Paint and epoxy

A quick update to show the paint/epoxy done yesterday...

That's two coats of epoxy in the bilge and white two-part epoxy primer forward of the main bulkhead and under the seats. More coming soon.

I would have painted more but I ran out of paint, on a weekend no less, oops!  Next will be sanding/painting under the foredeck (so I can start installing the deck) plus putting in deck support knees around the edge of the cockpit area.  Once those are in, I'll prime the rest of the interior.  I'll be using two-part epoxy primer throughout, except the bilge which gets two coats of clear-coat epoxy plus paint.

Sanding, sanding over the ocean blue...

Since last time I've gotten in the cockpit seats and begun a lot of sanding.  Basically I want to get everything at least primed--and the area under the foredeck finish painted--before the deck goes on.

Time to fit the cockpit seats.  This photo shows test-fitting the top of the starboard seat while the port seat front is fitted to the curve of the bottom.  Tere's a fore-and-aft cleat that runs along the tops of the floors.  The seat front notches over the floors and screws/glues to this cleat.  It will later act as the bottom of the three locker openings. These lockers will be watertight for flotation.

Here's another view, showing the seat tops in place.  Starting to look like a boat!  But still some work to do on the seats, namely cutting out the locker fronts for hatches.  I'd call them doors but they won't have hinges but will be held in place with simple thumb cleats.

A couple of stiffeners (gussets) are added to help support the hull under the seats and openings are cut in the seat fronts.  These gussets separate the under-seat space into three lockers.  Here's the whole thing being glued/screwed into the boat.  Epoxy fillets join the gussets to the hull, but regular cleats are used along the tops because I don't want to epoxy the seat tops to the boat. Rather, I'll bed and screw them in place so they can be removed later for repairs/modifications.  The forward gusset is made of 3/8" ply and has a large hole in it to lighten it a bit.  The aft one is solid 1/4" ply.  (This ply all comes from left-over bits and pieces from planking the boat.) The aft gusset is solid (watertight) so that the aft-most locker can be a "wet locker" while the forward two are "dry lockers" with watertight hatches.  Or I can add a hatch to the aft-most locker to make it watertight too, I'll decide that later.

Here I've tilted the boat over onto the starboard side for better access and begun a few hours of sanding in preparation for primer paint and epoxy-coating the bilge.  I don't care what anyone tells you, sanding epoxy is not fun!  But it'll be a thrill to see almost the whole boat with some paint on her, that's for sure.

Lots more sanding to do...then coating and priming...then more sanding.  Then I'll be able to get to work on the deck hurrah!

Framing out the cockpit and epoxy coating

With Labor Day festivities out of the way, it's back to boat building.  I made some reasonable progress over the last 10 days, take a look:

I finally cut down the top of the transom, no need to do it now...I just wanted to see what it looked like.  Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm gong to "notch" it down further for the outboard and rudder, but this way I get to look at a more conventional transom before taking the jig saw to her again.

Here's the aft half-bulkhead being glued in.  Also, the well is framed out and I've hot-coated a couple of coats of epoxy inside.  I doubt I will paint in there, the epoxy should be fine (completely out of the sun, the big enemy of epoxy coatings).  The two round holes are for small 4" store-bought watertight access hatches.

Speaking of epoxy coating, I also double-coated the interior under the foredeck too.  This will get a coat of something before I put in the deckbeams and install (finally) the foredeck.

Oops, I forgot to show a picture showing all deckbeams cut & fitted, so here it is.  The one that's a bit "shiny" needs a bit of sanding...like the rest of the boat!  The idea is I got all the deckbeams fitted, removed them, and now I'll complete the area under the foredeck--including paint--and reinstall the deckbeams.  I'd rather not paint once those beams are on, thank you very much!

Right now I'm starting on the cockpit seats. First I'm putting in cleats to hold the 1/4" plywood fronts and tops.  These will form watertight compartments both for bouyancy and storage.  This will be epoxy-coated, painted, then, over that, I'll make slatted seats to actually sit on.  (Slatted seats are more comfortable, IMHO.)  I haven't 100% decided what wood to use: perhaps white pine or possibly Douglas fir.  (You're right, I can't afford teak.) Either way, the slatted seats will probably be oiled with perhaps a varnished edge-piece just for fun. Part of the fun and challenge of building your own boat is making just those kinds of decisions.

Until next time...

So what's new for Labor Day?

Happy Labor Day, everybody!  I'll be taking a few days off from boats--real life does intrude on building BELLE occasionally--so here's just a couple of photos of the interior work accomplished so far:

Laminated deck beams going in, starboard bulkhead fitted and ready for installation (including cleats that will support the future cockpit seat top and side), port bulkhead almost ready.

View from over the stern, the boat is really starting to come together. With a bit of imagination I can picture the boat pretty well:  foredeck in place, seats running along the seat risers on the hull, floorboards in place...

Next time, I hope to have a number of bulkheads glued/screwed in place and other work progressing.