Sunday, June 21, 2009

Forward beam mounts laminated

Managed to finish interior lamination on the forward beam mounts (front and back) this weekend. I feel like I accomplished something...this was a lot of glass and epoxy...

I screwed pieces of plywood (covered in masking tape) against the sides of my forward beam mount mold plates in order to cover up the gaps, and to give me something to work against as a guide when fitting in foam fillers:

This is the port forward beam mount, with my pieces of filler foam dry-fitted; I wish I had been more judicious with my hull trimming, so I didn't need so much foam (but thankfully bog hides all):

This is the forward side of the starboard mount, after lamination and after I removed the peel ply:

I had to cut one or two "darts" on the forward sides and then patch them, but otherwise the main C laminate was again done with one single piece of glass. I am again very happy with the laminate quality, things turned out just beautiful.

I also did a bunch of clean-up on the aft beam mounts: trimmed off the excess LFS flange material, cut\sanded off the jagged glass edges, and sanded off excess bog that squeezed through next to the mold plates. I also glued on the doubler plates to the aft mounts. Be careful, the doubler plates are also a slip-fit over the bushings, so before you fillet and glass one side, make sure the doubler on the other side is at least set into position first (or else you'll knock the first doubler out when you start hammering on the second side...). I'm getting close to being able to work on the cockpit furniture.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello
A while back you asked if anyone had any ideas on trailers.
It came to me. Why not buy a used run down 22 foot sailboat
On the Internet. You get a trailer a mast. Winches and sometimes
They come with outboard motors. As a matter of fact navigation
Lights boom block and tackle. Boom vangs anchor gear. I would
Strip the boat and what I did not used I would sell on ebay. Then
Take the boat to the dump. One of my friends built a 40 foot cat
Fitting out cost much more then the building of the boat. itself.
Tom Severson
Santa Clarita CA

Anonymous said...

Hi Jay,
thanks’ for your Blog.
I soon will do the same Steps (beam mounts) on my boat, and it´s a big help to see somebody doing all the steps before you have to do it yourself.

Regards Roger

Jay said...

Hi Tom,

Hmm, I will have to consider that. The trailer, winch, and motor might be re-usable, but the mast probably wouldn't be a rotating wing-section, at least on some rundown 22' boat (I'm assuming you're meaning keelboat). You're right that fitting out is expensive..actually the whole damn process is expensive. But I still think my boat will cost me less than what I see (say) Melvest Marine selling new F22's for.

Roger, I understand exactly what you mean... :) Glad to hear that my blog has been useful to you.

Jay