The "Gilded Girl" is on the trailer and here's why...

Big Changes coming (here) and a warning of a possible lull in progress...

Miss Addy sits on here trailer and its not to run down to the local lake.  The news is that I have been moved to the coast, Savannah, GA to be exact.  After four years of an increasingly hectic schedule of traveling two to three days a week from Atlanta to Savannah to handle projects, my company has decided that it makes more sense to make Savannah our permanent home.  The sad part of this is that my Dad will have to now make the trip to help me finish it up.  I don't know if that makes him that sad, he loves the coast, but it does make it harder.  We will have guest accomdations ready for Mom and Dad anytime they are ready.  So the house here is on the market, we will head down next weekend on a house hunting trip, maybe get lucky and come back with a contract on one.  My temporary abode is the cheapest thing I can find (within reason) with travel back and forth on weekends.  So, it's down to two dogs and us.  The horses are at a new home, one that will take care of them and give them the chance to bloom out as I couldn't (like owning a race car and using it to get milk and bread once a year).  The tractor was sold and most of the shop resting in an assortment of flip top bins.  The boat shop is now empty and I will have Miss Addy shrink wrapped to protect her as we make the transition.

Getting ready to back the trailer under.  She is clear of the deck that
is ready to be removed so the trailer can back under.

Getting her from the shop floor to the trailer...

Luckily my Dad and brother were here to help.  My wife could hardly stand to watch and was sure it would be the the end of us all.  I saw Louis Sauzedde on the Jamestown site use jacks and blocking to get a big boat off its trailer. If you want to see how it's done and how we basically did it, go to their video series and watch.  Go slow and easy and over communicate!  The process was to support the transom, jack up and block the boat and gradually leapfrog the trailer cross members as you slowly back the boat under the boat.  We supported the transom at each end so at all times it was basically sitting on three points.  We basically had to reconfigure the trailer bunks so that there was one twelve foot bunk either side of the keel. So, off to the store for pressure treated 2" x 6" and outdoor carpet. We really aren't done with the bunks entirely and some adjustment will be necessary to get it perfect.  The foremost bunk attachments will need to be blocked up to match the rocker of the boat.  We also want to add a roller as the boat enters the trailer to start it up the keel.  Now that Miss Addy is on the trailer, we will drill for the bow and stern eyes.

So, stay tuned... 

It would be an incredible stroke of luck to find a shop ready to roll her in.  My next series of posts in this blog may be the building of a shop to continue her fitting out. I have a feeling that the project continues after I have built her a new home.

Things are a whirlwind and upside down. But, in the end, she will see the kind of use that she deserves cruising the Golden Isles of Georgia's Coast.

Picture taken at Pelican Point in Shellman Bluff, our intended target area for a home buy.

Now that she is on we can finally get a real look at her.  What a Beauty!

Pilot House Floor

Teak Strip Floor... a slightly different take on the West System.
(edited my text, rushed the post so re-read) Thanks!

African Teak ready to mill

First it's not teak, it is Iroko or African Teak, not the traditional and extremely expensive stuff that is from SE Asia. As a matter of fact, there are several species that are used as a substitute. In quite a few boats out there, and on a lot of what is sold as "teak" in outdoor furniture and in quite a few European Yachts (as I understand it) the real teak used is of the African variety.  The secret in its longevity is the oiliness of the wood that creates some issues when gluing, but, in general is a heavy and rot resistant material.
The African variety has a bad reputation among the purists (as long as its not their wallets they have to dip into) and it is a little hard on tools due to its high silica content and interlocking grain that can actually be felt as it is machined into strips by the resistance felt when pushing it through the blade.
I had purchased two 8/4 boards around nine feet long and wearing a respirator with a 36" fan behind me, I ripped the strips slightly oversize, then planed them down to 1/4" final.
One thing for those folks out there running this through a planer.  Take extremely shallow passes and go slow if you have two speeds to choose from.  A few times I attempted to push the cut and speed and the result was a lot of tearout.  The strips seems very stable and sat for almost three weeks before assembly.  I noted no wild movement or twisting.

Strips milled and what's left of the second board

Talking about strips...
I have made a decision to use the Teak Decking Systems or West epoxy approach to laying this floor with a few modifications of my own.  The general procedure is to mill the Teak into 1/4" thick x 1-1/2" to 2" strips, edge-sawn, and glue this using a bed of epoxy as we set a 1/4" gap between the strips.  This would be traditionally filled with a poly-sulfide rubber caulk to prevent water from entering the gap.  In the West System approach the gap would be filed with graphite colored epoxy to simulate the rubber caulk.  I had little faith in the epoxy having enough flexibility to compensate for the natural expansion and contraction of the material.  In my experience epoxy was a fairly brittle material over the long haul.  Instead, I had decided to use the Teak Decking Systems (TDS) SIS 440 caulk.  It is a rubber caulk that is extremely flexible and, so far, is fairly easy to use if you follow directions.
Our "different approach" is to use a backer board to create a solid panel and build this on the bench to be installed as one piece.  Brainstorming ended with my Dad suggested using left over 1/4" Marine AB Fir.  It was perfect and would stiffen the floor even more.  The weight is down low and that can't do anything but help.  TDS  uses this concept on one of their products that they sell and manufacture for the boat building industry.  They are pre-assembled panels that are ready to glue down.  We took this approach for the convenience of construction and to add an even more stable platform for the teak strips.

Pattern Complete

So, to start, we needed to get our pattern off of the floor on what we would need to cover.  We opted to go ahead and teak under the galley cabinet and steps.  We don't think its a waste and will help prevent creating a low spot for water to pool under the batteries and galley if ever there was a flood.  The Settee will occupy the port side of the house so the line was continued straight off of the head's wall.  We used a cheap poster board which is less likely to stretch and distort like brown paper might.
















Once complete, 1/4" marine ply was pulled out and the pattern transferred and cut.





















Off to the wood shop!

Add caption

Here we will build the panel on the outfeed table of the table saw.  The problems with adhesion, as mentioned earlier, is the oiliness of the teak. The answer is a liberal wipe down with acetone prior to starting the process.
So here is the procedure and I'll let a few pictures follow until we caulk:
1. Roll the panel with a thickened mixture of epoxy, silica and milled fiber for strength.
2. While I rolled the panel, Dad rolled the back of the strip with the same mix and handed them across to me.
3. We stapled the edge strips and ends where molding will cover.
I also discovered that the pneumatic stapler can toenail the strips edge if placed just right so that the strip is held tight against 1/4" tile spacers.  Please use a firm plastic spacer.  The tombstone rubber ones I used are too flexible and I resorted to 1/4" strips of UHMW material as the tile spacers crushed under the tension of the strips.
4. Once the entire panel was glued and stapled, We used packing tape covered cauls and clamps to hold all snug.





Pictures of this follow...

A little of everything holding the strips in place.  Note the spacers
and weight added where needed.  It doesn't take too much for epoxy.

Panel, final trimmed, and ready to fill the seams.  Note the roll of
3M fineline tape that needs to go at the bottom of the seam with
a paint stick to help it along.

Filled seams

Now, (I always start the recommencement of instructions with the word "now" for some reason), we are ready to caulk the seams and this starts with the application of a bond breaker in the bottom of the groove.  This is not easy.  As a matter of fact it is tedious and I found the best method to start the tape at one edge and apply a lot of tension to the tape held close to the groove while using the opposite hand to poke the tape down into the bottom with a paint stick.  

Why a bond breaker?  The idea is that the caulk typically fails when it is adhered to 3 sides. During normal expansion cycles, the caulk will tend to crack along the third edge.  This is typically one strip edge.  If its is bonded to two edges only and floats along the bottom, the caulk can perform as designed.  This is one aspect that the TDS folks attribute to the success of the system over all others.  They assert it is absolutely critical to the caulks success. 

Next time I will try a screen spline wheel to "pizza cutter" roll it in. Regardless, it worked and got faster at the end.  The SIS 440 was the standard 10 oz. caulking tube variety and we used the pneumatic gun to push it in.  There was nothing special about the application... push it in till it is just proud of the teak surface and then follow with a flexible putty knife to push out entrapped air.

This has to set for 48 hours before sanding...

Partially done, look closely at the
ends of the grooves and you can see the
tails of the bond breaker tape.

"Easy to sand" the directions said, yea right...

I started the sanding process with an RO sander.  I quickly put it down and walked to the boat shop for my belt sander and a new belt.
Folks, two things here:
1. scrape as much of this stuff off as you can before the cure, and
2. don't bother with anything other than a belt sander.
You can follow up with the RO and I did, but belt sand the panel like a table top and make long figure eights with the belt sander always pointed  in the direction of the grain.  Avoid the temptation to turn it cross grain or you'll have scratches that will be tough to remove.

For this application since I did not scrape off the excess, I used a razor scraper to slice the cured excess off of the surface which helped immensely in the removal.  Wear a respirator and vac often so your aren't sanding over dust and fighting the process.

Up Next:  Installation!

The finished panel, ready to be glued and perimeter nailed in place.

July 4th Update... Happy Independence Day!

I wanted to end this with final installed photos and a brief description.
What we did was to bring the panel in for a test fit.  It was tight but "shook" it place.  We were satisfied.
To install the panel we stood it up and put a chunk of four inch PVC under it to keep it off the floor.  Twelve ounces of un-thickened epoxy was rolled on the back of the raw panel to wet it out and then thirty six more ounces of thickened epoxy was rolled on the floor and panel back.
It was simply "dropped" in place and perimeter nailed with hot dipped, ring shanked duo-fast nails.
That's it!  It's in, and the galley cabinet was set back in place and fastened permanent.
Thanks for watching!
-M

Inside

Moving to the inside...

The exterior is almost complete or as far as it needs to go until foot traffic and systems are in place.  The back deck (floor) will be left unfinished till the interior is mostly complete so foot traffic doesn't mess up the teak deck.  The fuel tank compartment needs hatches but that will be tough to work around until the fuel lines and compartment blowers are in place. So we move to the interior and systems that need to be installed.

Water Tanks...

Mattress boards are installed and easily removed in two pieces.
Front wall gets a mahogany panel with a 10" pry out port for sorting
out any tangles in the anchor rode. The last two 4" access ports are still waiting
for the wiring to be completed soon.  they allow access to the docking lights.

Tanks straps hooked on floor opposite side of tank and passing through
two holes lower than the top of he tanks to create down pressure.
Vent line is at the top left and tank connector hose at the bottom. 

The fresh water tanks are installed under the V-berth.  This was the plan so that any additional weight that had to be carried, could be kept low for stability and forward so that it wouldn't have Miss Addy to much by the stern in her trim.  In correspondence with the designer it was mentioned on several different occasions that this design benefits with a little weight forward.  Now this weight will constantly being either filled or used so it still may required to add ballast but that will have to wait till we splash it. The tanks were ordered from an RV supplier in Indiana.  They use the RV standard 1-1/4" vs. 1-1/2" marine fill connections so I had to do some transitioning to get the tie in to the stainless deck fill.  The compartments were sealed with epoxy long ago and bulkheads are installed at the frames that support the mattress and help stabilize the tanks.  The tanks are 33 gallons and 46 gallons.  They were as much as I could squeeze in to the two sections while leaving room to tie in the connections.  The straps are just your standard ratchet strap.

Strapped -in tanks using one continuous strap passing across both tanks.

I screwed eye bolts down on either side of the two tanks then cut and routed smooth a hole between the two so that the strap could pass over both tanks a put down pressure on them.  The tanks are tied together at the bottom fitting with 1-1/4" spa hose that will allow both to fill and dispense equally.  They also have a vent line that that ties both together so that displaced air can pass in and out of the tanks as they are used.

Vent looped around city water
that isn't plumbed in yet

Fresh water fill to deck.

This line passes into the pilot house and loops around the City Water connection.  The city water connection will allow dockside use without minding the fresh water.  By the way I have no intention to drink the water.  This is shower and dishes only and in an emergency situation of course to drink but I plan to pack bottled or gallon jug fulls for drinking and teeth brushing water.  I can't imagine that even the most diligent attention paid to the tanks will ever offer water fit for taste.  A check valve between the city water and the fresh water pump stops the pressurized water from getting back to the tanks and overflowing them.

Three thru-hulls opened up and ready to be sealed with epoxy

We had to bore through the hull for the various through hulls that need to be installed for the shower pump, the pilot house sump pump and the air conditioner discharge line.  The Webasto 9000btu heat pump uses ocean or lake water picked up through a seacock installed in the boat bottom and discharged above water line. It is a heat pump and can be reverse cycled to heat as well as cool. It runs off of a pump installed in the sump that will be under the settee sharing the space with the pumps and AC unit.  This sacrifices some storage but it has to go somewhere and we will have some storage that I will try to compartmentalize for items that don't need to be readily accessible.

Toilet drain and vent

Shower Floor...

1/4" Hardie backer screwed down

Keeping with the retro theme the bathroom gets tiled checkerboard style.  The original floor was supposed to have a small octagonal mesh backed tile, mostley white with the black tiles scattered out.  After the hardie was screwed down and I thinset around the border, we set upon cutting and laying the tile. Well, the tile just fell apart on the saw.  We could only attribute this to a cheap product picked up at a discount flooring store that offered only a few choices.  Instead of shutting down for the day we loaded up and headed to HD to see what was available.  What we did find was wall tile in black and white 3" x 6".  I generally would never use wall tile on a floor in the house.  Just a bad idea.  It can't stand up to heel traffic and is too slick for large areas, never good in a shower pan.

The tile job is complete.  I used Pro Fusion grout (first time for a ready mix)
which seemed to work great.  It may have dried slightly off white though.
you can see the squeezed out grating bed.

However, this is a boat shower, just wide enough to turn around in with 1/4" grout lines for traction and a wall 6" from the shoulders in any place you stand.  I intend to install grab bars between walls to hold soap and shampoo bottles on the small shelf and one about 24" up from that to hang clothes and towels for drip drying.  I don't anticipate any foot pressure other than bare or soft foot covering onboard.  I also kind of like using the same tile as a 9" high back-splash behind the galley.
The grating that sits over the sump has been aggravating.  I thought the size through but not how to waterproof.  What I eventually did was to wrap the edges of the grating in packing tape and mix a super thick epoxy goo with white colorant added which was icing bagged into the gap and bottom of the grating.  The grating was pushed in place and the epoxy allowed to set.  This was all done after the tile was grouted and complete.

The holding tank was installed and screwed down through the tile. The pick up tube for the waste will plumb out of the back wall and the vent will go through a bulkhead fitting along with the vent and cold water supply for flushing.

Toilet set

I thought I was about finished...

tinted glass ready for install.  done on the kitchen island and drying on the
dining room table.  Much darker appearance laying down than  installed.

A few thoughts. I haven't posted in a while...
I thought I was almost there.
I try to make a move toward a new stage in the build and realize that I still have some things to do on the previous stage before I can do this. They all build on each other.. Definitely a sequence that has to be followed.  It's not a huge deal, I've brought this on myself as I have turned a fairly simple design into a much more complex one. BUT... I really like doing this so my project fatigue has been more impatience than frustration to get onto the interior finishing and fitting out the various systems.  As I am writing to catch this up, I am actually working inside the pilothouse on the dash so that wiring may commence. Like I said, I haven't posted in a while. I left off on the last post with some of the larger anchoring and hardware construction being completed and since then the glass is mostly in and a lot of painting is done. The glass adhesive doesn't store well and the glass primer once opened is bad after seven days so I have one last round of glass setting to go (side glass, back door glass and a viewing porthole we've added to the settee location which was a suggestion by my Dad that will make thing much more comfortable... I'll save that for a future post). 
So lets take a look and I'll talk about the work, maybe get us caught up closer to Miss Addy's present state.
Glass is in... mostly.

Unfinished rings showing rabbets on backside.

Drying 3M primer on tinted porthole glass

A few decisions has to be made on what to install in the way of glass.  I looked around at the options (polycarbonate, acrylic, safety glass).  They all have some real merits.  
Glass was heavy, expensive to get in custom shapes and maybe a little susceptible to impact trouble.
The plastics were a little cheaper because it could be cut at the shop but all were susceptible to UV damage and scratching.  I rationalized that something could happen to glass if there was an accident, but, I knew for a fact that the plastics were eventually going to fog and craze.  I decided to send my shapes to One Day Glass in Washington state via CAD file and order, this was early on. The well packaged crate of glass sat in my shop for months.  My trepidation grew over time as I finished frames and wondered if this stack of glass would actually fit or was even close to what I had sent as a CAD file.  I guess smart money would have been to open it up when it arrived nine months ago, but, I feared more that our construction activity would potentially damage the securely crated fragile investment.  

Porthole and windshield glass installed

So, the outer rings of the portholes are in place (epoxied in prior to paint on the exterior) and interior rings needed to be constructed.  It was generally the same procedure using the circle cutting jig and router with an outer rabbet to set them flush to the glass and overlap the interior wall.  The install of the porthole glass was accomplished using 3M Window Weld adhesive first primed with a proprietary black fluid that was wiped around the outer 3/4" edge of the glass.  The adhesive is a black moisture cure rubber that is applied using a caulking gun.  We picked up a pneumatic gun on eBay for $25 and so far has been great for this super-thick bodied adhesive.  One unusual note about the bead of caulk.  Online pros suggested cutting the tip straight (not the normal angle) and then cutting a triangle shaped notch on the front of the nozzle about 1/2" tall and 1/4" wide.  Holding the gun perpendicular, drag the nozzle around the edge of the glass leaving a long, wedge shaped bead of adhesive on the glass edge.  My wife prepped the pieces and helped hand them in and out as we laid each porthole circle of glass down and I mashed them in place.  To temporarily hold them I used glazing points.  The 3M adhesive grabbed pretty well on its own.  The next day we just went around the glass and cut the rubbery adhesive squeeze out with an X-Acto knife. It scraped off the glass with a razor.  

cabin painted and trim rings in... note that the mahogany beam has been
arched across the bottom in place... was straight (ugly).

The inner rings were then just finished clear and screwed in place.  While a lot of this was going on, we were spending a lot of time starting the interior painting.  We used a top quality paintable window and door latex caulk and worked out way around the cabin and pilothouse filling and patching the seams and joints.  The paint chosen for the interior was a Sherwin Willams exterior semi gloss white and was laid on with roller and brush.  It really brightened the interior and made us glad we had taken the time to laminate the plybead and marine ply together.  The texture was amazing and the contrasting mahogany really looked clean.  

The only exception to this was the bathroom.  We used the same System # WR-LPU paint as the exterior due to the obvious wet environment.  The joints were also sealed with epoxy fillets for the same reason.  Maybe this is overkill, but it looked like an obvious place to start rot.
The worked progressed in the shop for a while and this was a welcome change to crawling in and out of the boat using the two foot step and one very long step over the coaming... it gets old.  















Shop Work... for a welcome change.

Load of 8/4 Mahogany and a piece of Tiger Maple outside Kroger on
the way home.  It had the Frontier squatted down pretty good.  I wish I had
my big 3/4 ton back... sniff, sniff.

Now it was time to get on with other pieces of construction centering around the side windows and cabin ventilation. Earlier we picked up a load of 8/4 Mahogany that was to be transformed into trim, doors and window frames. Some of this had been converted to the interior porthole rings seen above.  The side windows are next and they are actually a three piece system, one of which was installed much earlier in construction before outer hull painting. 

The other two parts of this are the interior ring that actually holds the glass, hinged by piano hinge at the top and and inner ring that will serve as a coaming with a silicon gasket. I constructed these parts as a solid unit and cut the radius corners after they were assembled.  Pocket hole plugs are glued in with Tightbond glue and stainless Kreg screws used to pull them together. I used CAD to layout the angled corner pieces and measured these out on the bench cutting them at the required angles on the miter saw.

Assembled inner coaming before radius

Radii cut and obvious pocket holes that will be hidden against
the wall.  Opposite face will be the appearance side.

Four heavy coats of WR-LPU clear

Inner Side Window Glass Frames...

You can't see the inner glass holding rabbet. This side faces out.

These are 1-1/2" thick pieces of frame-work that actually holds the glass and hinges at the top.  I evidently didn't capture the process on camera, but the previous process is the same and if you look close to at the sides, you can see the oval pocket hole plugs.  Again, 4 coats of WR-LPU.

Inner Coaming Ring installed.

This mahogany had a purplish cast when finished.  It has since started to
amber but may benefit from sun exposure. 

To install, we used a 2" piano hinge, pre-drilled using a center finding drill bit (absolutely essential and cheap).  You can see the silver edge of the hinge in the picture.

On a side note, be careful of finishing mahogany with soem of the water based finishes.  they don't amber like solvent based clears and can leave some weird tints.  I have since started to finish with a few coats of tinted finish, then clear.

The inside of the windshield needed trim rings too.  These were epoxy glued together as an over sized rough glue up and cut using a pattern.  Since there wasn't a straight line in the piece there didn't seem any other way.  Again, a big rabbet to slip down to the glass.

Installed rings.  Took a little fitting, but heck everything takes a little fitting on a boat.

Cabin Ventilation...

Ventilation is a big deal.  The lack of it can rot a boat like cancer from the inside out and, at the least, make for an uncomfortable and smelly interior.  So in an effort to ensure good ventilation, regardless of the Wabasto Heat Pump Install under the settee, we thought it would add a classy touch to build a genuine Dorade cowl vent complete with scuppered box.  Under the forward end of the box is a 4" piece of Sch 40 pipe that sticks about 2" above the deck and is flush with the interior cabin roof.  A ring with a butterfly vent and bug screen with regulate air flow.  The box is simple and time tested.  Lots of info out there on how to build one, mine is no different.

The hatch follows one suggested by Mate in his book "From a Bare Hull".  It uses an inner coaming and a outer hatch coaming that will be gasketed.  Between the inner and outer coaming is a channel scuppered outside.  The hatch serve double duty as an escape hatch in the event of an emergency and access is blocked to the aft door.

Note arc bottom...  it was taken to the boat and scribed.  Back at the
bench a jig saw got it close and a belt sander finished it off.

The hatch is two pieces of course.  A lower portion that is shaped to fit the contour of the hull with an inner coaming about an inch tall and a mating upper section that hinges off of the deck.  The lower portion is caulked and screwed securely to the deck.  The plexiglass was installed with countersunk stainless steel screws set in a bed of black poly caulk.  The painted matt border hides the black squeeze out. I used the existing protective film as a mask, scuffed the glass and sprayed a coat of rattle can flat black enamel.  Sticks well.  Again, a heavy bead of PL roof and shingle has created a nice rubber seal.

Note routed scuppers on underside of lower hatch frame

Upper frame with center support being attached

Assembled prior to plexiglass install.