Narfi's Life after EU: Chapter Four - FS17 a 17ft V-Hull Powerboat

Sept 15, 2018

6oz glass on the outside of the round boxes and console side panels.

12oz tape tabs on all the installed above sole bulkheads.

I'm having really good luck with heating my epoxy before mixing even in these cooler evenings.

3 advil and a glass of water, its 12.30 and my back is killing me, hope I can sleep :p

 

Sept 15, 2018

Cut all the excess off this morning while it's still green. Also cut out the areas covering the drain holes in the corners of each one, I'm sure it's easier with a razor while green that grinding out when cured.

No sun today and rain might be a couple days till this batch cures.....

Broke open a new role of 12oz tape last night. One side is very frayed and I dont like using it as much, it's much harder to wet out and likes to trap air and foam in the rough edges.



Any recommendations for good side scuppers?

I think the steering column is called the "helm"
Any good recommendations for that?

Amazon sells seastar kits, are they any good? Is tilt beneficial?
Example being Seastar SS177xx Xtreme NFB Tilt single cable steering kit. - $348.32 Prime

 

Sept 15, 2018

They are putting more restrictions on shipping than they used to. I wasnt able to get any tires shipped here a few weeks ago.

After so many sunny days I forgot I had already solved the curing heat issue.

 

Sept 16, 2018

2 nights of sanding and I have the edges of all the tapes knocked down.

Next up...
Install supports for the front deck and the bow compartment.
Then cut out the tops for them, I tentatively drew out an approximate of them on a sheet of plywood the other night, I can cut both from one sheet, but just barely.

Cut the hatch for the bow compartment and glue on hatch supports for both of those compartments.

There are some fancy hatches built here on the forum, but I think I will stick with the simple ones in the plans. I have a hood route for water to drain and dont think I need them 100% water proof.

The rear bulkhead for the front deck, the one I cut the hatch out of...... obviously not 3" of clearance on top..... would a single 1x2 vertically there be enough support or should I stack 2 of them for a 2x2?

Meanwhile I also need to glue and glass in the center panels for the consoles and seat boxes.

I need to figure out placement of the sloped panel in the motorwell, for some reason I still haven't wrapped my head around the geometry there, I think I probably need to "just do it".

Then the bottom panels for the compartments beside the motorwell and the tops and hatches for them.

Need to build up the support for the ubolt on the bow and over drill and fill the holes for them on both bow and transom.

I seem to alternate days thinking the end is in sight and thinking there is another 2years of work left.......

 

Sept 18, 2018

I'm just a poor boy out in the sticks. Dont have all those fancy dust collectin' machines that the city folk like you and Fuzz have......

My plan tonight was to sweep up and tidy things a little, then start marking, measuring, and cutting supports for the front deck and bow compartment and the motorwell and side compartments.

I swept up and realized I have bare wood in the motorwell and sides still........ so I spent the evening sanding down the tape edges in all the rear compartments in preparation to cover it all with 6oz cloth. I am really regretting not glassing ALL panels horizontally before installing :p oh well live and learn.

I also sanded the edges of the glassed panels for the sides of the console boxes and took the braces off the rounded seat boxes. They are stiffer than a flat piece of 3/8 without kerfs now so I am happy. I didnt have them braced perfectly square, so will need to shim them slightly when gluing in place and then sanding the top edge down square but that should be pretty easy.

By the end of the evening I was able to sit where the captains seat should go and make engine noises......(there goes my productivity for the rest of the year....)

 

Sept 18, 2018

I decided I dont need to buy the motor, I just need to commit to a brand and buy all the cabling etc...
Would like to order all the electrical stuff as well, so was reading the wiring diagram that comes with the plans.

I am a sheet metal guy who can do basic engine troubleshooting (in my profession) but electrical stuff has been my bane (though I still do it a fair bit as well).
Is there some sort of standard for marine wiring? what gauge wire is normal?

Also in the diagram I see the main bus is hot all the time.... I am used to a master relay/solenoid between the battery and bus, is there a standard for this? or a typical relay that is used?

 

Sept 19, 2018

just pulled the trigger on the Amazon cart.... $2500 of stuff, hopefully the last big purchase besides the motor and trailer.

Helm and steering cable
Mercury control box
shift and power cables
steering wheel
fuse box
master relay
wire
ends and shrink wrap
zipties and the in theory ziptie fastners to see how they work
switch box with voltmeter and usb charger
cup holders
rod holders
cleats
bow red/green light
socket and pole 360degree light
hinges and latches
Simrad go7 w/ totalscan transducer
passenger side usb chargers
and a few other bits and pieces......

 

Sept 20, 2018

Glassed the motorwell and side compartment sides all with 6oz tonight.

Then glued the sides of the console boxes in place.

Then glued two pieces of 1x2 along the top of the rear bulkhead for the fordeck and a 1x1 14 5/8" up the rear side of the bow compartment bulkhead. With those in place I will be able to lay in the side supports and keep them aligned more easily.

Thinking I will run two 1x2s fore and aft (parallel with the steingers) 24" apart for additional support for that deck as well as using 12oz cloth on the underside of it.

No pictures sorry, had the plastic pulled over it all and electric heater going before I thought about pictures.

I am doing this all half fast (dont say "half fast" to quickly or it may lower your opinion of my work...) I've mixed fast and medium hardener half n half and using that mix as my hardener with the normal ratio of 2 parts part A and one part hardener. Seems to be working for me so far

 

Sept 20, 2018

Good news is it cured hard......... however......

Well here are pictures of my failure

Lesson learned, don't apply heat to cold wood until after the epoxy has had time to at least partially cure.




most of the bubbles are outside the glass, so its just a matter of sanding and recoating with epoxy to ensure its sealed, but there are more than a few spots that developed bubbles under the glass that need to be cutout and fixed.
None of this area 'requires' glass, and none of the bubbles under the glass are larger than a quarter, so I will probably just cut them out and recoat with epoxy and fair in with the rest. Still.... frustrating stayed up till 1 last night getting that all done and now probably 1-2 more nights fixing what I did :/

 

Sept 21, 2018

Landon dug a fish out of a mudhole a week or two ago, and it wont die.....
He went back the next day to get another one, but it had all dried up and a bunch of dead fish laying around in it, so retrospect he 'saved' this one.


Glued in the side supports for the front deck, made some makeshift clamps out of scrap clamped to the side of the boat and a stick wedged between them.



Here are the results of my 'repair' of the bubbled fiasco.
the worst blisters were below the floor there, so sealed now is good enough, the smaller ones are above the floor and will need to be filled and faired more, but are sealed now.


Made a test piece for some led strips out of a scrap I had left over from the floor supports, will plug it into a 12v battery at work today and see how much light it puts out and if it seems to heat up any. (from what I have read there is no issue with heat doing this, but I want to test it still.)


However I end up doing it, wont be in that deep of groove, but lesson learned the strips float in epoxy,(I had to keep poking it down as it began to cure) so would need to glue them down well before coating.

 

Sept 22, 2018

Installed floor supports for motorwell and both side compartments.

Had just enough thickened epoxy left to spotweld the first of the rounded seat boxes in place. Hard to see in the picture but because I didnt brace it square I needed to raise one side about 1/4" to be flush with the flat panels, will be easy to sand the top down flush once glued and taped into place.

 

Sept 26, 2018

Cut the floor panels for the motorwell and 2 side compartments. Coated all the supports and undersides of the panels with epoxy and installed with thickened epoxy. Funny thing, the last batch of woodflour made a peanut butter looking mix, this batch looks like nutella when mixed.



Taped the inside seams of the console boxes.

Finished gluing in the rounded seat boxes and fillets along the bottom in and out.

Tested 3 options for the ziptie fasteners I got to see how well they stick.

Most of my big amazon order came. Pretty happy with how it looks so far. Not sure about the 10guage wire though it seems really big for basic things.

 

Sept 28, 2018

Thanks for the ideas guys. I plan on the battery being in the drivers (captains? Pilots? Whatever is appropriate for small boats) side console. I will also have the fuse box there so in my head battery/fuse box are interchangeable for location. I just said it wrong.

I haven't found scupper valves I like yet. I will go out the side with them. I want polished stainless and no hose bib. Really it just needs to mount to the outside of the hull and look pretty covering the hole. I may do nothing till after I've used it a little and verified rather or not I'll need to be able to plug the holes when fully (over?) loaded.

Epoxy wasnt cured enough to sand last night so I played with popsicle sticks and hot glue with Landon. I'd thought I had ordered tongue depressers for mixing and fillets but got a huge box of popsicle sticks instead. So we are putting them to creative use. Landon and my wife are better at that than me though..... I ended up with a huge mass of sticks and spiderwebs of glue roughly in the shape of a viking longship though.

Tonight I did a little sanding and then taped in all the motorwell and side compartment floors as well as most of the rounded boxes. I finished the bottle of epoxy I was heating so stopped there. I only have one bottle + 2x halves of half gallon hardness. Total epoxy+hardener remaining is 1.5gal.

I am afraid I am using way more epoxy due to cold temperatures but hard to know....

Once cured I'll sand down the tape edges and lay 6oz In the bottom of those rear compartments.

Then it's time to do some rough fairing inside everywhere that will get closed up.
Bow compartment
Under front deck
Inside both console base boxes
Inside both rounded seat boxes
Inside the rear side compartments.

I plan to prime then paint white inside all those areas.

I keep going back and forth on rather I want a tiny hatch on the opening for the rounded seat boxes or to get a good clean radius around the opening and leave it open. I am leaning towards leaving them open at the moment.

 

Sept 29, 2018

fallguy1000 wrote: ↑
Sat Sep 29, 2018 4:10 pm
Ask one question.
Do I need the boat to drain itself.

The answer is yes.
Not from swamping but from rain. I have borrowed too many boats filled with water I needed to spend a half hour bailing out and getting pushed out into the water, I dont want to deal with that either beached or in a a trailer, draining underway seems a given to me.

Here is what Jacques has to say about it in the study plans and what sold me on these boats.
In all versions, the sole is well above the waterline and the cockpit is self draining. Note the high designed displacement: it places the waterline just below the cockpit sole at level trim. Most FS17 will never be loaded to that point and their draft will be less than the 7" listed.I am ok with plugging the drain holes if overloaded, but it is my hope that any jump in and go with 1 or 2 people will be as simple as possible.

They can not go out the back, the motorwell and side compartment floors are above the level of the sole. I do not and did not want any holes, tubes, hoses, etc.. under any part of my sealed floors. If there is nothing there, there is nothing to fail and leak.

By the way, I welcome rabbit trails in my threads, it's a good way to learn and discuss

6oz layed on the bottom of the motorwell and side compartments.

Finished taping in the rounded seat boxes.

Coated most of the installed supports with epoxy.

Glued in reinforcement angle for the bow eye with wood flour thickened epoxy and covered with 2x layers of 12oz tape. I cut the reinforcement from left over triangle I had cut for the strakes and used my 1/2" radius roundover bit in my router to make it fit as well as possible. Of course there was still plenty of gaps to fill with thickened epoxy but i think it turned out ok.

First coat of fairing applied to the bow compartment, compartment under front deck and inside both console base boxes.





Soaking up knowledge.

 

Oct 2, 2018

Landon turned 9 yesterday. Kids, pizza, donuts and ice cream. Was a little windy and the party was outside so had to crowd everyone into the clubhouse to light the cake candles, all good fun though.

Leaves are turning and water level is down, but dry creek isnt dry yet. Probably could have crossed it with my Honda when I was down that direction but decided to save my bearings and walked instead.

 

Oct 4, 2018

Sanded a few hours tonight.
Knocked down the tape edges in the motorwell, side compartments and one of the seat boxes. Still one seat box to go. Did an initial sanding of all the flat surfaces in those areas as well. If you remember this is where I had all the blisters I cut out and relocated, so there are lots of lumps and bumps and epoxy runs. Makes me dream of some sort of dust collection like fuzz and a few others have. Sanding open areas is bad enough, but down in compartments it just blows it all back in your face.

Knowing I still have lots of sanding and fairing ahead of me, I dug out some of the "bling" so I could start thinking and visualizing how it will fit.




The rod holders are the perfect angle for the gunnel and hull sides. My two ideas for them were to disperse them near each of the seats as easy access for each person or lined up on each of the rear compartments 3x on each side as storage out of the way and eyesight of everyone.

I liked the idea of having them all in the rear, but the angle there isnt as good as on the gunnels. I put a lot of curve on the motorwell bulkhead, so it's a steeper angle at the sides than it is for the gunnel and so the rod holder bottoms would stick out into the middle of the compartments.

The cupholders are shorter, buy take up a lot of the width of the gunnels.

The gas fill is an easy fit and shouldnt cause me any problems. I think I will build a small dam around it to prevent any spilled fuel from going inside. I need to figure out an easy core to lay down around it for that idea.

These pieces all fit well enough, but my real concern is routing all my cables, controls and wires with them in place and still keeping it all tidy and clean hidden under the gunnels.

The left side should be easy, it's just the fuel line, fuel sander wires, and lights and USB charger wires.

The right side however have the steering cable, shift and throttle cables, engine wiring harness, battery/alternator cables, transducer cable and lighting wires.

While on the topic (squirrel!!!) What is typical for a fuel water separator? Are they used and if so where are they mounted?

I was thinking of mounting one on the rear side of the motorwell bulkhead in the left corner of the motorwell, but not sure what is normal.

 

Oct 4th, 2018

Alaska traditionally has sales in October. Our anniversary is on the 15th so I priced out a Hawaiian weekend, flights and hotel for a 4day weekend would only be about 1k + outings while there. Called my wife and asked if she wanted to do that. Her answer was, "I would rather buy you a boat motor."

Have I mentioned what a great wife I have?

Finaly got around to pull testing the ziptie brackets.

I clamped the plywood test peice in a vise and pulled down at a 45 degree angle with wire looped through the holes.

Just the foam tape pulled off at 35 pounds
Adhesive scraped off and thickened epoxy glued with remaining tape pulled off at 45 pounds
The one with thickened epoxy applied to the unaltered adhesive foam held..... the wire broke through the bracket at about 50 pounds so I put ware through the other way and it pulled through at 90 pounds.

I only did one of each and find it hard to believe the difference is that great, but they still failed in the order I expected, so will go with that approach when installing them.

The two that failed each started peeling up against the wood but once started tore through the foam, so if a weak point was started I think the third sample would fail much sooner as well.

 

Oct 5th, 2018

I sanded down the tape edges for the last seat box, they are ready for weave fill and fairing inside now.

Got out my last sheet of plywood and told myself "dont screw this up", then proceeded to screw it up.......

I'd measured several times and I could get the front deck and bow hatch top both out of one sheet.
It looks good from this angle.

But here you see what I did....

I'm not positive, but I think I offset the centerline from front to back by 3 inches somehow. It was 3 inches short one one side and 3 inches long on the other side along the rear edge while the front fit perfectly.

My solution was to cut 3 more inches off the short side o.0...... then it was 6 inches short and still 3 inches too long on the otherside...... oops. By the time I was done it fit well on one side and was 6in short on the other.

The beauty of building like this is even a screw up like that is easy to fix, I'll splice in a peice with 12oz tapes and should be good to go.

I've been thinking about how yo reinforce the front deck as it's a large unsupported area exaggerated by the fact I cut the hatch in the bulkhead support so big.

I will round over these left over triangles and glue them down in an "X" pattern, cover with 12oz tapes and then glass the entire underside with 12oz cloth. That gives 2 layers of 12oz over the triangles and hopefully makes it ridged enough to walk and jump on.

 

Oct 6th, 2018

Cut out the splice peice for the front deck and glassed the first side with 12oz tape.

Taped the outside of the console base panels.

Started playing around with the hinges.
I traced one out on a couple pieces of scrap and routed it out freehand. They fit ok and look decent, and fold back perfectly on themselves, but freehand isnt great, I can see my imperfect lines.




What's the best approach for making it look perfect?
Some sort of jig?
Or would it be better to over route it and then fill with thickened epoxy and wax the hinges and push down into it?

 

Oct 8th, 2018

Momma was out for the evening so Landon and I did a little bit of cleaning, a little bit of unboxing, and a little bit of dreaming.




Steering column or helm is roughly 6" inside and 6" outside the panel.



Need to make sure the inwall is atleast 6" tall between pilot seat and console for mounting the control box.

Cables seem long enough. I hope not too long, but dont think they are.

Wiring harness plug to the engine will require the largest holes of almost 2 inches.

No instructions came with the control box, but I assume this shorter harness is what goes to the panel for guages, perhaps fuel quantity hook up, not sure, will have to research it some.

Still having trouble picturing exactly how I want the consoles setup, but starting to get sizing requirements for the helm and electrical will help I think. Need finalize battery placement and hatch design for the right console seat as well.(left seat has the fuel tank so no hatch there.