First time under bare sky

July 30, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

These were very busy days: boathouse rebuild, bits & pieces for interior fittings, painting etc. I tried using the most of last days of my summer vacations.

Rudder blade and centerboard were shaped, to give them foil-like form.

I encapsulated them in 3 layers of epoxy, rolled wet-on-wet. First layer of pure epoxy, to saturate wood. Next two layers with graphite filler, to hopefully make the surface sturdy and scratch-resistant.

While this was curing I keyed, vacuumed and finally brushed second coat of varnish on boat’s interior.

Once graphite-epoxy was cured I cleaned amine blush with warm water and Scotch-brite, to prepare the surface for topcoat.

I might have added too much graphite - or did wrong something else - because the surface was very far from being smooth.

Sanding with 120-grit paper and another cleanup.

Rudder blade got a coat of Hempel Primer while centerboard was painted with yet another epoxy - Hempel Light Primer which I had leftovers after Motoko renovation. Contrary to WEST system epoxy this Hempel stuff is wetting very smoothly but is troublesome to use due to its rapid drying. If done correctly thou it leaves glass-smooth surface.

I made small copper toggles which hold hatches in place.

Tiller final shaping.

Finally came the time to lift the boat onto her trailer. Forecast promised two-days window of fine weather so I started early in the morning.

Front wall removed.

Louve lifted up, to remove the floor.

And the floor removed.

Lowered onto her trailer…

… and out, under the sky, for the first time!

With the boat out I could remove all mineral wool from walls and ceiling. Lousy job with lots of dust so haz-mat suit and respirator was in place.

I rebuilt the shed, adding some length so that the entire mast can fit with some margin. Two-wing doors will enable driving in & out the trailer with no problem.

I needed to leave the space between doors, to accommodate the trailer.

After reorganizing my new workshop I could continue remaining paint-jobs. Strongback became a bench.

Centerboard and rudder blade got their final (I hope) coat of paint.

Lastly I installed sheet cleats. I used Alladin-cleats made of Tufnol, my favourite wonder-material from 50’. I had them left after Meritaten. I want to use a ring on sheet, like Tim Cooke, so I made oak spacers to rise these cleats a bit from the gunwale.

Installation with Ettan, of course: even though Louve is a modern epoxy-plywood construction the rules of wooden boatbuilding still apply! Ettan, which is a Scandinavian specialty, is a mix of beeswax, tar and linseed oil. I use it whenever I want to waterproof contact faces under fittings but I still want to be able to remove them easily. And it smells so good!

Summary of next steps to follow.

Varnishing. Making the tiller.

July 18, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Short brake for mountain climbing. The weather was… perfect, if you like rain.

I took Roger’s book in case the weather does not cooperate. It didn’t so I could read it a few times. Good read!

Back to business: sanding and vacuuming the hull. First coat of varnish brushed.

I use Epifanes one-component varnish because I have a lot of it after owning Meritaten. It smells good, flows nicely and I’m used to it after all years using it.

While the varnish was curing I started working on the tiller.
I’ve decided to make it from oak, its profile is rather skinny so I want to have strong wood here. I considered making it in mahogany or lark but decided on oak - to match foredeck and quarter-knees at transom.
A slab of Polish oak, chosen with tree heart in it, so that there is quarter-sawn wood on both sides.

A blank ready, tiller profile transferred.

Some elbow-grease with sanding paper, to remove saw blade marks and to get smooth surface for the next step.

Rounding of edges, in several steps. As the tiller is too narrow to support a router I made a simple routing table.

Gradually shaping it with progressive router bits I finally arrived to almost perfect shape. It is a bit on the beefy side - I did not (yet) introduced a taper as I want to have enough flat surfaces to enable mounting tiller lock and GPS plotter - like I did on Motoko.

Dry-fitting on the boat.

Mast partners

July 08, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Fore deck repaired and finished.

Mast partners made from oak, glued and screwed with bronze screws.
It ain’t go nowhere!

Foredeck - when things go wrong

July 08, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Started early in the morning - prepared “operating theater” for cutting mast opening in the fore deck.
I used my “deep access” router bit, to reach from the template all the way down through 22mm oak.

All was going smooth and noisy when, at almost the last passage, something went wrong. I suspect that I tilted the router for a moment and that was enough to cause damage.

Well, that was very unnecessary.
Luckily we live in a world where epoxy has been invented. I mixed some G-Flex and put back the broken piece. It will hardly be seen after I’m finished - and will be stronger than wood - but I had to change my plans and leave making mast partners until this repair is finished.

Instead I worked on the mast foot.
I glued it from oak and reinforced the joint with bronze screws. Wooden blocks were placed for tight fit so after the glue cured I needed to file wood by a millimeter or so to make it fit snugly on stem/keel section.
I added channels for water to escape, on both sides. Epoxy encapsulation followed.

Rudder parts got sanded smooth and glued.

Last week I prepared rudder blade pivot disc. Instead of making it from plywood I turned mine from Delrin.

Tapped 4 holes with M6.

Disc thickness is a hair smaller than rudder blade. This should give me a latitude for adjusting friction between rudder cheeks and rudder blade.
At least this is how I understand this design.

Thwarts, breasthook/foredeck

July 07, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I finished working on thwarts. I chose to make a bit beefier stanchions than specified in plans. The reason is trivial: I wanted to avoid having screw heads on top surface of these fine, pine planks. I could simply screw thwarts to stanchions and seat riser and that would be perfectly fine but I didn’t have heart to scar this nice pine! That caused me a bit more work but it is done now.

Fore thwart will be permanently screwed in place. It stiffens the CB-case and my pentry will be stowed under it. I made stanchion as two mahogany pillars.

Aft thwart will be removable so I wanted to have a stanchion which will not be a hazard or eye-sore when the thwart is removed. I made it as a thick piece of mahogany, sitting permanently glued on CB-case. It will serve also as mounting surface for GPS or compass.

Gluing end-grain is always tricky, capillary action can starve the joint before the glue sets. I took my time with saturating the grain with unthickened epoxy, until the wood did not suck any more.

Corresponding fixtures are screwed under each thwart.

Fore thwart is bolted through double-stanchion, to stiffen the CB-case.

Aft-thwart is “encapsulating” its stanchion, both stabilizing the CB and preventing the thwart to move towards stem while rowing.

Oiled in Owatrol D1, as the rest of deck.

Thwarts in position.

Fore-thwart will be screwed to seat riser batten - from below. Aft-thwart is held in place with toggles, like on John Hartman’s Waxwing

Breast-hook and fore-deck fitted.
I made the deck a bit longer: to hide plywood frame and to have a bit longer mast partner. The idea is that it will make stepping the mast a bit more controllable, holding it side-ways before I tighten holding rope.

Rounded edges, glued and screwed to gun-rails, from underside.
Since this is oak I used WEST GFlex glue, cleaning the wood with acetone - to remove acid from the surface. GFlex has an advantage of being very strong and elastic. This part of the boat will see big forces from the mast so using the best glue is worth the cost.

After all was cured overnight I formed and glued reinforcement knees, trimmed with oak. They are also glued with GFlex and screwed to the foredeck/breasthook with bronze screws.

While this was curing I started scribing opening for the mast. As stated in plans - the mast’s axis is coincident with fore face of the station. In my case I have a gap between planks just there so it took a bit more effort to figure out exact placement but my math teacher would be proud of me, I think.

I made a plywood pattern to guide router. That will be done tomorrow.

Next step will be to glue&screw mast partners. I milled some Polish oak for that purpose.

Bilge pump, deck, bits&pieces

July 03, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Busy weekend.
I finished painting the bilge. It took two layers of Danboline, with some touch-ups in a few places. While the paint was curing I worked on patterns for fore-deck.

This will be built from 22mm-thick oak plank.
I scribed the exact profile but it is so close to straight line that there is no need to overkill it.

Some primary-school geometry exercises before cutting precious wood.

Oak planks cut and trimmed for fore-deck. I chose to extend the deck by a few centimeters, so that plywood-frame edges are hidden behind the oak.

After bilge paint has cured I filled all flotation tanks with foam panels. It was a good choice to use elastic foam - fitting panels behind battens required a bit of flexing and squeezing, hardly possible with styrofoam.

I leave an air-gap between foam and deck planking. In theory it should keep the deck-wood well ventilated.

Before mounting the deck I drill holes for bilge pump.

Of course - anyone building a boat would like to hide this from view: bilge pump discharge is nothing to brag about.
On such a small boat as Ilur the discharge will be visible. No way around it.
I saw other builders making connection to CB-case or hiding the outlet under side-sits hence discharging on second or third strake. All that looks very nice but in my eyes the purpose and function is compromised by the look.
We want the discharge to be above water-line, at all times. There is hardly space for siphon installation on such a small boat.
If sailing in stiff breeze, with boat heeling heavily, will back-flood the boat through bilge pump then you’ve placed the discharge point too close to waterline.

In a game of compromises one wants to have the whole pipe-line a short as possible. On Ilur the lowest part of the bilge is just behind the CB-case. That would suggest placing the discharge port just below the sheer-strake amidships.
Well, I’ve considered that. Looks good. But it may get under water when sailing in heavy conditions with too much canvas out there. Bilge-pump flooding you with water, in already “exciting” conditions, may not be appreciated.

Shifting the discharge aft, closer to transom, is lifting it much higher above waterline. Should I ship water thorough opening at this place then that would mean that Mother-Ocean is already flooding me through midships.

So: at the cost of slightly longer discharge-line I decided to have it as far aft and as far up as possible. That landed it just after transom knees. And it looks rather well, I would say.

To make it less of an eye-sore I tried to hide the pipe under decking as close to discharge as possible. First attempt was a failure due to too sharp angle of bend for this type of hose: the pipe collapsed.

After I stopped cursing&crying I got another type of pipe, with thinner walls but with reinforcement coiling preventing it from collapsing. That made a trick.

The pump is mounted under deck, close to CB-case.

I’ve left a bit of slack in the hose, so that I can remove deck planks with mounted bilge pump without needing to dive into bilge for detaching all hoses.

After the deck is in place the pump is hidden flush with cabin sole.

While mounting the deck I added more flotation material into the bilge. This is not required by plans but I recall that John Hartman mentioned this as a potential improvement to his Waxwing.

It was interesting weather these recent days: sudden rain showers with short intermezzo of sunny weather. I had to time my cutting or routing jobs with clouds and wind, taking a few brakes for swimming.

Last job for this session: finger-holes for hatches in the sole. I had these brass rings as leftovers after working on Meritaten. They came handy here, adding a bit of “posh” blink-blink instead of ugly knot which was sitting here.

Bilge painting, oiling deck

June 30, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Bilge painting is a curse on any boat (apart from Caledonia Yawl). Ilur is no different, especially with all internal structures in place.

To make my life a bit more complicated I decided to paint only the bilge - and to varnish everything else. That means I use tape to keep these areas separated while painting.

First coat of International Danboline rolled & brushed. Second coat has to be rolled after 16 hours, max within 2 days with current temperature 25 C.

To keep up with my schedule I skipped watching drying paint and started oiling deck planks.
It was a pleasant change from diving into the bilge.

Owatrol D1 oil smells ugly when wet so I chose to paint outside. That went smooth apart from sudden thunderstorm which blown lots of debris from my pine tree onto wet planks and caused me sudden evacuation with the whole setup under the roof. Ten minutes later the weather was smooth again, no wind and dry so I could finish oil saturation disturbed only by mosquitos.

Tomorrow I will roll second coat of bilge paint and start building mast partner and foot.

Flotation tanks - encapsulation. Deck planks.

June 26, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

If it was my first boat then I would be surprised that all goes so slow: whole day of work and hardly any progress visible. Well, but that’s how it is at this stage - lot’s of small jobs which take time while the boat is hardly changing. Look at Tally Ho!

I need to remind myself that this is the way it is. So that I will not get depressed. Perseverance!

Last night I vacuumed and cleaned flotation tanks so that I can start epoxy encapsulation early today. WEST hardener 207 is taking several hours at 25 C to get into “tacky” state and I wanted to roll two layers today. That’s accomplished!

Rest of the boat will be vacuumed and cleaned coming days so I can paint the bilge.

While the epoxy was curing I was working on deck planks, to give them final touch with router.

It took a few hours, interrupted by rolling the second epoxy coat in tanks. So deck planks are ready for oiling.

I started disassembling my boat shed, soon there will be time to lift the boat onto trailer and I need more space for storing deck planks and for coming mast construction. Kerosene stove went out, heat isolation on North face also out - buying me 20 cm more space to fiddle with the rudder.

Sanding epoxy

June 24, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Not exactly my idea of fun but it has to be done.

I was going a little back&forth with this: which system to use for painting inside of the hull.
For one part I had no doubts: it has to be primed with epoxy. I did not manage to roll two layers, as I planned, but one layer is enough as a primer and veneer stabilizer.

Now - this constant debate about epoxy vs other paints is of no interest to me. For me it is no brainer: plywood is not a solid timber and needs to be treated with epoxy to hold long.
Just a question of how many layers and what will be painted on top of the epoxy. Ian Oughtred, in his book, strongly advocates against using epoxy in favor of oil or varnish/paint system. My practice has shown that with epoxy, at least as a primer, the plywood holds much longer and is very stable. Geoff Kerr in his series about building Caledonia Yawl is of the same opinion.
But that approach requires a bit more work at the building process. Quite a bit.

It took me a whole day and there is a small bow-section left to be sanded. I’ll finish that tomorrow.
The aim with this work is to knock down wood grain (hair) which rose after rolling the epoxy plus some air bubbles and generally rough surface. And to get rid of amine blush which is inevitable when using this stuff. I use only WEST system 207 hardener which blushes very little but still enough to inhibit any paint to sit well on top.

Wet sanding is my preferred way of dealing with it. Not only I avoid nasty dust but also remove amine (which is solvable in water) in the same operation. And you get a lot of more mileage on your sandpaper! I use 120 grit, it is coarse enough to knock down bumps rather fast and fine enough to leave smooth surface with just enough keying for top coat to grip into it.

There is only one drawback: you cannot paint just after sanding. Should there be any water which reached into the wood/plywood: sealing it with paint will risk rot. I usually leave the boat for a few days in summer temperature so that any excessive humidity has a chance to evaporate before I seal all with paint.
After wet-sanding excess water is removed with a rag and I leave the slur to dry, to vacuum it before final washing with fresh water and clean rags.

I decided to paint the bilge with International Danboline bilge paint (because I have a stock of it and it is a good stuff) and varnish all the rest with Epifanes (for the same reason). Flotation tanks will get additional two layers of epoxy and no paint - they sit in the dark so no need to coat epoxy with anything.

Fillets, hatch and beautiful lumber

June 22, 2023 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I’m finally done with all fillets in bilge and flotation tanks. That was an unpleasant work, with all the interior structures in the way. Should I do it again I would at least wait with mounting additional sole supports, to have better access to the bilge.

To push this job further away from me I was working on the deck these last evenings. Drilling and mounting planks.

I decided to divert from plans and make the hatch hinged, like most other builders. I appreciate clean and basic concept shown in plans - with no hinges and simple locking eye-bolts - but I already have hinges and decided to mimic a bit the way Roger Barnes has his Avel Dro organized in this area.

Finding position for hatch rear end.

To maintain alignment and spacing between planks I screwed them in place and clamped cross members in situ.

With clamps holding tight I then unscrewed the whole assembly and moved to mounting bench.

The rest of planks screwed in place.

Hinges are left-overs from my rebuilding of Meritaten. They are a bit on the heavy side for this boat but… nothing too strong ever broke.

Last dry-fit before cutting. Looking good.

And cut! I wanted to maintain matching planks behind the hatch. I left this space wider than needed, to make compartment for small gear I want to have at hand when sailing.

I needed to find a nice timber for thwarts. I managed one day to leave work early enough to visit my local lumber yard. They usually have some nice wood and they kindly allow me to browse through the whole pile in search for boat-building timber.

I was prepared to find a knotty plank from which I can cut relatively clean piece for each thwart so I had saw with me but no roof rack. To my joy, at the very bottom of a pile I found two magnificent, 4,5m long planks of Northern pine with absolutely no knots! Tight grown, beautiful timber!
Of course I bought both of them! Just my car was not long enough but luckily there were no cyclists on my way!

Magnificent wood! Flat-sawn but still!

One plank yielded both thwarts - nice to have them matching in grain and color.

Finally it was high time I make these fillets. All the deck unscrewed and I went ahead with epoxy work.

It took a few evenings. It was so hot during the day that I had to work late during evenings, otherwise epoxy was setting too early, literally in my hands.

Sanding and top-coats comes next.