Float bulkheads finished (+/-)

So this job unit is over, except some small details on forward beam bulkheads. Just n - 1 units to go ... next is main hull bulkheads, smaller ones first; I hope to finish in a week or two, no hurry, we're still learning the basics, what works and what not.

an italian grocery selling fresh bulkheads by the pound

i. e.: don't move your panel after you've wetted the glass, or you'll get bubbles or worst (REM: we're not doing vacuum). Saturnday evening Dario and me wanted to do the second glass layer on upper part of beam bulkheads, all 8 faces in a time. We precut glass, peelply and plastic sheet and go for it. Well, flipping a bulkhead to do the other face we didn't see that the glass detached a little from the now under face, near the upper edge. Once cured I cut away the raised piece by a dremel; I think I'll fix it while taping on the float.

magic signs drive epoxy to wet glass

We draw random lines on the foam to check the glass wetting, Here the red lines are to mark the zones to be fixed later. We are generally happy with our results. In particular it's easy to trim the parts to size using a belt sander on a couple of twin bulkheads at a time: you go on sanding until the felt pen mark disappears from the side; you need a light from below to check continuously.

Not seen, on the floor, a huge quantity of ... foam dust

This week a new F-builder phoned from central Italy: Daniele and his friend Fausto built a cedar strip F-25 in the past and now they are starting a F-22 and/or a F-32. The F-family is growing here and we'll probabily setup a forum in italian language to better organize ourself about local material supply. In case we find good offers about mast and sails, we'll post that on main F-22 forum.

See you soon !

Questo blocco di lavoro è finito, ne mancano solo altri enne meno uno ... la prossima cosa saranno le paratie dello scafo principale, quelli piccoli per primi; spero di finire in una o due settimane, senza fretta, stiamo ancora imparando le basi, cosa funziona e cosa no. Ad esempio, mai muovere una parte dopo che si è impregnato il vetro (occhio che noi NON stiamo usando la tecnica del vuoto). Sabato sera io e Dario volevamo fare il rinforzo sulla parte superiore delle paratie dei bracci, tutte e 8 le facce in una volta. Abbiamo tagliato vetro, peelply e plastica in anticipo e via siamo andati. Voltando in aria una paratia per fare l'altra faccia non ci siamo accorti che il vetro si era un po' staccato da sotto. Una volta indurito il lembo, l'ho tagliato via col dremel; Lo sistemerò quando montiamo la paratia nel galleggiante.

Facciamo delle linee a caso sulla schiuma PVC non per propiziarci gli dei, ma per controllare meglio come si bagna il vetro; nella seconda foto le linee rosse segnalano dove dovremo riparare in seguito. Direi che in generale siamo contenti dei risultati: in particolare ci ha dato soddisfazione portare a misura un paio di paratie gemelle per volta, usando la levigatrice a nastro, il carrarmato. Uno continua a levigare finchè il segno del pennarello non scompare del tutto dal bordo; è utile un'illuminazione dal basso per controllare continuamente, se no ti fai ombra. Però quanta polvere !

Questa settimana ha telefonato un nuovo costruttore: Daniele e il suo amico Fausto in passato hanno già costruito un F-25 in strip planking e adesso faranno un F-22 e/o un F-32. La famiglia "F" sta crescendo ! Probabilmente metteremo su un forum in italiano per organizzarci meglio con gli acquisti. Se salta fuori qualcosa di interessante come albero e vele lo metteremo anche sul forum principale dell'F-22, quello in inglese.

A presto !

First bulkheads glassed

Float center bk and bow bk are the less critical, IMO, so we started with them; here they are, before trimming:

We took a 100 x 75 cm foam piece (I had the foam sheets cut in 3 equal parts to bring them home in my car) and managed to optimize placement of our FSP copies. These paper copies were produced over this glass table, illuminating the FSP from below, no carbon copy film used. The bulkheads will be trimmed a little undersize and checked over the original FSP, but I found paper copies very handy. Here is the glass table:

Here is [part of] a "dry" F-22; just add water ... ;-)


We didn't used vacuum for these panels; maybe later. We laminated a "face" at a time, always using peelply. First panel was done "wet" method: epoxy was rolled over bare foam to saturate it, then glass was put over and rolled. At this point the panel had received the same amout of glass and epoxy, that's 210 gr glass and 210 gr epoxy. But the glass was far from wetted, IMO: it wasn't transparent ! In many place it was completely dry. No good ...

So I mixed more resin, another 210 gr, just to be sure, and start to apply it with the roller; now things went better and I could see the drawing on the foam, under the glass. I continued rolling until the glass was evenly wetted. Then we applied the peelply. First time in my life I used peelply ... and I'll use it again ! It started wetting while we pulled it and pressed it with our gloved hands. I finished applying the residual epoxy with the roller, and rolled, and rolled ...

So in the end we have got 33% glass and 67% resin in that lamination. I don't know how much resin has been trapped in the peelply, but anyway here is a close look at the result:


This is one of the less beautiful spot; those shiny areas denotes resin starvation, I'm afraid ... but I don't know really ... the glass is trasparent there, believe me, but there wasn't enough resin to reach the peelply surface. The brighter diagonal rows are where the glass fibres are a little more far apart from each other. No bubbles anywhere. Here is a better spot:


Subsequent laminations were done with less resin over the bare foam and the last panel was done in "dry" metod; in this way we were able to reach a ratio of 40% glass and 60% epoxy, that I know is far from the optimal 50 50 or less. The peelply was always completely wetted:



but I don't think it was wetted to the point to be able to receive a plastic sheet over and "loose" some resin from the laminate rolling toward the edges of the panel, as Grant is experimenting, lately. BTW: Grant is a marketing ace: he repackaged my "poor man vacuum bagging" in his "plastic on peelply" technique ... I must agree that it sounds far better ;-)

I'll meet my friend Luigi in the next few weeks, to show him my first laminations and have a look at his hulls. In the meantime ... comments welcome, as always.

Luigi joins his main hull

The other Italian builder Luigi sent me a photo update that I'm happy to share here:

He is building the aft cockpit, cuddy cabin, daggerboard version. His workshop is ... huge ! Lucky guy, the winter can't stop him.

He said the joining wasn't so easy ... he'll tell me everything when we'll meet in person in the near future. I just want to laminate some bulkhead by myself before, to compare with his ones.


Can you imagine the water flowing effortlessly around this harmonious hull ? There is something musical in this photo, I don't know ...

And here is a detail of the joint. Each time I congratulate Luigi on his high building speed (he started this spring !), he says he's following a different route from what he saw on the blogs; so while the main hull is joined (no other blogger reached this point, apart Oliver) the floats aren't finished, yet. He prefers to work in parallel on several sub project: while the resin cures in one place, he's working elsewhere. As I said his workshop is a wonderful playspace !

My first materials batch should arrive today but I saw nothing. Maybe it's the "holyday bridge" here in Italy ... Just phoned to courier: next week ... OK.

To Edward: many thanks for your effort in setting up a specific F-22 builders' forum ! I think it will be complementary, additional to our individual blogs and will improve communication among people. Ian THE Designer should be happy: this blogs community and forum is a modern and powerful marketing machine, besides being an immaterial tool for us builders (and potential ones), IMHO.


Fair winds to all ! (and windy fairing, for those without a boat in the water ;-)