Freed from the mold frames.

Again a milestone.  Last weekend I spent on the preparations with among other things unscrewing 7500! screws. The big event, hoisting the hull and turning it upside down, was done in this weekend. I like to do this on my own, without onlookers, no hurry, good thinking and easy going. The hull is now ready for further work on the outside.

More recent updates in www.fram.nl:   Mainhull page and some new photo’s in this gallery.

Foam main hull half finished.

Progress of the F-39 build is going quite well. Although I’m building in my spare time for quite some years now, the estimated average building hours by Ian Farrier seems to be quite accurate and I’m still on schedule with this.

Last weekend the second main hull half has been foam stripped. The method of vertical foam stripping is one of the great inventions of Ian Farrier and after finishing 6 hulls it is still a pleasant job to do. At first it looks an intimidating job, but after the third strip or so one knows how it works. I’ve added the dry fix method, whereby the joins are being V-shaped with a small router and filled with a bog of microballoons afterwards. My first goal with this technique was the insurance of getting an airtight foam hull that besides of the sandwich core is also the airtight mould for the vacuum infusion. The extra benefit is a clean job during the fitting of the vertical foam strips. However, there is a small weight penalty in comparison with a glue method of epoxy or a PU glue.

I don’t know the thermoforming qualities of other structural foams, but CoreCell is quite easy to bend with a heat gun. Even a very tight radius of say 2” is possible without burning the foam, which in my case has a thickness of 15mm (5/8”) The foam strips are consequently 405mm. (16″) wide, so three strips out of one 4’x8’ foam sheet. I started with using Philips screws but now I’m totally sold to the T20 screws, which are much better to re-use without damage to the screw head. A pity I didn’t discovered this earlier in the build.

In a few weeks I expect to vacuum infuse this hull part and I will report the list about that (for me) exciting event.

Meanwhile have a look at this YouTube video, made by the workshop webcam, to watch vertical foam stripping in practice. Even for such a large part as the F-39 main hull it’s an easy one man job.

Planking the second main hull half.

Again a fun part to do. Working in the new workshop looks to be much faster due to more space, better equipment, less distraction and less socializing.

And now there are a lot of critical observers (i.e. colleagues). No doubt they will inspect the work on Monday morning to discuss the working rate of their “boss” ………. 😉

(Galery last modified February 21)

Unmolding the starboard main hull half.

This went on quite straight forward. Here the photo galery. Most of the work was cleaning up the mess and to find a new place for all the stuff that I still don’t want to throw away. The half hull is remarkable stiff and instead of starting the other hull half I decided to start with some more interior work as access to the hull is great in this stage. However, life would be easier if I knew what  do with the interior ….. decisions, decisions ………

Setting up the first main hull half.

This is one of these memorable stages. Not only the “real boatbuilding” work,  at least the fun part has just begun in this stage, but more memorable is the fact that the hull fits in my small workshop as I had thought to myself. It’s a close fitting and a relief at the same time.

I’ve started with the starboard side of the main hull as the geometry of this hull half fits better in my workshop.

I knew before that the height of the workshop is not enough to join the two main hull halves, so the planning is to make the second hull half and the joining to a complete boat in a bigger workshop somewhere else (still to find that place). This will be temporary and the completing of the boat will be again in my garage.

making the last (of 4) float half.

Click here or the picture below for the setup, planking and infusion of the fourth float half.

The setup of the second float.

It has been a steep learning curve till now, so I hope to built the starboard float much quicker than the first port float (otherwise I have a problem 😉 Here is the photo album.

The float pages are now compressed into one page. The building photo’s are published in web albums, which  enabled me to insert several new pictures.

The setup of the second float half.

After a holiday break (and a not workable heat wave) now the planking of the second float hull half.

With all these lessons learned it’s becoming high time to start with the second hull half. Because of the limited room in my workshop, I have to make the second hull half of the same float now. This creates an extra setup of the form frames with the fore and aft battens. But I can do this quicker than moving the hull half for storing in another place. The new setup took less than 8 hours.

The hull halves are not symmetric, due to the raised deck area. The form of this half is not “self-releasing”, in other words, the raised deck area “hangs over”. This required an other setup of the battens in that area, which will allow to remove these battens while the hull is still in the form frames. By the way, Ian Farrier recommends to leave this area unlaminated and to bent into shape after removing the hull from the form frames. This is probably easier with hand-lay-up lamination, but not suitable with my resin infusion technique.

Actual start of the boat building adventure.

Finally the actual start of my boat building adventure, the making of the float frames and the setup of the first float half.

My workshop at home.

Today I made some pictures of my workshop and the F-36 float frames. I purchased the F-36 plans first and was lucky to get the used form frames from Gary Mulder’s F-36. With some modifications they are useable for the F-39 floats too, but I preferred to make new ones. First step is the setup of  the temporary frames for the outer side of the port float.

I hope to learn the tricks in this one as this side is a little easier to make than the inner side.