More Stringer Work

I spent most of Monday working on fitting the substrate for the sole in the v-berth and fiberglassing the stringers I glued in place about a week ago.

My first attempt at a pattern for the plywood in the v-berth was a disaster. I got the bright idea that I would cut out cardboard shapes and use a little epoxy to glue them together. Didn't work. I got in a hurry and moved the pattern before the epoxy set. Everything moved and the piece of sacrificial ¼ plywood I cut was off by as much as an inch in some places.

The second go-round I made things a little simpler. I used the cardboard for the overall shape, but this time I just used making tape to hold everything together. I cut a rough shape and then cut smaller pieces that followed the edges and corners of the walls and tapped them down. It worked perfectly. The second one fit within an 1/8 of a inch all the way around and that's what I was looking for.



Unfortunately, the shape of the floor in the v-berth wouldn't allow for once piece of ¾ inch plywood to fit. The geometry was just too complex. I ended up having to cut it into two pieces and join those together down the middle.



After a little bit of sanding and adjusting, I finally got it though. After I got the pieces cut and joined together, I covered them on 6 sided with two coats of epoxy to seal it.



I'm still not real sure exactly how I'm going to glue it down. I don't know if I should use some 3M 5200 and glue and screw it down permanently or if I should use a slightly weaker adhesive in case I ever need to take the pieces out. I'm leaning towards permanent. I can't imagine wanting to take it out. I'll tell you this much, though, it sure felt nice to stand there on a flat, solid floor instead of walking through the bilge on bare stringers. I will be tickled to death to see the rest of it done.

The rest of the day I spent working on fiberglassing the stringers. I did the last of the smaller stringers in the v-berth first because I wasn't sure how the epoxy was going to behave at 80 degrees. I know when I was working with it and it was 50 degrees outside with about 60% humidity the stuff took forever to kick. When it was in the 50's, even though I was using the fast hardener, the pot life on it was about 20 minutes. That was not an issue today. In fact, the first batch I mixed up jelled before I could use it all. It kicked in about 6 minutes and started steaming in the pot.

Obviously, when I glassed in the second and much longer stringer, I switched to the slow hardener. It was perfect. I had just enough time to wet everything out and work with it before it stated to jell. I was afraid it was going to kick before I could get all the layers of fiberglass down that I wanted. I wanted everything done wet on wet because I didn't feel like waiting around, sanding it all down, and laying up more fiberglass.



As it turned out, everything went down in one shot and the epoxy kicked shortly there after. On top of that, it only took about 3 to 4 hours for it to cure. That's much better than the nine to ten hours at 50 degrees. What felt like it took forever today was pre-cutting all the cloth I was going to use. I had the stuff strung all over the place. I used 6 layers of 10 oz. cloth in all on each side and 3 layers of mat in the middle to bulk it up like it was originally. It used up an enormous amount of epoxy, but it ended up being about a half an inch thick in the middle around the keel bolt, which is what I wanted. I swear, though, I'm burning through $140 a gallon epoxy like some people buy milk. I just bought another gallon the other day and it's almost gone. It makes even gasoline seem reasonably priced. I'm seriously considering buying 5 gallons of it at a time because (a) I'm going to use that much and (b) it's slightly cheaper. Buying it a gallon at a time is going to cost about $700. If I get 5 gallons at once, while it may be a bigger initial bite, it works out to about $500 bucks.