Too Hot to Glue

Hottest day of the Summer so far, and summer is only 4 days old in EU terms.

Too hot to glue after about 11am, so made a start on the starboard quarter deck. The margins were already in place (see Time for Thought)  so started on the strakes. These can be pulled into place by hand so don't require steaming. With the help of a couple of finger clamps and two self tapping screws and washers, they stayed put long enough to drill for the No. 6 brass screws. Once fitted, they are removed to machine the counter bores and trim the butt joins to give a 5mm gap which matches the rebate on the strake edges.

The bevel to the transom margin was easier to mark than I'd anticipated. I thought I might have to remove the margin piece.

The outer strake is 10 foot long, is cut to work round the cleat rosettes so probably stretches a little further. The second strake is about 3/4 length; the third 1/2 length etc. This ensures that the butt joins in the strakes are well spaced.

Strake number 5 has to fit round the cabin side and butt up against the transom margin - that will be interesting...

[Now Playing: Laid Out (Fully Horizontal Mix) by Danny Howells

Go West Young Man

Absolutely no progress on the boat this weekend due to an invite to join the Devon Fairey owners care of Mr. Hansson, keeper of the Swordsman 33 on the left.

The weather was almost set to cancel the photo shoot at the weekend, but thankfully the wind dropped and the rain abated on the Sunday so we had an excellent run up from Dartmouth to Torquay on the Swordsman and back on board a famous racing Spearfish.

Due to the lousy weather, the Plymouth based boats couldn't join us, so we drove to Plymouth and did it all again. This time to see a Spearfish with a recently laid teak deck. Very similar to what I'm trying to achieve.

Thanks to one and all for a memorable weekend. I return to my Huntsman with renewed enthusiasm.


Music to drive Faireys to:-
[Now Playing: Smokebelch II by the Sabres of Paradise]   sorry Grant :-)

Slow Progress

A frustrating week with real work and the weather getting in the way of progress. But a few odd jobs have been completed: here's the deck strake jig with its clamp blocks and fingers finished, stuck in the garage pending 3 hours without rain at the right time.

The other job which is small enough to fit in the workshop is the cool box for the galley. 5 bits of 9mm ply epoxied together to take the Cold plate of the chiller system. It's about half complete (photo in the gallery)

We did have a great day at the Beale Park Boat show though, always worth a visit for a nice day out by the water.

Now, back to work...

[Now Playing: Frustration by Soft Cell ]

Twist and Shout

After my first attempt at steaming and fitting a teak deck strake, it became blatantly obvious that its:

a) hard work and

b) likely to do a lot of damage to existing deck components.

So I started scheming out a jig. After all, Fairey Marine used to supply a set of teak deck parts pre-steamed for customers to add to their kit boats. I bet they used a jig.

The Solution so far is a 8' x 2' sheet of 3/4" spruce plywood from "B&Q" and some 2" x 1" screwed and glued around the edge as a frame to stiffen the whole lot up. Add a coat of Homebase's finest white paint so I can see the lofting lines.

The curve of the strakes was easily traced from the old sub-deck as the lines of the old planks were visible due to the discolouration of the plywood caused by water leaking between the planks over the years. A few panel pins and my trusty lofting batten.

The next job is to make up the clamp blocks so the teak strakes can be manipulated (in pairs) to the correct curve.

More later...

[Now Playing Twisted by Katie Melua]