Almost-A-SCAMP Progress Report #11A . . . .

[Charles Brennan]

Having previously glassed the sides of the center board and rudder, it was now time to glass the edges with two layers of fiberglass.
Clamped the parts to where I could apply the edging at the top.
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And while I had the table space, I also prepared the insides of the rudder stock for fiberglass, where the blade rubs and the tiller rubs.
This was also in case I had any left over epoxy resin, I could use it on the rudder stock.
I mix epoxy batches 4oz. and/or 8oz. at a time, so by always having an extra small project in reserve, I waste very little material.
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Came up with the brilliant idea to combine the two layers of fiberglass into a single lamination.
One of my glassing problems is that the edges won't curve around sharper corners.
So I figured if the edges/corners were under tension (via the staples) I could get a nice, tight, lamination.
In Theory, anyway.   
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What could go wrong? 
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Uhhhh . . . . . Lots. 
It seems that wetted-out fiberglass expands, so my tight edges ballooned out, like an old pair of bell bottom pants.
Exactly the OPPOSITE of what I intended.   
To salvage this disaster as best I could, I quickly pulled all the staples and cut the edges, to allow them to lay flat on the edge.
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ANOTHER Great Idea, buried under the Crushing Weight of Reality! 
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So for my NEXT trick, I figured I'd TAPE the glass down and when the glass wet out and expanded, I'd simply pull the tape loose and stretch it down a little and then re-tape it.
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Yeah, that didn't work, either. 
In fact, I'm pretty sure that some day, my epitaph is going to read:
"Well, Hell,THAT didn't work!!" 

The more Boring part of boat-building, that never makes it into the brochures. 
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I might be hopeless on the corners and edges and whatnot, but I'm GREAT at doing flat glassing!! 
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The inside pieces of the rudder stock required priming with a coat of epoxy, before gluing up.
Those quarter round pieces above the rudder stock are the upper part of the rudder head.
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That bottom piece with the oval, is one I made out of spare parts, since the partial kit I acquired was missing one of the inside rudder stock pieces.
It was formerly an unused bulkhead, hence the oval that needed to be added.

To keep from messing up, I numbered the pieces of the inside rudder stock.
#2 and #3 have an extra diagonal cut, because I am installing copper pipe to route lines for the rudder up haul and down haul.
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Here are all the inside pieces glued up, including the two copper pipes.
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The current thinking is to use graphite infused epoxy, to toughen the rubbing parts against chafe and wear and tear.
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I cut off the excess copper tubing and sanded the inside rudder stock pieces, before adding the outside rudder stock cheeks and gluing it up.
I was grateful that the rudder stock includes several alignment holes to insert dowels, to help keep things square.
That would have been a nightmare to try and clamp, otherwise.
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One of the things I had been sweating, was enlarging the center board and rudder pivot holes using a battery drill, without getting some horrendous off-set from the original hole position.
A few weeks ago I tripped over a $40 drill press at a flea market and my problems suddenly became absurdly simple:
Use a Forstner bit the same size as the hole, for alignment, clamp the board down on the drill press stand and then simply switch bits to the larger size.
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Centered perfectly. 
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I employed the same idea to install the bronze shoulder bushings flush and getting the shoulders perfectly centered on the existing holes.
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In the pic below, the hole at top is over-drilled to install bushings for the rudder blade pivot.
Hole at the bottom of the pic is where Brennan is going his own way, again.
In the build manual, they have you drill a small hole in the top of the rudder for the down haul line
Then you drill a larger hole in the side, run the line through the top and tie it in a knot and fill the large hole with epoxy, thus embedding the knot.
I know what happens in stranded wire conductors that move, when the outer conductors eventually break and the wire finally fails.
I could see the same thing happening to rope fibers and was appalled that there was no way for that to be field serviceable.
So I am going to fill all that up with epoxy and drill it out again, (slightly smaller) and tie my knot and leave it open, so I can repair/replace it on the water, if it ever becomes necessary.
My large hole is a little deeper than the build manual, so the knot won't chafe against the rudder cheeks, in use.
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The hole at the left is for the rudder up haul line.

Over-drilled centerboard pivot hole.
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The pic below is another example of current SCAMP thinking. 
In the event that the hull gets turtled and the centerboard swings back into the trunk, there is a short tail of line drilled into the bottom of the centerboard and epoxied in place, similar to the rudder up haul line.
This allows you to grab the line, pull the board out of the trunk and then right the hull, conventionally.
Uhhh . . . .  not me.
I am going to tie the rudder up haul anyway, so why not also tie the centerboard down haul?
(Actually, if you have to use it, at that point it would be more of an up haul!) 

Field replaceable, it's a Wonderful Thing.
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Scored the sides of all the bushings (rudder bushing, shown here) every 120º, for a better grip from the epoxy glue.
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Taped the bottom of the center board and the rudder holes, to hold in the epoxy.
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The centerboard has perfect boat-builder bushing dimensions: too short and too long.
A single bushing is too short, so you have to use two bushings stacked one on top of the other, which then sticks out and has to be cut down later.
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After the center board and the rudder were leveled, we were ready to install the bushings.
The dowel is taped so the epoxy doesn't stick to it.
It is used to check for alignment and plumb with both a level and a square.

Same thing for the rudder blade pivot bushing.
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Sighting down the rudder blade dowel, you can't see the center board dowel behind it.
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Remember that coastal navigation range-bearing trick, lining up two objects, to get a relative bearing?

Well, it also works for checking plumb. 
Notice how the two dowels are parallel along their length? 
BTW, the wall and the car port post LOOKS like it leans, because it is not in the center of the phone camera lens, which distorts it in the pic.
Visually, all four vertical elements were parallel.
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I tried to get the other carport post closer to camera lens center, when viewing from the other direction.
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That's how you know they're aligned, or at the very least, they're out by the same amount!! 

After the epoxy cured the next day, I put duct tape on the rudder and the center board, to protect the fiberglass from the side of the Sawzall blade.
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This is what it looks like after cutting. The cutoff piece is at the lower corner of the tape.
Then I ground off all the excess epoxy on the center board and the rudder holes.
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Test rudder assembly.
I was surprised how well everything fit together, for something I made from scratch.  (Rudder blade.)
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And I was greatly heartened to see how well the bolt fit through both shoulder bushings in the rudder stock and both bushings in the rudder blade. 
My usual efforts involve a lot of re-drilling and filing with a rat-tail file. 
The extra time and effort spent getting everything as plumb and square and centered as I could, really paid off.
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I MUST be making progress: There's fewer and fewer pieces of boat, laying around!! 
Charles Brennan

[Krusen]

Are you beginning to understand why there is so much poorly fitted fiberglass in an all glass boat? Especially when considering the turnover in employees in that career.  I have met several such, a few months of epoxy and they were out of that field.  One only stayed until the female mold was completed, and separated from the all wood plug.  He had no interest in seeing the first hull built in that mold, after the relatively easy project of putting glass on the outside, from comfortable platforms, in fresh air.  There was a roof, no sides.  36 foot sloop.

Naturally, the hull would be laid from the inside, and much on surfaces below your belt, or even kneeling.  Good ventilation would be impossible, and trimmed glass would be every where, not simply falling to the floor.

A big plus for your Scamp, everything is small enough pick up and move around solo, except the hull, and even that can be overpowered with brains and mechanical advantage.

[Doug SC]

When I built my kayak, I found out I have an allergic reaction to uncured epoxy. It's like a bad case of poison ivy. I am never tempted to touch a project to test to see if it is cured. Yet I seem to find I do something involving epoxy all the time. I double glove and I am covered head to toe in the hot summer months when working with it. The price to pay it seems to do what I want done.

BTW, CB I am really enjoying this build. I only wish that the fellow who built my Scamp took the kind of care with his as you are doing. I am glad he built it because I really like the boat. I just didn't realize how much repairing I would end up doing. I am currently working on finding a stubborn leak at the moment.
I can't complain too much as I bought it for a song and a bit of boat swapping from the second owner who had also done a bit of repairing. Of my 3 sailboats I have sailed it the most these last two years. My poor wayfarer I did so much work on doesn't remember what water under the hull feels like.

[Monroe]

After seeing all the work required to have a centerboard properly in place and a pivot hole that doesn't leak I'm so pleased that Sandy Douglas designed the Flying Scot that avoided those problems. I sailed my Scot for 14 years and only had to do one minor repair to the centerboard assembly. I'm not sure if the design originated with Douglas or Uffa Fox (I read different views), but it worked perfectly. The top of the trunk was curved and the centerboard rode that curve supported by a simple axle and rubber wheels through a hole near the top of the centerboard that enabled raising and lowering without any critical parts in the water. My only "repair" was replacement of the axle that had a bend in it, probably from the centerboard hitting an obstruction at speed which lifted it up and then letting the 100 lb board drop onto the trunk from a significant distance. No idea when or where.

[Noemi - Ensenada 20]

Charles, I seem to remember a trick to get fiberglass to lay flat along curves.  Wet it out, lay it down, then pull some of that stretchy plastic over it - the kind that is used in the kitchen for covering bowls that don't have lids.  You flatten out the fiberglass by pulling on the plastic, then taping IT down.

Not sure that would work for what you were trying to do, but it couldn't hurt.

[Doug SC]

Yes, cling wrap also works anywhere you don't want epoxy to stick. Also, if you can keep bubbles and wrinkles out of it when you tape it down you get a smooth shiny finish when you peel it up. I always get wrinkles so have to end up sanding, but if you get it right you get a smooth finish.

[Norm L.]

Charles, after following your great work I'm thinking my friend who built a 45' steel ketch in his very rural back yard had it easier. Not cheaper nor faster.
He told me he wants to put his construction photos onto a video.