We have built the Cabin top. It has no compound curves. Hoop pine ply does not like compound curves, not like your average wishy washy Okume. Hopefuly it should not look too bad. It looks awful now since it needs to be trimmed to the deck level and sanded to an inch of its life
Much time has been spent doing what I call bracketry - supports for everything that I think needs supporting, and sufficient surface area for a strong glued joint as well. We have started on the cockpit. I cut 1 1/4" Oregon diagonally and have glued that to most of the edges of the frames that will take the bottom, sides and deck.We stopped that process today to laminate the cockpit to deck edge supports (not sure what their nautical name would be). These are three strips of 1 1/4" plywood with the joints offset and hopefully tastefully arranged and clamped to give a pleasing curve to the cockpit edge, or at least something close to what the designer imagined.
We will take the electric plane to them tomorrow along with a tape and centreline string to see if they are anything like symmetrical. Once that is done we can build the cockpit bottom and sides. We plan to fillet and glass the bottom to the sides in place and then lift them out to tape the inside edges before reinstalling. That cockpit floor to cockpit side joint is going to take a lot of punishment, especially if you weigh as much as I do.
We are in the process of ordering a C-Tech (NZ) carbon rig, but with Two sets of spreaders - the uppers just supporting the masthead when the kite is up. Port Phillip is a pretty choppy place and has 15 -25 knot sea breezes in summer, so we really have to think about that masthead whipping around. The sales are Doyle Fraser Laminates that should be matched pretty well to the rig as Doyle are apparently across the road from C-Tech.
Robert Hicks has done a beautiful keel, bulb and set of rudders for us, I will post photos as soon as I can.
It's looking good! I did a similar thing with the deck to cockpit sides as you. The only difference is I installed the entire side panel (that was one funky curved piece when flat) and then added a 2nd strip to the back along the top and then added a top piece. I probably ended up with a tighter radius than you are going to have.
ReplyDeleteDon't let the cure time get you down :-).
Kevin.
p.s. the cockpit floor is often referred to as the "sole".