Port Settee, glassing and unglassing mast and hatch holes

The original forward hatch on the Pearson 10M is simply a portion of the mold cut off and fitted with a gutter and a few hinges.  It's a terrible leaky design, and the thought of green water coming over the bow and catching it is just a horrible vision.  I long since epoxied it shut and faired it into the rest of the cabin top.  

It was time to glass it in, with nearly everything else I'm working on needing lots of paint drying time.  It should have been straight forward.  

Last post I mentioned the stress of a significant glue-ups. But that pales in comparison to putting down several layers of  several square yards of 1708 biaxial cloth around compound curves and on vertical surfaces on a hot day.  This stuff sucks up so much epoxy, and those vertical surfaces  both resist quick wetout and encourage an army of runoff drips and puddles.  Which is why I've put this off for a few years.  

But I tackled it now - and the first layer got down fine.  I used close to 1/2 gallon of epoxy.

Then the second layer.  

All was well, though in the last last big mixture of epoxy, on the starboard vertical area, I put 4 oz of hardener in the mixing pot, which should have meant I add another 8 oz of resin to top out at 12.  But I had been mixing 6:12 for a total of 18 oz, and in a moment of lax concentration poured up to 18 with the resin.  Realizing my error, I, in my exhaustion and haste thought that should just add two more oz of hardener to end up with 20 oz total and, sure I'd have too much (I only needed 12 oz total after all) but I wouldn't have wasted what I already mixed.

Through the years, I've developed  one of the rules one makes for oneself after painful lessons of the past:  if you lose count or concentration while mixing epoxy, throw it away.  It doesn't matter how big or small the job, or how big or small the batch.  Just toss it out, man.  But, jeez, this was a lot of epoxy.  So I ignored the rule.  I didn't forget about it, mind you.  I ignored it.

And the next day I was rewarded with a gooey, half-cured shitty truth:  this stuff was mixed wrong and it will never, ever cure.  In this photo is the result of two hours of grabbing the edges of upper layer of glass with vice grips and grunting and swearing and sweating and pulling it up off of the surface to which it wasn't quite bonded.  All the while bringing in all my years on the mediation cushion and therapist's couch to keep from castigating myself for my foolishness.  The lure of the Second Dart as the Buddha might say.  Some mistakes bring their own Dukkha, no need to add more. 

My hands were raw by the time I got just a bare majority of the glass peeled up.

After the uncured glass was mostly up, I then faced 6-8 hours of getting the goo up.  This involves rubbing the whole thing down with sawdust, scraping it off, going through sanding discs in 30 seconds as they gum up, going at it with blades on the oscillating tool, then repeating. And it's all actually best done on the hottest days so the goo is as low viscosity as possible.  Because I really don't want that uncured stuff down and put good glass over that.  This thing is right on the forepeak and will be subject to direct baking sunlight and extreme heat.  If it ain't cured for real, it will have consequences at those temps. 

Oh, and my badass Portal Cable right angle random orbital sander died.  Yeah it's like four years old, but it only has like, 8 hours of actual use on it. 

All things considered, I should have thrown away that questionable batch of epoxy.  Add rule: don't break your rules.

 

I took the ROS apart and discovered that one of the bearings had destroyed itself, the motor lost concentricity and ground part of the armature down.  The bearing is discontinued as a replacement part, the drive gear in front of it is very hard to remove, and Portal Cable doesn't seem to even make the 5" sander any more.  I've ordered a gear puller to try to make the repair anyway.  We'll see.  I'm pretty pissed about it, actually. 

 

Yup.  They don't make this bearing or spacer any more and it's a bitch to even get to. 

Back in the interior, there was a saga trying to get the insulation. I ordered it.  It didn't arrive.  I called.  They checked.  Said it would arrive next few days.  Didn't. Called.  Confusion.  (Always very friendly and helpful though, so that's good).  Then it arrives. Well, half of the order does, because their system says I got the other half already, which I didn't. That's okay, because they sent the wrong stuff anyway.  I wanted the self adhesive, they sent the plain stuff.  Three weeks after the original order, the correct stuff arrived (Armacell's AP Armaflex SA 1" insulation sheets).  The distributor did have the good practice of not charging me the price of the SA (self adhesive) sheets, but kept the original non-SA price they charged  - not an insubstantial amount.  So even though it was a mess of process, they were professional about it, and I'll go with them again.  

I've decided on the general hatch hold-down method I'll go with.   A simple delrin toggle recessed in a 2.25" forstner bit mortice.  The bit was about $25 and it works great if I go really, really slow.  Simple solution and I'm happy with it. 

And here are a few more panels:  they are the forward part of the port settee.  And I'm trying out my new rule of no paint until every last fiddly bit is installed. 

And if it can be believed, under this settee cover, one will find 1" of insulation covered by 1/8" (3mm) of okoume ply panel.  In short:  a completed locker.  That's right, people.  The first completed insulated, painted, covered locker on the boat.  I really thought it might never happen.

I've learned a lot and decided a lot on this port settee.  It has to, HAS to, translate into faster progress on the rest of the boat.  Right?  Please say I'm right because this really seemed to take absolutely forever.  

An astute eye will also notice that I cut the door into the V-berth to its finished shape.  I also did the same for entrance to the head, though forgot a picture. 

I also managed to get the cabin sole faired in and glassed down.  This was my first time working with 1200 biaxial tape (from RAKA epoxy)  no selvedge edge, not mat (hence the 00 at the end instead of 08 for 8 oz of mat). It's got its quirks:  it's loosely stitched lengthwise, so I learned you can actually stretch it pretty tight in that direction without it doing that biaxial collapse thing, but it's got no integrity across it's width when wetted out and just wants to become a blobby tangle if you put any perpendicular stress it on it when laying it down.  And it sure conforms to corners well.  I bought it to test if it would be a good cloth to wrap around the sharp curve of the outward facing hull-deck flange- and it might just do the trick. 

This awkward looking photo is straight down on the forward portion of the sole where it runs into the hull to starboard and the mast step forward.  (The yellow is the bilge).  Since it had no curve significant curve and a larger area, I used 1708 6" tape there.  I needed a pretty good amount of phenolic microballoon thickened epoxy filler to fair the sole into the hull there, and it came out just fine. 

Plus I was able to get some flying in with my first spectators, my mom and her husband, Gil. And didn't crash!  God protects children and fools.