Commander 147

[ebb]

Doesn't Bondo make a LITE version of their stuff?
[Yes, DYNALITE, $10 qt.]
Auto paint suppliers might have it. Paintstores that carry automotive spray paint will have it or another brand. It's all the same stuff really.

Since it sets up hard I would use a plastic spreader (the green ones are the best) to fill the cove. A bendy plastic spreader will produce a flatter fill with a slight hollow. That is, after you stuff the cove you run the spreader at 90 degrees to the hull in the corner, scraping the excess away. After it sets up you can easily smooth the area with a sanding block, and do very minor fairing fill to get it perfect, if necessary.

For what it's worth I would recommend tabbing the corner with epoxy and glass.
Assures the structural join of deck to hull and will stop water from coming through the seam.
Don't know what the shrinkage is, but in a thick form as in the cove I would guess there will be some.
Before covering there has t be a complete cure. MSDS or datasheet. This allows the solvents to subside. That will ease bonding of the next system going over the polyester.

[Commander 147]

But I still have been finding some time for the boat. As the old saying goes where there is a will there is a way.

Ebb I am happy to report that the 1708 biax stuck very well to the bottom side of the deck. I layed 11" wide area on the bottom of the deck and 4" wide on the side of the hull. I cut the pieces into a small manageable size that was only 9" wide. Then I wet out the deck and hull where I was getting ready to put the biax, and then the mat side of the biax. I would stick the biax up with my referance line right on top of the fillet where the deck and hull come together. Then add resin to the exposed woven side of the biax and imediately follow with a layer of 6oz. cloth to minimize the amount of fairing I have to do later.

The first picture is what it looked like after I had the glass in place. It actually went very well.

The next picture is some future planning work I'm doing. Initially I plan to have my halyards terminated at the mast and I will mount a couple of winch pads on the mast for the halyard winches. But as I get older I may decide I want to run them back to the cockpit. So the second picture is of areas that I am making solid glass pads for rope clutches and winch bases.

And since I need to recore the bow area and because I wanted to make a more substantial mounting point for my bow cleat I glassed in the top of the bulhead leading to the chain locker.

[Commander 147]

The piece of wood that was under "Destiny's" mast when I got her was in pretty sad shape and needed replacing. I contemplated a lot of options and the one I contemplated the most other than the decision I finally made was the route Rico took. But in the end since I'm doing a major refit anyway I decided to make a permanent solid fiberglass mast step that has become a part of the deck.

I started out by making a wood plug the size and shape of the step I wanted to end up with.



Then I had to build a piece that recreated the curvature of the deck that I could set on my workbench so I could attach the plug to it and build a framework around it that would hold the casting resin I was using to make a mold for the fiberglass step.



After that I poured in the casting resin, let it set up and I had a female mold that would allow me to make a solid fiberglass mast step. Then I popped out the wood plug and started cutting pieces of fiberglass that would allow me to fill the mold with solid glass. I must have cut between 30 and 40 pieces to get enough to fill the mold. I painted the mold with release wax and started laying up my mast step. After all the glass was wet out I covered the assembly with visquene and then clamped the piece that matched the curvature of the deck to the top of it. After the epoxy cured I dissasembled everything and took out the fiberglass mast step. I used a special solvent that removed any traces of the release wax and then sanded everything smooth.

While I was waiting for the epoxy to cure on the mast step I recored the deck where the new mast step would go with solid glass. And as long as I was at it I made the areas where the forward hatch hinges go through the deck solid glass also.



Then when all the parts were ready I mixed up some thickened epoxy and spread an even layer on the bottom of the new step and pushed it down on the deck. I used the squeeze out to make a fillet around the step. Once that had set up I glassed the entire thing down to the deck. This picture shows it at that stage. The only thing still needing to be done is to sand it then fair it out with some epoxy thickened with cabosil and mircoballons.

[Commander 147]

The little piece of wood trim that came on "Destiny's main companionway hatch did not allow for an easy way to grasp the hatch and slide it back and forth. So I decided to make somethiing for it that was more accomodating to my fat fingers.

This was not a real easy task as I found out when trying to make the new hand hold. The curvature of the hatch is not a smooth radius so I found I had to first cut and shape the bottom of the new piece to match the shape of the hatch. Then 2-1/4" above that point I had to draw and cut a true radius that would allow me to use the top as an indexing point for the 4 router bits it would take me to make the profile I wanted to make.

This first picture is the profile of the new hand hold.



This second picture is the view showing how it looks on the hatch.

[Ariel 109]

Nice work Jerry, I'm impressed!

[Commander 147]

Thanks Ben

You do nice work also. I appreciate the complement.

[Tony G]

Nice work Jerry, I'm impressed!

I'll second that without hesitation.

I never thought about Commanders having core where the hatch hinges attach. I guess you could accuse me of being 'hullcentric'.

[Commander 147]

Thanks Tony

Lord knows I've seen some nice work from your posts also. Hope your cabin comes out the way you want it to this time. Your new chain locker bulkhead is looking good too. Certainly an improvement from the original version. Fiberglass boats have come a long way since ours were built. Some of it good and some not so good.

[Commander 147]

Today I received the electric inboard drive for Destiny. It is really nice to finally see this thing in person and get a feel for what is in front of me for the install. It is also nice to see the apparent high quality of the parts and pieces that came. For me (I am NOT an electrical engineer) it was really good that I could find a vendor that supplies a complete package that is all designed to work together. I know Mike saved money by doing his piecemeal on C227 but I was willing to pay the extra for a complete packagee.

Here is the link to Electric Yacht's website.

http://www.electricyacht.com/

[Commander227]

Pretty snazzy Jerry!

I bet you're excited to lay down in the bilge and cut, grind and glue in the Florida heat. I'm sure you'd like to put it off til it cools down but you got new gizmos that are crying to be played with. It was winter when I did mine and I'm too cheap to heat much. I had a sweatshirt on under my tyvek suit. Make sure you have someone come out and poke you with a stick every now and again to be sure you're still moving.
Mike
C227

[Commander 147]

Mike

In this heat and at my age I can only tolerate the Tyvek for so long. And unfortunately thanks to my allergy to epoxy I have to wear it. I've been going to work on it at 5:00AM when it is ONLY 85 to 87 degrees on the weekends and working until approx 10:00AM when the temp hits the mid 90's. By that time I'm drenched in sweat and can no longer tolerate it. So I come in take a shower and open the door between the house and the wood shop in the garage and start working on some of the wood items. It kills me that I'm moving so slow on this but the heat is just more than I can deal with so I have to bide my time.

But you are absolutely correct that they are crying to be played with. Before I can start on it I have to reinforce my neighbors pole building so I can use it to lift the boat off the trailer and both fix the keel and remove the rudder so I can start the shaft log install. But I'm certainly motivated to do that now. :-)

[paulsproesser]

I know the feeling , congratulations , I picked up commander#5 on july 31st and have been sailing her everysaturday sinc and got some really great wind gusts up to40-50mph when hurricane earl skirted the coast on the chesapeake bay

[Commander 147]

Well, I lost about a month of progress thanks to a sinus surgery I finally had done that I had been putting off for close to 10 years. I can breath better now and in another month or so when I'm finally healed up completely I will be happy it was done.

In the last couple of weeks I have made progress in a couple of areas. First I did all of the final fitting to the wood for the companionway (picture 1 below) only to take it all back out for finishing. When I get to the end of the project and start putting all the wood back in I want things to progress quickly because I will be really excited to finally have her done. So getting all of the wood pieces final fit and finished now will really help then.

After I finished that I demo'd out the compression post and the little boomerang braces at the top of the cabin so I can start my strong back install. I never plan to do a solid door leading to the v-berth because in my opinion in these small boats it just takes up too much room. I plan to do a curtain on a track so the ladies can have privacy. That being the case I decided (after talking it over with my friend Tom) it would be good to try and keep the cabin as open as possible and still get the support I need for the strong back. So the second picture is a mock up of the direction I'm heading on the new bulkheads (I will be removing the old bulkheads and replacing with new).

[Ariel 109]

Nice work Jerry! That companionway looks so great.

Ben

[mbd]

Looking really nice Jerry!