repairs underway - a cautionary tale

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Glen Smith
Posts: 3719
Joined: Sat May 08, 2004 9:08 am
Location: Baie-St-Paul, Quebec, Canada

Re: repairs underway - a cautionary tale

Post by Glen Smith »

Maybe "The Survivor" would be more appropriate?
Or "Splinters"?
My Grandfather had built a small sailing skiff named "Splinters".
Rabbit
Posts: 121
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 8:20 pm
Location: Downunder

Re: repairs underway - a cautionary tale

Post by Rabbit »

glen: after talking around, everyone agreed that splinters would be a fitting name, so that's what i'm gonna go with :)

welp, the hull was a bit of a mess, it had the signs of repairs, blotchyness and tan lines from the sun, water marks from the rain when it had been sitting on the ground under cover, as well as from a cover tarp that apparently developed a leak when i did manage to get it back on the strong back, bug poop, and staining from the straps used during the repairs.

Image

some of this damage doesn't show up on the pic ( i figured glen wouldn't appreciate the full 21mpix image ) :laughing

shaping the outer stems was slow and painful (yeh.. there is a down side to using timber tough enough to hammer nails in with i found out), but after the first sanding it came out like this....

Image

and a section of this same image at original resolution showing the most damaged section after sanding...

Image

well... that's the adventure so far!
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awoodman
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Joined: Sat May 12, 2012 6:37 am

Re: repairs underway - a cautionary tale

Post by awoodman »

I am new to this forum..and that is one heck of an ordeal you went through....However , having built about 11 different ones thus far.... I tell people these aren't museum PCs. and they are tough and meant to be used....You will really love it when it takes to the water...
Rabbit
Posts: 121
Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2011 8:20 pm
Location: Downunder

Re: repairs underway - a cautionary tale

Post by Rabbit »

epilouge

the inner hull is glassed. i had decided to make some supports to go at the location of station 0, and 4 at each end. basically a vertical piece of timber with a cross bar the thickness of the innals below the sheer line and another crossbar about 4 inches below that, about halfway down the bilge. i was very careful to make sure they were a perfect fit to the station moulds. spend quite a bit of time marking centre lines and putting tape on the bottom of the hull, making sure the hull was level, and a string line strait down the centre was taunt and used a plumb bob to mark out where the supports should go. that's when i found out... the hull had changed shape quite a bit. when bungee was wrapped around the hull to bring the hull to conform to the supports, it was fairly close in the centre, but at one end the side that didn't sustain the impact conformed, but the bilge aria on the damaged side had a 1/4 inch gap between the support and the hull. at the other end it looked like again the bilge was flatter , but the whole aria was narrower, and if i was to force the support to the correct position, there would be a bulge which would look strange. :crying

in the end i decided to not bother with the supports, it is what it is. the idea originally was to try and make sure that both innals would be the same length, but it looks like they will have to be a custom length after all. i guess the moral is, if something like this happens to your build, make sure you get it strapped down back on the moulds asap! i'm fairly sure that the various forms of warping to the hull before i got it back on the moulds contributed to it being out of whack. it will still float and i doubt too many people will notice its not the perfect shape. hopefully it will still paddle ok.
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