Beams, Bulkheads, and Pans

The beams get flanges to support the cockpit as well as the aft end of the fwd deck. The client has decided to go with a slatted teak deck in lieu of the fwd trampoline on this boat. We are adding a flange to the fwd side of the mast beam for the deck here. The aft beam can be seen with some fairing putty on it to fill the weave and get it ready for paint.

The notch shown here is where we will glass in a fiberglass tube to receive the trampoline bolt rope. Once the beam is all faired off and ready for paint we will mill a slot through the glass and edge of the tube.

More fairing and sanding

More of the same. Here you can see the end of the tramp tube

In the hulls we are fitting the bulkheads and the pans. The pans are the fiberglass molding that becomes the cabin sole and the bunk top. They are foam cored as well to provide the required stiffness at a light weight.

  

The boards that you see across the top of the hull is to maintain the correct width of the hull while we install the bulkheads and the pans. The bulkheads are also of foam cored glass.

Both decks have now been fit to the hulls as well as the bulkheads. We won't attach them until we have completed the work on the interior of the hulls.

When we pull the decks out of the molds the windows and hatches all have to be cut out and the edges finished off with gelcoat. Her e we have done the cutting and sanding and have sprayed a coat of gelcoat on.

The same has been done here. The black paint is to aid in sanding the coamings fair.

Here is one companionway after the sanding and polishing.

One of the fwd hatch coamings completed.

On Deck

We completed the fairing and gel-coating of the inside of the deck parts and popped them from the molds.

Next is to cut out the hatch and companionway and portlight openings.

 The beams on these boats are laminated up from Divinycell foam and then sheathed with unidirectional glass, carbon and csm.

 On the bottom surface of the beams is a flange to support the cockpit.

This flange will get prettied up and the beam will get a coat of putty and be sanded fair.

Two Hulls Today

This week we finished the second hull.

the decks are actually more work than the hulls. Lots more pieces and corners.

 Here we have glued in some foam and some fairing putty between the beam block area.This makes for a cleaner surface when we glue down the core foam below.

Below we have sanded the core foam and filleted the corners at the flange.

Next we fit the foam into the sides and top of the main cabin .

 Here the foam pieces are cut and we are ready  to glue the foam into place.

 Below the foam has been glued in. Next we will fill and fair the foam. prior to glassing the interior.

 Here we are laminating on the inner skin.

 

Here we have completed the inner skin and have started to fair tie inside of the deck mold. The ends are storage compartments and get only minor fairing . The center section is the cabin area and is faired off nicely .

Next week we will finish the fairing on these decks and coat them with white gelcoat.

On to the Second Hull

Monday morning we pulled the first hull out of the mold and started to build the second hull.

 Here is a close look at the vacuum bag pulling down the foam to a hull part.At the lower left of the photo is the "frog" where the hose from the  vacuum pump connects to the bag. You can see the putty oozing through the bleeder holes and the bag sucking down tight.

 Here is the  gauge on the vacuum pump, which shows we are doing very well.

After we skin the part with mat we go over the part very carefully and look for any small air pockets between the gelcoat and the mat. When we find one we sand it off and apply a little more resin or gelcoat. You can see some of these areas here.

 The next step is to fit and laminate on a layer of 108 biaxial fabric to the deck part. This is harder to laminate on and is done in smaller pieces to ensure good bonding.First we apply fabric around the hatch coamings.You can see these in the photo above. These places are more difficult to get the fabric to lay down smoothly. Then we do the bigger, flatter pieces as shown below.

.After the outer layer of fabric is laminated on we then start applying the foam. We fill the coamings with foam and also build up the areas under where the beam blocks will go to provide for a smooth surface to apply the foam coring to.Below is one of the hatches and the beam block filling..

Below we have filled in the companionway coaming.

 Here we have glued in some foam in the area of the fwd beam blocks. These will get sanded fair like the area two photos back. Cheers

First Tiki 8m Hull Connected

After the gelcoat, mat skin and an outer layer of biaxial fabric we fit 3/8" Divinycell foam for a core. This core is vacuum bagged on into a polyester putty.Here are several photos of the bag being made ready and the vacuum being pulled.

Below you can see the vacuum pump turned on and doing its thing. The white tubes are perforated pvc pipe to help the vacuum move around under the bag film.

This shot shows the foam core after the bag has been removed. You can see all the little blobs of putty that have been pulled through the bleeder holes in the foam. These holes ensure that no air pockets are trapped between the foam and the glass underneath it.

Next we sand all of those little blobs off and fillet a little putty around the edges of the foam and smooth everything off for the application of the inner biaxial skin.

Above we have laminated on the inner skin and below we are cutting off the ragged extra fabric along the edges of the part that will mate to the other halve of the hull.

Below we have maneuvered one halve of the hull mold into position to bolt it up to the other halve.

Here we have bolted the two halves together in preparation for glassing them together.

Here we have joined the two halves together with 5 layers of 1708 biaxial fabric

Monday morning we will pull the molds off and begin the other hull for this catamaran.

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While we have been working on the hulls we have also been fairing the inside of the hatches and filling the ends of the companionway hatches which will be drilled out for the hatch slide tube.In the hatch that is being sanded here you can see one of our "kilos". These are 25 lb bags of lead shot. We use them primarily to hold down teak deck panels but find them very useful for holding and clamping all sorts of things. 

 

 Here you can see the 2nd fwd compartment floor with the foam core bonded to it. The foam allows us to build a lightweight piece that is stiff enough without excessive weight.

Above we have gelcoated and skinned one of the liner pans. This part stiffens the center span of the hull and serves as the bunk tops and the floor in the main cabin in each hull.

 Here we are bolting in plywood pieces that form the flanges for the portlights. These will then be filleted in with modeling clay.They are bolted in because they  trap the part in the mold and have to be separated form the mold after the part is laminated and removed with the part.Below is the deck mold gelcoated.

Below we are starting to fit the mat to the deck mold.

This photo shows the second deck gelcoated and skinned. The photo below is the end of our first week on this boat. One hull built, both decks skinned and all of the small parts built. Nice week.

Catamaran Hulls, Hatches and Decks

Today we gelcoated the hull halves and applied a layer of mat  and a layer of biaxial fabric.We use a vinylester rein for the outer skins as it provides better protection from osmosis.

We also did the same process with some of the hatches, knees and fwd compartment floor We also put in the foam core  and the inner biaxial skin on these parts.

Here are two of the hatches  one of the fwd compartment floors as well as two of the mast beam reinforcement knees  with the lamination complete and popped from the molds.

We have started the other two hatches and the other two knees and are fairing the inside of the companionway hatches.

We have brought the deck molds into the shop and are cleaning and waxing them prior to beginning the lamination.

Moving right along.