Fruits Of My Labor (A-113)

[Tony G]

Detect little drops here and there.
Are they drops of sweat or blood or both?

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.

[Tony G]

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!

[Tony G]

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.

[Tony G]

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.

[ebb]

Love those PROGRESS pictures!
More, please!

[Tony G]

Love 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!

[Commander227]

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

[Tony G]

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.

[Tony G]

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.

[Commander 147]

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.

[Tony G]

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.

[ebb]

Tony,
Great solution to a baffling problem!
Nice work, nice frp sheet work!
Easy, but expensive, huh?

[Tony G]

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!

[Tony G]

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.

[Commander 147]

Very creative Tony!!!!

And very nice work. I'm always impressed by the abilities of the people on this forum.