to bear against.  Then the ususal stuff going on topside.  Counter sink the bolt holes, lotza 5200.  Once it's in place I guess we'll just have to stess test it to see if it can handle the sheet tracks all by itself or if I'll have to back it up some how.  First off, Ihave to "get a feel" for this model and see how bad it mucks up the appearance of the boat.  I sure do like the feeling of security it adds to the deck without any heeling!

Tony, sir,  late last night, rather early this moring,   I tagged the end of the preceding post with something else to consider....
But the Association site shuts down in the dead of night, and the addon disappeared..

Filling in the cove up in the sheer inside the boat  is plainly a royal pain.  A waste of epoxy, effort, and added weight, for no real benefit imco.
Getting long bolts to emerge inside in the right position to take washer and nut is also a royal.
Infact it may be impossible with the 1" profile you propose.  (Unless you fasten bolt ends up IN THE COVE, yeah, right!) Must do experimental mockups.
So, was thinking how we might get the lighter profile you propose... and also have a true voyager aspect to it.
Wish I'd done it this way.

STANCHION BULWARK BOARDS
I know I've seen a You-Can-Do-It-Yourself book where bulwarks were added on to the stanchions.  The bulwarks had half round ends, weren't yachtsie woodwork additions, but to my eye looked pretty good.  Can't find  royal book!
We don't have enough stanchions on the Ariel to bend on  visually floating boards.
 They'd be attached to stanchions about 3/4 to 1 1/2" (to pass spring lines) above the toerail.  RIGHT! Not ON the toerail.  NOT bulking up the sheer line.

Idea would be to  place your regular stanchions on the deck where you think you want them.  Then have short stanchions at the height of the boards spaced at regular intervals between them extending the length of bulwarks, fore and aft.
Shorty bases could be welded up out of pieces of plate and tube from onlinemetals.  They could be made one sided as you sometimes see bases that are deck mounted but also designed to be fastened to the side of a taller toerail.  
They could be designed to allow water to pass by without running into base plate where small amounts of water stand and stain the deck.

When the project is done and viewed from off the side you'd see nicely varnished wood, even painted wood or zero-maintenance star-board suspended close to the toerail with  stainless tube pieces glinting at at regular intervals thru the space between.   The bulwark would still appear over the toerail but not attached to it and look neat  inside.  If the short stanchions look too buzy then maybe bent and buffed s.s. plate might work better  or smaller diameter pipe and base than the regular 1" stuff.  

Might be easier to get your bulwark to lean out a little up in the bow.  
BUT that might not be necessary as imco the addition using stanchion bases or brackets isn't visualized  as an extension of the hull sides,
but as an expression of deck furniture.  So up in the bow they would be flared out ,or not, in relation to the deck, and what you need there.
Anyway, I'm not going down to litlgull today and rip off the toerail extentions I have.  Too late for us.  
They took a bucket of royal sweat & a bucket of blood to put on.   I think I like the stanchion idea much better.  You know.....or a variation.

All along the deck inboard at the toerail there is solid fiberglass to attach such a bulwark .... no balsa.
Because you keep the original toerail like it is, the added bulwark could be taller than what you have to  aesthetically design for the eye with a pasted on toerail addition.  You can also can replace the original s.s. half-round over the original seam,  rather than something that has to cover two seams.
For me it is the cruiser-circumnavigator-Serafyn-Pardey look that only a wooden boat with extended ribs coming thru the deck can have.
This way can be just as Pardey-shippy and add a huge amount of security at no expense to the Alberg philosophy.

The bulwark boards on the Ariel won't need to be more than 3 or 4" tall to get the effect and do the job.
If you are planning lifelines the system provides strong bracing for the tall stanchions.
Dang! Maybe I go down now and rip those buggers off ! ! !:eek:

I hear ya, Ebb.  There was a Cape Dory 28 (I think) named Fenix that had a set up much like what you're describing.

I found this photo this morning that has what I was thinking right down to the chainplates.  Maybe a little softer bend in the stainless though...

Golly, is that locomotive rilly an Alberg?
Maybe a Pittsburg or a Hamburg....:D


Aha!
 Found a reference and some ideas in John Roberts'  "Optimize Your Cruising Sailboat.
Under a chapter called Bulwarks he says he first saw the idea in Hal Roth's book "After 50,000 Miles"
where Roth welded bronze plates to his bronze stanchions and bolted on 1X4 teak planks.

Roberts describes and illustrates a method where you use "stanchion wrap plates"  (pipe 'U' clips)
that go around the tubes and flange out for fastenings to attach the planks.
But imco you need a number of stanchions to make a fair bend in the bulwark plank.
Otherwise there'll be straight lengths of plank and single stanchions under a lot of pressure.  Would bother me.

Bulwarks as add-ons is described in Daniel Spurr's "Upgrading the Cruising Sailboat, 2nd edition" with a
masterful illustration by Bruce Bingham. Pg 197.  "Newfound Metals, Port Townsend makes cast end fittings and deck brackets* for 3 5/16" boards."
But there may not be allowance for our 1 1/2" tall toe.  Cast bronze heavy and $$$.
Bingham also draws a right-on alternate bracket to fabricate out of 3/16" stainless, that obviously can be customed to whatever board height.
This is an above  the molded toerail bulwark, allowing "opening for passage for breast or spring docking lines."
He shows the jib track on the deck by the bulwark.  And draws lifeline stanchions that are independant of the bulwark system.

* I don't see them online.

No, that ain't no Alberg, is it?  But it looks like it holds water out and that puts it way ahead of me!

I finished off the first toe-rail model this afternoon and put on the rub-rail profile.  The rub-rail has to be shaped to a finer point on the ends but you can get the idea from these pics of what I'm going for.  They will be capped with our factory stainless "half round".  The question now is should we scrap the mahogany ones I cut a few years ago for some white oak?  I had initially intended to keep the mahogany ones bright as this was going to be a fresh water boat that served as a floating lake home.  My rational is the white oak can be sealed and covered with glass and paint minimizing the amount of maintenance.

I was digging through one of the boxes of hardware here looking for the stantion bases to see how we'd mount some brackets on them when I was suddenly reminded about the bronze rail chocks we'd bought a while back.

I guess this toe-rail would work too.  We could put in some moulded side deck scuppers and drain them overboard.

Supposing we go with a moulded side deck scupper and drained it with a short run of tubing right out the side of the hull.  If it comes out above the rub-rail do you think the water will drip off of the top edge or will surface tension bring it right around the profile and run down the side of the hull?

Looks pretty damn good! ...doesn't it?

You gonna glass over that foam
or change it out for wood?:D
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Later Edit.
You posted that pic just above here without my noticing it -  with a question.
I have to suppose from what you are saying that you do NOT have Pearson built in deck drains (right there by the cockpit),  Is that so?
Let me go the Gallery and see if there's a pic on ebb's....

The best shot of the way the deck drain is made is Ebb's gallery page 1 post 11.
There you are looking at a snake of fiberglass reinforced plastic that seems to be part of the hull - but it just stops suddenly.
Where it stops there is a hole exiting the hull around where the boot stripe is.

There is a hole at the other end up ON the deck by the toerail at the cockpit  that drains into the 'snake''.
No way of knowing how the snake was made.  It may have been started, I imagine,  with a cardboard tube
cut in half longways, saturated with polyester and pasted to the hull inside, port and starboard.
There has to be a jog of what may be tubing that shunts from the overhead deck hole inside and over to the hull.
 
The glassing inside up at the deck was way too messy to figure out how the shunt connection was made.
That jog must have been a short piece of fiberglass tube.   A mess of polyester and matt, but workman-like.
There has never been a second thought about this feature in the years I have been looking at either one of these oddities.

I added a layer of cloth & epoxy inside over port and starboard snakes of deck drain plumbing - later in the remodel.
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Later Edit
OK Tony.  Hope I understood your post and you do not have the side deck drains like A-338 - as provided by Pearson.
Couple of photos on pg4 of ebb's galery.   Pg 4, post #61, photo of the port cockpit locker conversion.  In the top lefthand corner you see a bit of the port toerail and a ROUND DOT next to it.   Dot is the drain.
See it again in the photo at post #63 - in the lower left corner.
If you don't have this drain (which is essentially for incidental water like dew runoff or light rain), it's just to get the deck dry.  If I wanted to duplicate this feature  I would  do it only the way Pearson did it!
By making it part of the hull, glassing the hell out of it,  and NOT using any kind of rubber  hose.  Has to be built in, over built, cannot be hose-clamped  hose, which is going to have an accident as soon as you've forgotten about it.   Hope this is useful.
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If you want to drain the deck with a tube at a down angle thru the upper topsides, make it a permanent fiberglass tube,  Expect that a high up drain might stain the topsides.  That's probably why Pearson did the upscale thing by building it in and exiting  the drain down at the waterline!

Nope! I aint got none of them factory jobbies.  

There is a thread here all about the factory through deck scuppers discussing them, their placement and trying to determine what hull number they started adding them.  (I offered 113 for the ugliest scupper installation and won it)  I saw that  David Browne added some on his Bristol 29, Sally B., which are a lot like the A/C factory deck scuppers.  I had thought about duplicating his, but that is another hole pretty close to the waterline and I there's just something inside me that stops me from drilling holes in the boat that low.  Though, it does look like an ellegant solution to the situation.  I was just hoping that the shape of the rub rail would be enough to send the water away from the hull.

Way, way back when, I cut the toe rail and rub rail from a couple of giant mahogany planks we scored from the local hardwood supplier.  Those babies were like 17" wide, 5/4 and 14 plus feet long!  The styro models are just that, models.  I am considering redoing them in white oak and covering them with fabric and epoxy.  Bright wood rails would be bolted on in a thick layer of adhesive like, you guessed it, 3M's 5200.  The glassed on alterntive would get bedded in thickened epoxy.  I would still bolt them to the hull through epoxy lined holes.  Probably with silicon bronze carridge bolts.  I would even go so far as teporarily mounting the stainless half-round before covering it with fabric so those holes could get drilled oversized and filled with thickened epoxy trying to completely isolate that rubrail.  All of this adds up to a whole bunch of microballoons and sanding....crap.

Tannins in white oak, quercus alba, make it almost impossible for any coating including epoxy to stick well.  That goes for gluing it too.
Don't know that I can find source for that, but I can't see encapsulating white oak.  (Maybe if you 40grit the surface for glassing.)
When you research it you will find confirmation.  Don't know that with all those cutouts that you'd make it easy on yourself to glue fabric onto the plank.  The oak far away harder than epoxy and glass.  I'd guess that if you bang  glass covered oak it will  delaminate the glass coating.

Mahogany, while not bulletproof,  is more quiet and not as exclusive as w.oak.  My word is 'docile'.
If you have the mahogany, you know it is far easier to shape, drill, sand.  And BEND.  Why not use it?    Maybe consider it easier to repair if the reason you want to use w.oak is indestructability.  Oak is also heavier.   True white oak won't absorb much damp but it's a bear.  
Mahogany can definitely be fiberglassed.  But  hard non-porus w.oak? ? ?

If your section is 1"  you will have to steam to make the curves that fit the bow.  Have to steam to get the curves fair.

If you are considering  bolting thru the top, I sure hope you do some tests to make sure you will get the interior ends of the bolts where you can put a washer on and turn the nuts.  You may find that  predrilling thru the edge of the bulwark has to be at an angle where the top is further outboard and the bottom of the hole furher inboard.  Not strate thru.  Depends on how thick the hull and glassing is inside.  And the inward turn of the hull.  
Wouldn't trust even 316 stainless in white oak.  You'd have to use silicon bronze.  Your tests may show that you'll have to go with 1/4"  to find room - rather than 5/16" bolts, which are twice as strong.

That's why maybe 'brackets' off the deck  would be far easier and actually stronger than going thru the top.
You'd still have the bulwarks ON or over the toerail.  
And looking at this from the I-wish-I'd-done-it-a-better-way perspective, using deck fastened brackets would allow me to finesse the bulwark to
angles that please - rather than going with what I got by drilling fastenings in thru the top.   This aspect of control, how it looks, may be the most important.   One final cosideration is that attaching the bulwark sideways by stanchion brackets would make it easy to remove, refurbish, replace.
If we attach it thru the top of the toerail,  I can tell you, brother,  it is there FOREVER ! ! !
But then whaduayeknow?
The foam mockup looks great!  Really right on!

Tony, your first toe rail mockup made me think of the BCCs...



This particular one opted to go the paint-it route - looks good too!



Nice secure deck with those bulwarks...




...Then you pulled out those bronze rail chocks. You should definitely design around those babies!

How about a toe rail treatment similar to your coamings?  Build them up with fiberglass  - you wouldn't have to worry about thru-bolting. Then, you could top them off with a nice mahogany cap so you'd still have something to varnish.

Tony,
I have very strong opinions on rub rails...here, let me share them with you. If you do not agree with my opinions it is  because you are wrong.
The rub rail is there to protect the finish on your boat and act as a bumper. It should stand proud of the freeboard and be able to take some abuse. It should be something you are comfortable using. Tough. Plastic or rubber with stainless. Not pretty and fragile. You have a full keel and a small rudder, you may need to put that rub rail up against a piling to pivot your boat out of a slip. (you know it won't turn in reverse against any kind of wind.) Wanna stop in somewhere against a concrete or rusty sea wall? Fenders are fine but tend to flip out of the way when you really need them. Don't put soft wood under glass, you will crush it. Use oak if you must but know it is sacrificial and will look like crap in a few years, it's pretty hard to maintain bright work that is bolted up against your hull. Look at the plastic rub rails on the Com-PAC 27 and 35. Alot like what you have but tough and usable.
Mike

Nah, I think Tony should stick with the styrofoam.
It's cheap and a pretty color and easily replacable.;)

Could upscale to a WalkerBay  inflatable tube type bumper.....

Ebb, sir.  The toe rails will be unglassed and finished bright.  I was thinking about glassing the rub rail to the hull, or, here's a thought, maybe just the base of the rub rail.  And add the real sacrificial wood outside of that with the stainless half round cap(???)  But I had intended all along to keep the toe rails varnished wood even after I decided to reduce the exterior maintenance as much as possible, or, maybe as much as allowable.

Mike D.,  I really, really like the channel cutters.  From the Falmouth cutter all the way up.  They are the most simple and elegant in design.  If there wasn't so many strikes against my adaptaion of that design I would just sell the bronze chocks and go for it.  Safety and drainage.  Two of the most important characteristics I'm striving for.  (yeah, a smidgin of looks too)

Mike M.,  Is this a classic example of bullying? ;)  You know I'll be using them.  For all of those reasons and more I'm sure.  What did NAs use before vinyl and rubber became common?  Now don't think for a second that I think I'm an Alberg, Hess or Hinkley.  It's just that I see all of these older hulls out there with rub rails for, what I imagine are the very reasons you mentioned above and I think, sure looks "shippy" but in reality it is for the added protection that I want to add to my hull.  How about this, what if the rub rail is made from white oak, for destructinve resistance, bolted on with all of the same hardware isolating measures, but bedded in a flexible compound and then painted to match the hull?

Tony,
I've got some Ipe that I milled for caprail for the toerail-arks on litlgull, didn't like the profile,  (another story..)
They are quite thin and have just been hanging around - totally unchanged - under the boat.
They aren't cracked, broken, bent,  split, haven't changed color much either.

Next door on the farm here they have an unshaded deck made from Ipe - 4X4s for the railends - steps... it all recently has been professionally oiled  to give the painter some income.  But the oil  in recent rains I swear has washed off!  Nothing soaks into ipe, it has no pores.
But the decking grayed to a light bleached tone and showed the slightest shrinking and weathering imaginable for a totally eposed wood.  No splits and the smallest shortest non-connecting surface cracks I've seen.  For the time it's been there, 5 or 6 years maybe more, teak would have fried and summer wood caved, and the surface would have had to be sanded to be saved.

Except for the color the Ipe is essentially unchanged since it was put down.

Ipe loves water, is perfect for the marine environment, doesn't rot, doesn't mold stain,  nothing eats it.  It's other name is ironwood and has the brown tone of teak when kept bright and varnished, and looks like classic teak when gray.  Ipe is FOUR times harder than teak,  and twice as hard as oak.

I'm still going to use it on the boat for the rub rail, partial caprails in the bow, coaming caps and samson post.  It is a filthy wood to mill and rout.  It's only bad side.  It's harder than hell but tools beautifully.  All Ipe on litlgull will be left bare.
I think Ipe is the wood you could use BARE, no maintenance, on your topsides rubrail.  And you might give it some thought for your bulwarks.
Your guy might have it if he supplies material for decks.  I found a local that has different plank thicknesses.
So you could get your rubrail out of a single thickness - wouldn't consider gluing this stuff,  maybe the scarf joint w/ resorcinol,   but haven't looked into that.
I bet that's the stuff you've been looking for.

Ipe would do.  I can handle that unfinished teak silver color.  But if it doesn't like liquids, how the heck do we glue it?  I still would like to know how White Oak likes paint.  I've found several web sites where owners have put on rub rails made of oak but they have all been bright wood finished.  Not a painted rail in the bunch.:(

[TONY, this post has grown like mushroom...Tell me to remove it and I will... Really!]
Nobody has ever glued  Ipe successfully.  Nobody on the woodforums knows how to use Resorcinol
much less how to spell it.  Wouldn't attempt gluing pieces together longways.
But why we can't have a rubrail  with one strip riding on top of another and mechanically bolted to the hull - it won't matter at all.
In fact you can plan for the future renewable by just replacing the outer piece, leaving the thru-bolted stuff in place!
Bed the bottom strip onto the hull and the second strip on top,  both with butyl tape.  Bolt in the first,  screw on the topper.

Another unknown is whether Ipe eats stainless (acidic) so I'd use bronze - carriage bolts for the inside rail.
Somewhere I've gotten bronze flat-head cut-thread screws that have Frearson heads. Deep, sharp phillips' crosses that uses one special driver for all screw sizes.  Frearson cross won't slip the driver bit.  Could break the screw.   Exposed bronze will patina, lose their  bling, and disappear better than s.s.
[EDIT. Jamestown has them, you'll find them cheaper elsewhere.]  
Bronze, being softer, will require careful predrilling, a generous hole for the threads and a separate chase for the body, plus a chamfer for the head.  Tube butyl might work as a driving lube and guarantee removal later.  Jamestown has a special lube with a trick name.  I'm looking for oval head frearsons.

Make the 8 to 1 scarf joints diagonal across the face of the strake.  So that when we're looking for it, it will be staring at us.  Don't want the other scarf that ends up looking like a fish head on top with the thin point  exposed.  The joint will be a good fit. I would butyl the scarf joint as well, clamp the hell of it to squeeze 95% of the rubber out.  And use the same surface screws  close to the joint to keep it together.

We have choice of white,  gray, and black butyl tape.  If we  varnish I guess go with black.   Against the hull, if white, go with white.  Between layers go gray especially if you're keeping the rubrail natural.  But we will be squeezing nearly all of the compound out of the joints.
We want to slightly cove out the back of the strakes that bear on the hull to capture the bedding compound.  Do it to the one on top too.  And chamfer all holes going thru the rail to hold compound so they won't capillary water.  Tube rubber can't keep the water out better than butyl, so find ways to keep butyl in the joints.  The only downside with butyl is that it stays sticky forever, so if  any seam is exposed it will collect hitch-hikers.
You may like tube butyls better, they are a thinner consistency, easier joint squeeze out, compatible with b.tape in my experience, and also tend to skin over better than the tape material which doesn't.  Not all tube butyls are created equal.  If interested let me know.

That is my methodology for putting Ipe on litlgull.  However WEIGHT should be considered. Here are some for durable/moderately durable softwoods.  Boardfoot weight (12X12x1 OR  7.5'L x 2"W x 3/4"H - as rubrail example) - DougFir 2.75lbs, SCypress 2.8lbs, YellowCedar 2.7lbs, PortOrford 2.5lbs.  Mod durable/durable hardwoods:  Elm 3.1, Honduras 3.5, Philippine 3.9, Yellow Pine 3.5/4.2, Teak 4.1, White Oak 4.2, IPE 6lbs.  
A 2" wide, 3/4" thick, 7.5 foot long piece of Ipe weighs in at SIX pounds.  That's amazing.  And may be too much weight to add to a boat on its deck and ends.:eek:  Mahagony looks like the right wood for the job, capped with a bit of Ipe ! ! ! [Boardfoot of Aluminum = 13.75lbs. Potatoes 4lbs. SeaWater 5.3lbs.]  Of the softwoods AlaskaYellowCedar or PortOrford are nice dense woods to work with, and may be available in your neck of the woods.


RESORCINOL makes a dark purple glue line.  Your ipe joint will be tight,  maybe it will just disappear.  Make up an 8to1 scarf test piece and glue it under controlled comditions.   Maybe you're the chosen ONE!  And prove to us it can be done!!!
High pressure clamping, strict mix proportions using the gram scale,  The right temp - AND add a bisquit or a spline of 1/8" Ipe in edge  slots joining the two pieces with the purpose of getting absolute register, less slippin and slidin - and addin more glue surface.
Scrape the faying surfaces - taking thin micro shavings off - just prior to gluing.  Right!  Literally just befor glue up.  Use only denatured alcohol to do a final de-oiling, defingerprinting.  
Wouldn't use strong solvents like acetone & toluene which imco can draw oil out of the wood onto the surfaces,  actually contaminating them.

If you  are in a testing mode I would try Titebond III, for the hell of it,  just to see if it works.  White Oak too,
Doubt it.    Wouldn't use it for the rubrail on the hull.  TitebondIII would leave no visible  glueline. But it may also get squeezed too thin to be glue.
Rather than a glue, Resorcinol  is a chemical reaction, which is why it might not work on a strange wood as dense, oily & acidic as Ironwood.
 I'd check it out anyway.  Imco none of those 'white' glues are any use for hardwoods anyway.  Gorilla Glue is not an option.  All my opinion.

Ipe creates dirty, sticky, pervasive, toxic dust. //www.woodweb.com/knowledge.../Working_Safely_with_Ipe.html  There are two/three more articles  [Type Ipe into Search: "Gluing Ipe in Harsh Outdoor Environment"  imco ONLY Gene Wengert really knows what he is talking about!]
/ //www.Earthpaint.net Blog  //www.earthpaint.net/blog/how.../Ipe-decks-and-tropical-hardwoods/  Persuasive opinions!
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*That Is the Question.  attributed to William Shakescrewgun

Pluck a feather from every passing goose, but follow no one absolutely..

Saw this pic today and it reminded me of what I imagine Tony's coaming treatment will look like:



I like those stern chocks too!

Been awhile since an update Tony! Hopefully you're so busy with your final punch list and getting A-113 ready to splash that you just haven't had time to update us!  :D

Those chocks are beauties, Mike.  That's a clean lookin' boat.  Probably not an active cruiser :0 Our coamings don't look like that.  I'd be happy if mine were all the same color.  I was planning on a wood "cap" from the sheet winches forward with a couple of raised non-slip strips inset to act as "place your foot here when stepping" spots.

I have been incredibly busy this summer.  Oldest daughter got married.  The missus and I bought a wee little 1930's, stucco bungalow that needed a lot of work.  A lot of work.  I haven't screwing off enough at work so they promoted me...promoted?? naw, just made my job more difficult.

As far as the boat goes the only thing I've done is bought a Taylors 029 stove.  It's kind of heavy weighing in at close to thirty pounds but it is such a beauty I'll make an exception.  A little bigger than the Atom stove I was planning for but it has the "warming oven" and two burners.  Oh the culinary miracle worker...  I've been meaning to post pictures.  We need more pictures here.

AND you and your partner getting your own cottage!

The IPE deck next door here has another anomally that you may have alluded to in your post above ....  it's a bloody dark and heavy wood.  
The wood used as an exposed deck material at another structure on the property here has never been coated and  gone grey.  The deck next door was, as I said, oiled.   The house-keeper for the estate lives there and the sliding glass wall-doors, year round,  were kept totally covered inside and out in an attempt to ward off heat generated by the wood!   The dark non-porus wood blasts heat like iron metal when the sun beats on it.  The owner called in his favorite contractor and most of the decks have now been covered with roof and tinted polycarbonate panels.  Good landlord!
You could stand on the deck in the spring sunshine and feel the heat growing underfoot, like standing on a stove burner.
The other grayed-out Ipe deck produces nowhere near the same noticable heat.

So, those varnished trim pieces on the boat in Mike's pic - in hot sun - would be rather uncomfortable,  IF they were any darker.  
The blond trim looks right-on.  
Wonder if there's any varnish that has reflective flecks in its formula,  looks the same but bounces some of the sun away?

Tony, It would not be amiss to see  befor and  afters of your '30's bungalow !
Your next home should have a keel.;)

It's been a while so I thought a general message was in order.  I haven't forgotten this sailboat site,or, that it is a sailboat site.  Because so, I'll keep it brief.

Things haven't slowed down one bit here with work and the house taking all of our time and money.  There was a list of projects that had to be done before winter and a recent cold snap followed by an early snow threw a monkey wrench in the machine.  It isn't going to stick around but the furnace now takes priority over the dash coat on the stucco.  I have been in the shop recreating some trim pieces and profiles and what not but not a lick of boat work.  It hurts to see her there and not do anything more than run my hand along the curves and admire the inherent beauty in front of me.  The pangs are only eased by knowing this house fits into the master plan as a home base and income for future cruising.  And this house is a beauty in its own right too weighing in with little more than 700 sq.ft. per floor.  As a household we are trying to decrease our footprint more and more and liking it.  Like so many have said before, with everything we "give up" it seems we get so much more back.  

Once the snow comes to stay we will have a chance to filter through the myriad of pictures and find some that will hopefully capture the character of this house and post one or two.  Until then, we must press on...  

Everyone, keep posting and adding pictures and links to this site.

Cottage that supports cruising?  Ah, yes:  Breadfruit!:rolleyes:

Do not despair Tony!  You will launch one day...   We will all celebrate with you, and I look forward to toasting your achievement while in some warm tropical anchorage some day.

until then, may the vision sustain you through another winter...   May your spring, and your launch date arrive before you know it friend.

Fair winds,

Quote from: mbd;24517How about a toe rail treatment similar to your coamings?  Build them up with fiberglass  - you wouldn't have to worry about thru-bolting. Then, you could top them off with a nice mahogany cap so you'd still have something to varnish.

Mike you are a genius!  I don't know why, or how many times, I have read that and it just didn't sink in...I are a idiot...well, a dolt, at the very least.  That sure would make things easier as far as maintenance goes, with the exception of varnishing.  Plus we could make them as high as we wished.  Toe rails could be bulwarks if we want!  The only substantial bolting needed would be where the chocks get mounted, and that would have to be worked out being they are pretty skinny lengthwise.  There is one wrinkle though.  I cut the mahogany into those 2" to 2.5" strips years ago anticipating attaching them on their edge.  I don't know if I could steam them enough to pull them into a flat "cap"...

But I like this idea!  Mucho gracias senior Mike!

Tony, those already milled mahogany strips are nearly 'square' at 2"X2.5".

Bet you can bend them cold on the sheer.
At the very most you'd only have to steam the foreward lengths where the wood has to make the tighter curve right to the stem.

Way to do that  is to lever over-long pieces so that the curve is continuous.
So that when you cut to fit the wood has a full curve memory.  Maybe only steam can do this.
Tried to do that with the rather huge bull toerails on litlgull.
But ended with the very front ends running outboard (running straight) not following the molded toerail as I wished.
The curve on an Ariel gets more radical  approaching the stem.
Honduras mahogany is not known for steam bending well. (see Steam bending mahogany, woodenboat forum.)
Determine the easy bending side of your strips - there will be one - scarf these sides so that the full run length wants to naturally curve that way.

No doubt you have to scarf  pieces to get your 30' length.
The scarf can be in the chainplates area.
So if you determine you actually need to steam the rail, only the pieces forward of the plates need it.  Am positive the remaining run aft can be bent on cold.


Cut maybe 30 or 40 L shaped pieces of good quality plywood. Screwed one leg right angles to the deck all along the toe rail, stem to stern..  And clamped the rails to the up leg.   Because the deck has a crown, to get the rail to stand up right (say, 90 degrees)  the L pieces are less than ninety.  Didn't have near enough clamps for each helper, but it doesn't matter since the mahogany is pulled against them and won't need clamping.

All kinds of adjusting, shimming and drilling can be done this way:  Violating the deck with hundreds of
screw holes.  That's what epoxy is for.  The rail can be fitted tight and predrilled for fastening & then  suspended in place  (if your up legs are tall enough) this way for final gooping, allowing the underside of the rail to be gunned standing below!!!.....then lowered into place, easy as pie.
Think the L jig pieces make control of the new rail additions much easier.  Allows total removal if necessary (chamfering holes and/or priming) while working them.

Milled a mild concave into the bearing surface of the mahogany using a table router.
I believe it helped to 'register' the rail onto the fiberglass toerail.


Have now been looking for too long at litlgull's bullwarky toerails.
Certainly know that  mahogany  looks gorgeous when varnished.
Also know that tomorrow I'm not going to want to get on my knees to do the honors.
After initial varnishing, the toe rail extension can be painted like the deck, up to the varnished cap.
Or that cap, if teak or ipe, left to gray out.

Varnishing the new rail outside would continue until patience ran out.
If you end up with a cap rail AND a rub rail (to cover the seam) they could remain varnishable
and the new rail addition outside coated to the color of the hull.  I'll probably end up doing that on litlgull.
Because I got no time to VARNISH!:mad:


If you are not working on the boat, but have some long benches set up (or use the vertical  two-by studs on the shop wall),  would it be possible
to jig the tables to start cold  pre-bending the deck curve into the pieces?
[Don't remember if I yattered about this:  but I made up litlgull's rails scarffed full  length
and steambent only the front of the rails in the steambox at the shop.  Only partially successful, as mahogany never gets actually limp like oak.
And after dry trundled them down to the boat on the Yakima racks for fitting.
I must have had some springback after taking them out of their bending jig
-  because I didn't get the front bends radical enough.  BUT, only you and I know that!!!:cool:]


Rail ends at the bow are a problem:  I see you may be using the 2X2.5 pieces as cap rails.   If most of the shaping & rounding is done prior to mounting
there would be less wood to bend and therefor more easy a cold bend onto the  toe rail curve,  even if bent on the wide.
If the pieces won't bend up at the end in the bow, then perhaps they could be left rough and shaped/carved to the perfect curve
with  the new rail fastened in place?  
Better may be special shaped pieces for the bow, scarfed on to the ends of the new rails, carved on the bottom to fit the tight  toe rail curve
- with custom built-in fairleads and chocks.

Sorry for the length of this.:o

Aw Tony, you're too kind. I was merely thinking of how it was done on our O'Days, and mulling over how I may do something along those lines someday as well. I have no doubt however, that you will come up with a creative and elegant solution that I can copy, or try anyway...

Mike, no I'm not..  Just put the winter wrap on the O'Day last weekend and parked her in the newly designated winter spot.  

Ebb, the mahogany is cut into the same dimensions as the pink styro mock-ups that have the bronze chocks set in them in the earlier posts a few pages back.  The pieces are just over one inch thick by something in the range of 2 to 2 1/2 inches tall (I forget the exact size) and a little over 14 feet long.  So that is the wrinkle.  I'd have to flop them on their side and THEN bend them to fit the curve of the sheer if I wanted to use them as a cap.  I do have an uncut plank of the same stock left that is around 9 to 10 inches wide by 14 plus feet that may work for the extreme curves up front, but, I don't think there is enough to do both the starboard and port sides.  Looks like I may have jumped the gun again...

BENDING FAT RAILS
7/30/2015  Hey Tony,  Just erased the olde post here -- couldn't understand it !
You know,  Ebb bent the wood toerails on littlegull by screwing plywood L-shape angles to the deck,  using them to bend, hold, suspend the new mahogany to the molded rail.  Took pictures, but don't know if they ended up here in the Forum.  Milled the wood rail so that the base is 1 1/2", tapering up to around 1".  The long run is also tapered:  about 3 1/2" up front to maybe 2 1/4"  at the transom.  This made the bending a bear from the chainplates forward,  but easy, almost neutral,  going aft.  Trouble bending the ends, the tips don't bend,  want  to run straight off the molded toe rail...even if you start the bend at the front.  
That part, mostly aft of the chainplateis,  made easier by having the wood itself  act as a lever.  The more the bent piece is out of square, the harder it is to bend.  It can't bend flat like a rectangular shape,  it'll follow it's least resistance, it wants to bend toward its thinner dimension.  In this case upward !!!!!!

Really screwed up the toerail angle as it sits on the boat rail* , because I spent an inordinate amount of stress  drilling the fricken bolts, which I got wrong about a third of the time.  The hull radically angles-in up front where I had the longest bolts to drill.  Can't remember the spacing: 16"-18",  and had to redrill a number of times to get enough real estate around the shaft to screw on the nut... a number of times without the washer.  
*May actually have switched port rail with starboard at some point.... giving the rails an unplanned and  pronounced outward flare.  The
truncated section was milled on one side of the rail:  one side square, one side angled.  I unconsciously switched the rails and mounted the
'short side'. the right angle side outward. I only admit this to you, Tony.  Made the rails look like they leaned,  because they did.

Two things: coved the  wood rail at the  interface to hold butyltape (helped register new rail to the old, and it's by far the friendliest compound to clean up after, whatever other good reason to use it.)
AND  chamfered the thru holes on the molded rail,  where all of the waterproofing is really  accomplished.

So if you have this semi-permanent clamping jig along the decks  by using ply 'L' brackets screwed to the deck... when setting up, each bracket can be customed to the clamping it's doing... many brackets need no clamps, just shims, because the force is all inward.    Depending on the thickness and shape of the new rail,  the jigs forward, where bending is more fierce,  will need reinforcement.  You know, what the hell, the deck can be easily repaired, just screw-in  the props where they're needed, no problem.  No problem removing work off the jig to make adjustments,  or as I had to, aim the drill with a shorter bit without the toerail in the way.  Used 5/16" bronze bolts.  Cheated a few times with 1/4".   No way I do anything like this again!
How can holes be chamfered in the molded rail with the wood rail in the way....?  Actually the jig uprights were long enough so that the
wood rail could be suspended on the boat with a few clamps, except forward of the chainplates, which was a growler.  And chamfering done with the right-angle drill.
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later EDIT (after Tony's three-years-gone following post, #544)...so as not to interrupt......  YOU'RE BACK !

To quote Thoreau: "Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them." ... Or another:
"There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know.
The keeping of bees, for instance."  
Or, for instance,  if Henry David  were a sailor:... 'Sunny day, tiller in hand, and a freshening breeze.':cool:

We've been stocking up on boat stuff lately.  One of those things was a new outboard-finally!
Of course we have to modify the lazarette a little bit to make it fit.  Fortunately enough people have already done this mod so all I have to do is copy what someone else has done.
I was ready to give up the traveler but it looks like we will be able to juuust sneak the OB in behind it.  Whew..
So it's time to clean the slate and get started again.  Thanks to Ebb, James Baldwin, and everyone else for doing all the hard work up front.

Good to see you back at it, Mister!

There has been a lot of work going on here but they're all small jobs that have to be done before anything noticeable can happen.  So for three weeks of working on her in the evenings and weekends, it is kind of disappointing we can't see more progress.  But I hope that all changes soon!

Even though we've finally found a local source for marine grade plywood, we have been double coating all the pieces with straight epoxy, and additionally, many of the pieces have been getting either 7 ounce or 3.2 ounce cloth added for more wear and tear protection.  I figure it is cheap insurance being most of the added weight is in the epoxy itself.  

The outboard well modification has consisted of: finding where the outboard actually had to sit, fore and aft, in order to still be able to swing the lower unit up out of the water, cutting out the factory "collar" after we gathered some landmarks, then grinding (yeah!) back the buttocks so we could add a couple (3) layers of 1208 biaxial to form the new outer "skin" that used to be the outboard well, grind back a much larger area inside the lazarette to add four more layers of 1208, then just copy what others have done to make the same modification.

We really lucked out, in my opinion, that the wrap-around coaming I added a few years back can remain in place, along with the traveler, after adding this mod.  We did have to cut a "chunk" out of the back side of coaming but there was enough structure left to beef up and keep some strength there.

The lazarette hatch is a different story though.  One of the previous owners added a couple of clam shell vents to the hatch on their watch, but never isolated the coring after cutting the 2" vent holes and poking a couple of screws through the top skin.  Needless to say there was some delaminating going on in that area, but in reality, I never felt that was an area I'd be walking around on anyway.  Maybe I'm wrong there. :confused:  I am very happy to say there as no delamination anywhere else on the boat though!

We added the obligatory "hatch hutch", or, "bump" or whatever you want to call it.  I started by cutting out the top skin to roughly the internal size of the bump and removing the core along the sides that would remain.

Then we made a male mold out of Styrofoam and covered it in plastic tape to act as the release agent.  I tried to follow the lines of the cockpit foot well for the taper, the arch of the coaming for the top, and the angle of the reverse sheer of the transom.  The form received two layers of the 1208 and a single layer of 3.2 ounce.  Yes, it is a bit "rough" yet and will get several layers of micro balloons to fair it out.  If you notice, you can see the print on the tape showing through.


Once the new top skin cured, we flipped the hatch over and cut out the bottom skin and the forward piece of the remaining original structure.  I was a little nervous hoping that I didn't severely weaken the hatch turning it into a bigger project, but it seemed pretty rigid for what remained.  Although no where near strong enough to be used in its current state.  We added a core of 1/4" marine plywood in a simple slab.  I toyed with the idea of cutting the core into a XX shape in order to added more of a multiple stringer-like, or, webbing-like structure, but in the end kept it simple.  If I find that the coring doesn't add enough strength as is, we can always add transverse stringers.

The cut-out in the coring is to allow a little more room for a couple of protrusions on the back of the outboard when it is tilted forward in the "sailing" position.  This side received a layer of 7 ounce cloth to tie it together.  Tomorrow evening I'll get to see how stiff the piece actually is after curing for a couple of days.

Here is another one that shows how crude the interim finish is, along with the lines of the foot well.

Do you expect that your approach will mitigate the exhaust problem of accumulation in the engine cabinet particularly downwind?

Quote from: SkipperJer;27304Do you expect that your approach will mitigate the exhaust problem of accumulation in the engine cabinet particularly downwind?

Nope. Nothing I've done here would help a two-stroke breath in a closed up lazarette.  Fortunately, the outboard we purchased exhausts through the propeller.  If we ever have to replace the motor with one that exhausts out higher up on the lower unit we'd either end up propping the hatch open or modifying the exhaust similar to what Mike (C 227) did on his Honda generator.

Boy, nothing from 11/2012 until 7/2015 then he just drops right back in like it's been a day.
What's going on man? You doin alright?
Someday I hope to sit down with a growler of say Junkyards Coachgun and hear the Tony G story.

Tony's married....that might be the answer.
Course if he's not married, that might be the answer too!

Yup, doin' alright.  We've had to do a lot of work on the house and property due to the neglect suffered over the last umpteen years.  We decided to give all our attention and budget to that first so we would have options as we moved into the next phase of our plan.  Plan B is underway now.  That is to get the boat to a safe, usable state so we can find out what we really need and if cruising around is even what we want to do.  It's a big bet, but after burying a couple more friends and a co-worker, we've embraced the bigger gamble is not trying.

It has been a long time coming but I finally have a place to take a nap on board!;)  

All of the locker lids have been cut.  None of these will be water tight lockers even though it would be an easy enough conversion if we find that necessary in the future. Only the new chain locker lid and the lid over the water tank will have barrel bolts to secure them.  The other lockers will probably just have finger holes for lifting them.

There will be a filler piece that will go over the head that will set in the v-berth just forward of the main bulkhead.  Also, you can notice the strips glassed in for the ash ceiling strips we intend to apply.  We are going to skip the insulation to see if we really notice a need for it.  If so, it's an easy change to make next year.

Not a lot of action on this end lately.  We are waiting for me to remove the old-new backstay backing block that I put in, oh, about a decade ago.  Once that is done we will add a new-new backing block.  Being the outboard slot takes up a majority of the center of the transom, we'll move the backstay chain plate off to port a little bit.

Here is a shot of the gas tank shelf with the necessary cleats.  The starboard shelf hasn't been dedicated to anything specific as of yet.  The bilge pump outputs will pass through the area, but so far, that's it.

We finally got around to adding the drains for the cubbies in the cockpit coamings.  There is one for the winch cubby and one for the turning block cubby.  Each braided hose has a supporting structure that was wrapped, along with the hose, in a layer of fiber glass and a layer of matting to protect from being snagged by any of the cockpit locker contents.  It was a relatively straight shot from the drains to the locker lid scuppers.  I had to really work to get the hose to pass through the hole in the gutter, but we'll add some poly "goop" to add some leak proofing...YEAH RIGHT!  I'm sure they'll leak anyway:o

In an effort to secure a little more storage in the main cabin, we added a couple of small bulkheads to the starboard cockpit locker.  We got a space that is 14" x 18" by nearly 30 inches tall.  There is still plenty of storage left in that cockpit locker, but now we have a small locker that will give us more "interior" locker space to move stuff around as necessary, if necessary.  The upper corner of the interior locker will also house the manual bilge pump.

Who ever would have thought that water tank paint had an expiration?  Who would have thought it had been 5 years since I ordered a small kit to coat out the forward tank?  Needless to say, I had to swallow hard and order another, new and improved, paint for the water tank.  The stuff is amazingly thick!  And dries amazingly fast and cures amazingly hard.  Which is what one should expect for the price...  It was a lot cheaper the first time we ordered it (circa 2010).

So with the painting out of the way we finally got the lid epoxied in place and were able to move on with other jobs in the v-berth.  The last tasks to perform on the water tank will be to run the vent and the pick up tube into tank once we get a few other things wrapped up.  At least the inspection port and the filler are in place.

If you have priced teak lately, you know that it is dang near worth its weight in gold.  Around here, it's about as hard to find as a gold nugget.  So to that extent, I have been re-purposing (?) some of the original furnishings when ever possible.  For me it's not the money saved as much as it is bringing as much of her back to the water as possible.  So the former hanging locker is now part of a drawer face and a drop-front locker, and there is still plenty left to use.  One snag was a finger hole that had to be filled.  

I thought I had a pretty good match with the grain initially.  However, once I chiseled off the 3/16" that was standing proud of the face, the grain "moved" on me and the match was no where near what I was so proud of at first.  But, in the end, the extra finger hole was filled and that was the real job at hand.

Here you can see the galley coming together.  Everything is a compromise. As many times as I tried in the past, and as many different ways I tried, I just could not fit everything I wanted in this hull.  So over time, Carol and I hashed out what we thought we'd really need and/or want in the main cabin.  We each referenced Calder, Baldwin, Vigor, Shearlock, and the Pardeys to bolster our persuasion over each other.  I have to admit, I clung to certain layout concepts and didn't have much of an argument as to why I was "right" other than, "that's the way (so and so) did it."  Because indecision was leading to inaction, I let go of some preconceived notions and just "went with it" knowing that any one choice we made would mean there were several others that were removed from the possibilities.

I'm not going to try to argue that the choices we made represent the most logical, or, the safest, or really, anything other than what we decided we wanted.  They do, however, represent a starting point for deciding which choices were good, which need tweaking, and which ones were bad choices for us.

We have a port side galley arrangement so hove to on a starboard tack the burner will be down hill from us (mostly).  The sink will be farthest aft with a sliding cabinet door for access below it.  Then we have three drawers for fun stuff.  Next, and roughly centered is the cooker.  We have a Taylors 029 that will fit in the gap.  Moving forward will be the refer/freezer.  The louvered doors provide air circulation more than access to additional storage.  I know, it seems silly in some ways, but, I made those $#@! things and I'm going to use them.

There will be some additional storage built into these "lowers" and some additional storage above as well.

Completely out of step with symmetry and balance, the louvered doors and drop front lockers below them don't flow very well, but, the supporting structure largely determined where the hatches would go. Eh, I'll live with it..

Here is a look at the sliding louvered cabinet below the sink.

Here is a close up of a screw up that we ended up using.  It was a test piece when I set up the router for making the louvered doors so many years ago.  It just goes to show you, never throw anything away.

All of the plywood will be epoxy coated and covered with some lightweight fiberglass to help tie everything together and give it some more structural integrity.  There will be some fairing and filling involved, and then everything (less the teak) will get primed and painted white.

The above photo shows where the cabinetry makes a 90 degree turn from the port side galley run and goes under the main companionway where the wet locker will be.  Here is the first piece of the wet locker.

The plan for the starboard side of the main salon will be an extra long setee with storage below and behind.  Running all the way from the main bulkhead to the aft most bulkhead under the bridge deck gives a lot of room for lounging.  If it all turns out like planned, it will also pull out to make a double sleeper.  Fingers crossed.

I've been giving a lot of thought about how to secure the Engel in its spot.  It has ranged from wooden cleats to barrel bolts to some incredibly complex metal banding that hugged the refer and gave us the ability to use several over center latches to draw it tight.  Wow!  Keep it simple!  If simple lashings would hold a Wharram cat together, they certainly should hold a 50 lb. refer in place.  We will replace the handles on the Engel with a couple of folding pad eyes that will allow us to run some 1/4" line through the lashing blocks and D rings.


This shot shows just how big the foot print of the MT35 is.  You can also see the holes in the main bulkhead that will help the refer "breath".  As much space as it eats up, there is still plenty of room behind it for galley storage.

No pictures tonight.  We have been hammering away at the projects, but man, it's takes a long time to make any visible progress.  The race is on to finish as much work as possible before the weather gets too cold.  It looks like we're on track to get everything but the exterior paint and the standing rigging done before we head south.  Looks like we'll have to find a yard in Florida we can work on her before we launch.  Any suggestions?

On a different note, I picked up a sheet of 1/2" MDO the other day and was amazed at how much better the quality was compared to the "marine" plywood we have been buying lately.  Locally it sells for the same price but is a much superior product.  Now if it would only make the quality of my work better.

Tony, thanks for the updates. It's great to see you back at it AND talking of heading South! (About to be really really jealous very soon!)  

You should look up the yard where Frank finished off Revival. Maybe some of his mojo is still down there waiting to help send another Ariel out cruising...  :cool:

I've tried to post updates but post submissions keep giving me the "you are not logged in" message even though I'm showing up on the top of the page.  Let's see if four's a charm..

We have been working on the project list at nights slowly but relatively steady.  Life has been getting in the way - I'm not entirely comfortable with the statement for some reason..  One week ago today we put in our notice of resignation and agreed to stay on for four weeks to help them transition our positions.  That is a turning point!  I've never been without a job in my adult life.  We dropped the sails off at Sail Crafters to get a second reef point added to the main and a UV cover put on the headsail.  We added four partitions to the bilge to section it off into 3 storage areas and to isolate the electric bilge pumps and the strum box for the manual pump.  That allowed us to get the new cabin sole glued down.  I really wanted a masterpiece like Aussie Geoff's but will settle for paint and non-skid.  Maybe I'll get the Oriental rug I've always wanted.  I started working on the starboard settee with its integrated battery box and then later read an article about battery orientation on a boat and how it affects battery health and life.*  So I spent the next night cutting out my handiwork and trying to come up with plan B.  On the up side, we did get a heck of a deal from a coworker on a small portable generator.  That allowed us to drop our battery bank from four T-105s down to just two.  We can carry the generator and 75 pounds of gas for the same weight as the two additional batteries.  I'm ok with that being out only source of power is two 55 watt solar panels.  If this post works I'll be motivated to try posting again..  fingers crossed.

*   http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/flooded_battery_orientation

Wow Tony! You're jumping in with both feet. Love to see updated pics and hear the plan. If you come to the cities to pick up your sails or anything I'd love to buy you dinner, or at least a beer. The Princess's winter home is just a block or two from SailCrafters.

About this not getting in business... from a computer challenged stooge.  There was a time
when it happened to me fairly regularly, like maybe 2 - 3 times a year.  I would each time
get a holt of Bill,  and he would generate a new passcode for me,  one of those up/down
case number jobs.  Can't post if not a member.

I now have to name and passcode every time I open this site.  I do it with the last crazy
code Bill emailed years ago,  and because I must sign in every day,  I've memorized it.
It seems to be part of every day's start up of the computer.  I understand the ritual is
necessary to discourage hackers.  So I do it.
I'm locked out until I go up to the little window on this page, type in my 'name'...move the
cursor over to the code bar and type in the scramble code.  
Do get a welcome each time so it's worth it!:D


Tony,  I spent. off and on, a huge amount of time trying to figure out how to incorporate
the hull slanted sides into the cabin sole.  If we try to put in "even" strips of teak and holly,
like we see in Geoff's cabin,  it's not possible, is it?  Not possible without some crazy build-up
on top of the original  sole to bring it  up even.  The Aussies grow some strange wood down
there, so we don't even know what a carpenter is capable of doing! I don't like to see  bilge
paint there, next to the wood -- see it in nearly every photo of a  small sailboat. Even the
dolled up ones.  Did try full sized doorskin models... couldn't find how they did it without
extensive filling or creating areas for rot to happen.
 
BUT EBB FOUND THE ANSWER !  ....Might be too bassboat for you...
Teak and holly carpet.
No longer have  a symmetrical floor plan.  The carpet people require full size patterns.*  
Expensive, as usual, but not crazy.  So, have a complete rug for the sole and  it's bloody
wings.  Had another piece made for under the 'new' cabin table  (covers the hull insulation).  
And a piece for what's left of the V-berth area, in front of the 'disguised' head,  on the step
up.  *They supplied a common plastic pattern-making material.  But I opted for stiff white
cardboard, to mime the thickness and lay of the carpet,  because it wanted it  to fit  tight.
Press fit.  Help keep it in place on dark and stormy nights.

In place,  the carpet softens the bilge/sole transition, it disappears.  The very obvious stripes
stay all lined up and it looks SO-O good!  Looking from the c'way forward,  the stripes
diminish in perspective, very satisfactory!!**  Many plusses... and soft under barefoot to boot.
Can't remember the carpet material,  but it must have passed some stringent rules I have.
EG: Sand and water HAS to fall out of the material.  **Showing how crazy I really am,  the
carpet maker and I had to exchange  pattern tubes,  to make sure the cabin teak pattern
lined up perfectly with the piece in the V-berth.  And it does.:cool:
 
The carpets obviously can be removed when necessary.  And obviously can be stored away
when not appropriate.  They are heavily backed with a non-skid plastic/rubber.  Haven't put
them in yet.  But they definitely are uber marine.  Sewn bound on all edges (had my choice
of sunbrella-type fabric.).  They follow every in and out of my patterns.  Also had a 'leftover'
made up as a topper at the ladder bottom  to take the brunt of constant wear.

It's also a very pleasant dark beige/tan imitation of teak color,  with narrow white stripes.
The 'teak' has a 'grain' if you look for it.  I think I fell for the clever humor,  and got excellent
craftsmanship as a bonus.  Really beautifully made.   Probably too much dollar....  but I have
them now,  and the  $$$ pain has almost drifted away.  My kind of imitation teak!!!

So many words, yet soooo few pictures...   ;)

You haven't changed your password or anything lately have you Tony? Perhaps your browser is rembering the wrong password when you open up the Ariel forum?

Quote from: mbd;27428So many words, yet soooo few pictures...   ;)

You haven't changed your password or anything lately have you Tony? Perhaps your browser is rembering the wrong password when you open up the Ariel forum?

Yeah, more pictures is always the answer.
No changes here.  I always have to log in, and then it thanks me and prepares me for a redirect.  Then I start blathering about some idea or something else, hit the post button and then I get BLOCKED! After a couple of re-tries I just give up..

Just an update, we pulled her down to Fort Pierce, FL and set up  shop in the Riverside Marina. Quite a bit different working in a boatyard with sketchy power and the direct input from Mother Nature. Meeting some great people here and making some progress every day. The big thing is we're here. Hope to post updated pictures soon.

That is fantastic news Tony!!!  I'm so happy for you guys.  Soon you'll be sharing cocktail hour with the likes of Frank and Craig...

Soon to be picked...

or is it

PLUNKED ! ! !:D

So exited for you Tony! We just dedicated our sunset toast to you here.
please keep us posted!

I told Frank two weeks ago that I would make this my goal for the week...  Well, I've been told that everything takes longer than expected once you're in a boatyard.

We finally glassed the sole where the head will sit and after a couple of days of curing epoxy the area got sanded smooth and several coats of enamel were applied.

Hmm.  Not sure why that pic rotated itself somewhere between the documents and posted message.  Anyway, Nature's Head supplies a flexible hose for venting the unit out of the cabin.  It wasn't long enough for our plans so we ran the flexi hose through the space above our forward water tank where it then connects to a 1 1/4" rigid PVC pipe that travels through the port chain locker, and then, goes into the OEM chain locker where it follows the hull up a ways before it hooks back down.  That is where we put the bug screen to keep the critters from crawling backwards toward the head and finding their way into the cabin.  The OEM chain locker has a hatch that locks in place and has a thick foam gasket to seal it off.  We're waiting for the clear Douglas Fir to get re-sawn to finish off the hatch and v-berth ceiling.

Maybe someone with more know how can fix these posts for me...

The galley is tight on room.  One thing I was worried about was the heat radiating off the stove and peeling the varnish off the fiddle rails.  I just couldn't squeeze anymore room out of the layout so we cobbled together some shielding.  There is a machine shop in town here that had some pieces of stainless in their "drop" bin that worked out great.  It was a challenge to cut, bend, drill, and file, but it worked fantastic.  We had been previously cooking in the cockpit and I was always checking the temp of the stove's side walls and gimbal posts and they were HOT!  So when got everything in place and fired up we were tickled  pink to feel virtually no heat on the fiddle rails.  Whew!

That's great!!!

One step closer to "splash"

Stay at it.....it will all come together

We added a shield that wraps the cook top.  Taylors have a couple of wing nuts that allow you to drop, or remove, the front rail of their pot holder rail.  That worked out to be a great mounting spot for this extra heat shield.

What the heck, here's the gimbal lock too.

That looks awesome!!

The battery box was all laid out and tabbed in, and then I read an article about battery orientation in sailboats and heeling and exposed plates...  So we had to redo it in order to rotate the batteries 90 degrees. That resulted in the setee having to be taller which really isn't going to be all that bad.

So here's the run down.  They are mounted in the starboard setee across from the stove.  Being they are in the main cabin the top will have a gasket sealing it off from the living quarters.  The cables will be fed to the monitor, charger, and panel through the PVC vent tube on it's way to the cockpit locker.  The top screws down using 1/4" by 3 inch stainless screws and T-nuts.  The reinforcing on the underside of the top also holds down the batteries so they can't move around.  Each battery sits in its own box.  I can lower the batteries into the compartment no problem, but, the boxes have to be dropped through a "key way" and then slid over to their proper resting place between wooden cleats.  It's still a work in progress as we have as many plates in the air as I can manage at one time.

Now let's see how many of these pics are kitty whampus...

And here's the lid photos.

That's it from the Riverside Marina for now.  Currently waiting on epoxy to set up enough to add a filet around the mounting plate for the galley seacock.  Will be tackling the same job for the cockpit scuppers tomorrow (hopefully) and talking with the chief in the fab shop about a welded aluminum bimini top and solar panel trackers combination.  We'll see what they come up with for a price.  It might be better to pay for it with out of the cruising money versus trying to do it our self and burning up time.

Here's to living the dream!

Less frustrating too  :-)

PS....dreams DO come true!!!

Thanks for the kind words, Frank. And the inspiration, I might add.  Your cruise along with Craig, Rose and Peter dog carried me for years through the hard times.

Tony, T-O-N-Y, Tony!!!

Quote from: frank durant;27524PS....dreams DO come true!!!

...with LOTS of hard work!

Quote from: Commander227;27526Tony, T-O-N-Y, Tony!!!

+99!!!

OK....it's been a full 'boat yard work week'.....

WUZZHAPPININ?????

You know, the usual. Sanding, filling, sanding. It was 104 degrees in the cabin the other day. That made just about anything difficult, except sweating!  If we can keep the rain away this week we hope to get some priming done. Hope to have a progress report later this week.

Yes.....I know that feeling. While working on Revival at Indiantown I found it next to impossible to work in the heat of the afternoons! So...I worked mornings, took the afternoon off and worked evenings. Got more done with less frustration.

Good luck

Keep the faith :)

Pics......we NEED pics!!!  :)

Ok, I'll try to get to the office tomorrow so we can update this thread with some pictures. We got the first coat of paint on the top sides today and it was atrocious. Hopefully it will all sand out tomorrow morning and we can get the final coat on and then start on the cabin top and decks. We'll have to take some "in progress" photos for the real feel. ; )

Spraying or "roll n tip" ?

It turned out to be more on the order of roll, drag, and smear. Carol rolled and I handled the rest  on my own... Tomorrow is a new day. We'll fix her make up and pick up where we left off today.  It looks like we have a couple days before the rain returns.

Tony,
Very nice to see that you are making such great progress.  I really admire your courage and craftsmanship.  Look luck with the final push!
I painted a small skiff in my backyard last July.  It was my first time painting a boat.  It was well over 100 degrees everyday which presented a few obstacles to say the least.  Here are few hard learned lessons.  FYI I used Prefection which in the end gave very good results.  
 I am sure most of this has been said before….
1)   Paint in the early AM.  I did all my prep the day before and then in the AM would just solvent wash and tack off before putting down a coat.  I would let this dry thru the heat of the day and then sand it out and clean it up in the evening.  
2)   Work in small sections and try, at all costs, to maintain a wet edge.  This was the hardest thing to figure out bc the paint was drying so fast.  You need to tip the edge of the previous section as you tip the one you just did to blend them so if you wait too long it will be too dry and will smear.
3)   Over thin the paint.  I used 1.5 times the recommended amount.
4)   You can use the cheap foam rollers that are available at HD.  No need to buy expensive ones and in fact I found the cheapos worked better!  Also I used a foam brush to tip which was far superior to a conventional brush.  The latter left huge ridges in the paint bc it dried before it could flow out.  The foam ones minimized this big time!
5)   I sanded between coats to try and remove ridges and runs.  The first two coats I pretty much sanded off completely bc I was still learning.  I think I put on 5 coats before I felt it looked good.  Mine you it was a dark colour which shows every flaw!
6)   If you get behind with tipping and you find the paint is drying too fast don’t try and rework it just keep going.  You can solve the problems with the next coat or rather with the next sanding!
7)     Avoid rain...rain is bad....very bad....did I mention that rain is bad......good luck!

We finally got the primer under control.  It took a day of travelling around the area to get a shade cloth which we rigged up over the boat.  The next day it was amazingly cooler on deck and in the cabin.  The primer was high-build and naturally thicker than some of the other stuff we have used in the past.  It hid some "whoobees" which was fine by me, but again, my finish standards are taking a back seat to the desires to get if safe, sealed, and sailing.

Here's what the new shop looks like.


Not what I was used to back in MN!  Oh well, I never have to sweep the shop floor :D.

One thing on the list that has been dragging out far too long is the main companion way.  I never really had a solid plan for how it was going to be finished off.  I just knew I wasn't a big fan of the hinged doors she had when we bought her.  I wanted simple and easy but there wasn't a straight path there because of a number of things going on with the hatch; like the drain gutters coming aft, the positioning of the slide tracks, the S-shaped curve in the aft end of the cabin top.  

To get down here all we did was cut a couple of dados in the edge of 2x4s and screw a chunk to either side of the companion way.  I called it the Jethro Bodeen look..


Finally after visiting as many boats as I could and trying to adhere to the KISS principle, I cobbled together some pieces of plywood, made some compromises, and glued them in place.


After we got things primed and one coat of paint on the cabin top, we made a couple of simple drop board guides out of some of the teak we brought with us.  Once the painting is done and we attach them with sealant, we'll add plugs for the screw holes and varnish them.


We scored some 1/2" acrylic from our neighbor's garbage pile that was crazed something awful on one side but looked pretty good on the other.  It will serve the purpose well for the time being.


We have some new 1/2" smoked acrylic for the slider, but that will have to wait until after the last coat of paint.  For now, the plastic wrapped plywood will do...

Thanks for the update Tony.  Love the new signature.  :)

Looking around corners, you got some beautiful work there, Tony!

That gray 'primer' stealth topsides full shot has a real modern look to it.  Like it!

(ebb's right behind ya, finally getting littlegull's deck & cockpit painted...

Never, never never too late!!!)  Happy for you.:D

Nice to see things coming together.

Now....that was a few weeks back...

Updates AND pictures please ;)

Hey, Frank
No pictures tonight, I'm sorry to report.  We had to take a couple of days away from the boat yard (aka dirt yard) for our sanity.  It's so easy to forget that we are doing this for the experience and fun when we are continually focused on getting things done.  recently we got the bronze straps on our rudder, sea cocks and through hulls installed and sealed, rub rails shaped and primed, water tank plumbed (and filled with DRINKABLE water), new burners installed in the Taylors, dinghy outboard running, new prop on, companion way slider installed, cleaned the generator and got it running again (Carol's the mechanic in this family), got the backstay polished to a mirror-like shine, boot stripe painted, and started on the mast and boom.  We make a pact that at least once a week we would go to the beach so we wouldn't loose track of what we are here for, and now we try to go there every afternoon to swim the troubles away and shower in less-stinky water.  Add a couple of odd jobs on other boats and lending a hand where we can and the weeks just seem to fly by.  We'll be posting pictures of "stuff" soon and hopefully we'll have videos coming in the (relatively) near future.
thanks for asking and..
Peace, Love, and Coconuts!

Quote from: Tony G;27581Hey, Frank
No pictures tonight, I'm sorry to report. ../.. We'll be posting pictures of "stuff" soon and hopefully we'll have videos coming in the (relatively) near future.
thanks for asking and..
Peace, Love, and Coconuts!

Tony Tony Tony...

Inquiring minds want to know....and see pictures!!! :)

Feed my fantasies. I cannot live vicariously thru you without picture nor text.

Although we are a long way from where we were hoping to be by this time, at least we are on the water.  That alone is a big improvement over the back corner of the boatyard where the bugs and heat were inescapable.  We stepped the mast, but, we will have to do a little more work on "sorting out" the standing rigging due to adding the roller furler.

We had a bunch of ash strips for the overhead and ceiling in the v-berth when we left MN but I knew we didn't have enough to finish so I thought we'd just pick some up in FL.  Turns out you can't find ash that easily BUT they had douglas fir in abundance! (virtually impossible to find back home)  So we built a table saw and ripped down some 8 foot 2 X 6s and used that instead.  The Douglas fir is what I would have chosen in the first place so sweeto-burrito!  To top it off, all of the ash strips we brought were highly sought after by another boater who is using them to build harps.  win-win.

S P L A SH !!!!!!

CONGRATS CONGRATS and CONGRATS !!!

Looking extremely good in the water!!!

The cielings look awesome as well!!
Keep the pics and updates coming.
Happy for both of you!!!

All kinds of nice touches evident.

Be great when she's all together

Can't wait to see what you're going to do with a dodger!

Or with a bone in'erteeth:D

No kidding Ebb

Spray hood
Dodger curb
Combing
OB access
Rub rail
Dorado vents
New hatch
And thats at a quick glance...
Looks awesome!!!

Awesome Tony! How many years since she's been in the water?
Looks great, good luck with the final push. You just have the fun stuff left.

S-W-E-E-T!!!  And a hearty congrats to you guys Tony. Love the coamings and the open v-berth arrangement, etc. etc. etc.  Two thumbs way up!!

Thank you, captains.  It has been over 16 years since she was last floating in water.  And though it doesn't make any difference, it was fresh water back then.  Some of the issues we have to work out yet include tracking down a leak in the main cabin on the port side.  I think that one came about when I drilled the scupper drains for the seahood so some exploratory surgery will be in order.  In "hind site" (former name of 113 before Dream Weaver) I should have added them during construction of the hood.  Oh Well.  The other major aggravation is our mast is canted forward probably 5+ degrees and that has put a lot of stress on the cabin top in the v-berth and some deflection became noticeable forward of the mast step.  A longer toggle is in order for the lower forward stay and hopefully that issue will be put to rest.  Another "hind site" is the lack of tolerance in the opening for the forward hatch.  It appears the expansion coefficient of aluminum and wood are far from each other on a scale.  The hatch fit "nice and snug" in the coaming, and once in the Florida sun it began to exert its force against the wood and glass and won the fight.  Once we resolve the other issues, finish mounting all the other deck hardware, get the electrical installed, and finish off the starboard setee, I may peel the forward hatch off and route a larger opening to relieve the stress.  I dunno.  

We have spent the last three weeks in MN visiting our family and friends while we repainted our O'day 22 and her trailer to sell off for a little more cruising funds.  Even though we have been in a heat advisory here, it is going to be hard to acclimate back to FL summer but we really want to get "out there" and start life away from the yard and dock.  

We truly appreciate all of your support and comments, and, if you have any suggestions speak freely.

...just what it says.  Here we are waiting for the travel lift.

:cool:very::D many :D more :D happy ;) years :D ahead :cool:

Wow Tony, congratulations!  She looks beautiful!

Love to topsides color! Reminds me of a former Jimmy Buffet sailboat that was for sale a few years back...

Beautiful! Time to enjoy the fruits of your labor!

Just got settled back in the Riverside boat yard in a spot suitable for working on Scout.  When Mathew came to town we came back down here to get hauled out onto the trailer so we could move to a more sheltered spot.  Once on the trailer we thought, "well, may as well just finish up a couple of things while we're here."  The plus is we actually have internet on board! Yay!  The bad thing is we actually have internet on board...  Productivity plummeted once we got on the water, and installed an A/C unit and I fear internet access may hinder progress as well if I don't resist.  

I'll start being more diligent with the posts now that we've invited the web into our home ;)

OK....
Enough.....
Over a year now!!
We need updates!
How are you?
Wuzzhappinin?