Fruits Of My Labor (A-113)

[commanderpete]

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

[Tony G]

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

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.

[Tony G]

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

[Tony G]

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...

[ebb]

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?

[Tony G]

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

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.

[Tony G]

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!

[ebb]

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!
__________________________________________________ _______________________________________
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!

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

[Tony G]

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!

[CapnK]

Am I reading it right:

"Tony's Nude Honky Workshop"?

L M A O !!!

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

[mrgnstrn]

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!

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.

[ebb]

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

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!

[Lucky Dawg]

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

Wow!!!!!!!

[Tony G]

KM

1. Being the cheap skate that I am I currently use a 3M window insulating kit for 'mastic' and 'bagging film' 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...

[Tony G]

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.