Well, progress has been great to date, now's the time to get on with a few other priorities for a month or two.
We glued in the stem as designed - with Aussie hardwood, a bit heavy but woodn't bust if we hit anything!
The reason I liked this design is for 2 reasons, 1st is the trawler design, 2nd the build process, no framing, chine, keel or stringers usually in a boat build, simple quick and the best part clean looking interior, like the interior of a composite foam sandwich build, I think lighter build too, every one needs to remember the more weight the more fuel to move it.
Back to the stem, I like nautical looking boats. Like a curved stem.
So, this area to me needed a more nautical look. After measuring the sheer shelf from the floor, we removed the stem, that took a bit of effort, hardwood + epoxy = tough stem. I wanted a round stem, so laminated up a round one!
Using 1/4" ply cut it into wedges 3/4" to 1/8" @ 36" long to be cut to the correct length later when fitting it.
Built an MDF mould with the sheer shelf and chine angles taken off the boat as built, got a 4 gal tin to get the curve for the sheer and a 1.5" tin for the chine end. Screwed the MDF shaped ends 36" apart to an MDF base with 3 battens nailed in between, one at the centre line of the stem and the other 2 either side at about the point where the curve finishes on the ends, this is to keep the edges of the strips straight.
Covered the mould with wax paper taped on ready to place the stem on for glassing.
I used 1/4" ply as glassing 2 x 20 oz biax on both sides wood give about 3/8" thickness - same as the side panels.
The strips of ply were laid on the table and masking taped together on one face, copious tape here, as it's the strength to hold it all in shape for glassing later. When all done, this was lifted and placed on the mould, small brads kept the taped strips centred on the mould.
Lots of resin applied for the 10 minute period for soaking up in the opened up ply edges. Laid up the biax, peel ply (treated) a word of caution using peel ply, the glass needs to have plenty of resin, like when the glass gets the 2nd coat of resin, use it now, the peel ply will other wise lift the resin up to it and leave the glass with little voids in the weave under the peel ply, you will notice this when you need to sand off some areas...
Next day with excitement (always looks great this system) lifted the stem off the mould and laid up the inside.
Fitting to the hull was a trim and fit system, taking care not to trim off too much as the sides of the stem needed to fair into the ply side panels, I didn't want to have to fair up any thing. glued her up when I was happy.
When I laid up the side panels, put 1-3/4" strips of wax paper covered ply backers behind the stem to screw the side panel to when glueing up, ending up with a fair hull side. (might add here that one side I rushed thus needed to apply a little glue as fairing compound - I'm not perfect!)
Now I'll have a fair interior forward cabin to look at, nice!
