i was off on a two week holiday and returned to get going again on my frej project for my wife.....and my goal of 22 lb boat..... and thought i would update folks.
so i finished stripping the hull and have now flipped it over to start on the deck. am very happy in looking in the inside that i was able to keep the seams tight. so there will be minimal weight given up to filling core irregularities with anything denser than cedar.
there is one other weight saving bit that i am giving a go on this boat that i wanted to point out. there are no 'internal stems' or 'sterns'. these are wood structures inside a strip build on the ends that stay with the hull and don't come out when you 'pop' the forms out to take the hull off.
one of the things i have noticed as a place where i apear to give up weight in the past.... is overly generous fillets that are required to cover these structures and allow the glass to fit neatly into the ends.
so without these structures i will make up a 'whipcream' of microballoons and epoxy and make the smallest fillet possible prior to internal glassing.
so in the hull stripping, i just extended the strips beyond the normal end of the internal stem and glued them to one-another.
i am not concerned about strength here given there is still going to be an outer stem and an extra layer of glass on the inside and outside of this seam.
there is some adjustment to construction order and care to ensure that the placement of the outer stem doesn't accidently 'open-up' the ends of the boat.....which is not a typical concern if there is an internal stern.
so far i am impressed with the curviness of this design..... and how little number of strips i have used to get this far. as soon as i finish the deck and complete the external sanding, i will report of the weight of the unfinished core....and we will see how we are doing.
h
