Almost-A-SCAMP Progress Report #2-4D

[Charles Brennan]

The motor mount has progressed from this:
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To this:
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And finally, to this: 
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(1st coat of paint.)  Should make the motor mount look less obtrusive.

Compared to the original black plastic mount:
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Last coat of epoxy on the doubler side.
Still needs white paint around the hatches and graphite-infused epoxy on the ballast tank side.
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And the 2nd coat of epoxy on the lazarette components.
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All that plywood essentially comprises the cockpit sole of the whole boat.
While it looks like there is a lot of blank spaces, I can reach into every square inch of the inside of the hull, with a sponge if need be.   
Apparently, water trapped inside the hull, is a Major Fear of SCAMP builders. I believe Doug SC has some experience with just that issue.   

And the last coat of paint (excluding touch-ups and repairs) on the hull.
Not too shabby! 
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Although I seem to have a talent for turning perfectly good boats into Swiss cheese, with all the holes I think I need.   
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And with the water line masking tape removed.
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9 out of every 10 Gnats think that fresh EasyPoxy Sea Foam paint, is just DELICIOUS!! 
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That 10th guy?   
He's buried between coats 2 & 3, and isn't saying much of anything. 

My  Plastimo Contest compass viewed from the rear, showing the 8-32 nylon screws and nylon nuts, holding it to the plate.
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Front view showing the addition of ¼-20 nylon pan head screws, to hold the plate to the mounting box.
No metal near the compass.
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And with the bezel installed.
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Now, except for gluing the box to bulk head #3 and painting it, (along with the rest of the cabin) I consider that sub-assembly to be done.

An on-going problem coating all this plywood, is epoxy flowing over the edge and making an "epoxy-sicle" on the under side, like so:
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Then it has to be ground off, before the next coat can be applied. 
Since the edges on the underside are going to be taped off, for paint, I decided to put the tape on early, so that when the epoxy drips around the edge, it comes to rest on the tape instead of the wood.
After painting, I can just pull the tape and take the "epoxy stalagmites" with it! 
This should save a lot of time and bother.

First coat of epoxy, on the sole side.
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And the last coat of epoxy for the lazarette doubler side
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First coat of epoxy on the cockpit sole side.
Over-drilled the hatch mounting holes and filled them with epoxy.
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First coat of epoxy on the lazarette cockpit side.
Over-drilled and epoxy-filled for the lazarette hatch.
What's the green tape for? 
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Well . . . . . .   
Got a little too close to one edge when over-drilling the hatch mounting holes.
It looks worse than it is, because the doubler underneath sticks out further, since the sole and doublers didn't quite match up when I sawed them.
I can write my name with a saber saw, but only when I'm trying to saw a straight line! 
The tape is to create a dam for the epoxy to fill in.
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There is going to be a small storage locker next to the foot well and I didn't want any more hardware on the sole, than I could avoid.
Since the edge is going to have a slight round-over, I did a double round-over on each side in the middle, to make a finger hold to lift the locker lid more easily.
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Since you'd have to be a left-handed, double-jointed, albino Dwarf,    to mount the bow eye after the deck goes down, the optimum time to mount it, is NOW.
Heavily bedded.
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And cleaned up.
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While I was at it, since the hull and sides are painted, there was no reason not to mount the bow rub rail.
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Anybody that thinks SCAMPS are plowing through the water because of that pram bow, have never looked underneath.

I think a lot of these builders wait until the end of the build to do the detail work and then nearing completion, start drowning in details.
Figure if I knock off any little detail, whenever I get a chance (or if it's too hot to do epoxy, or paint work) I won't get THAT over-whelmed, when I get nearer to completion.
A lot of updates this month, as I took maximum advantage of some really nice weather.
May will probably be a lot slower, as I have some family stuff coming up and the heat will reduce the amount of usable "epoxy hours" available to me.

Charles Brennan

[Chris Muthig]

Looking good!

[Timm R Oday25]

Thanks for all the photos .Have you bought/made the mast or the boom ?
What about the mainsail or the genoa or the spinnakers ?

[Charles Brennan]

Timm, You must have missed the Almost-A-SCAMP progress report from last July. 
https://trailersailor.com/forum/index.php?topic=912.msg5571#msg5571

I was gifted a mast and boom, from a guy a coupla hours down the road. 
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It was a 20-foot mast and a 10-foot boom from a 16 foot Luger sailboat.
I need a 17-foot mast and a 12-foot boom. 
Since both the mast and the boom use a Dwyer mast DM-284 extrusion, I intend to hack off a few feet from the mast and then graft it onto the boom.
At that point, I will have 2/3rds of a SCAMP rig.
(I will still need to add a yard, at the top.)

The SCAMP uses a balanced lug 4-sided, 100 sq ft sail, for propulsion.
No Genoas, no Spinnakers.
I'm currently getting a little flak from the SCAMP Builders and Dreamers FaceBook group about my mast. 
The thinking is that the mast was designed to use stays and won't be suitable for an un-stayed rig, like a SCAMP and will bend too much, in use. 

BUT!! 
Being a hard-nosed numbers guy, I am taking issue with that thinking, because:
1) Designer John Welsford, specifies the aluminum mast for a SCAMP as being 6061-T6, 16' 9" long by 2.75" O.D and with a .065" wall thickness.
2) A DM-284 mast is 2.12" . x 2.84" diameter, tear-drop shaped, but very close to the 2.75" diameter and the wall thickness is .12", very close to twice the wall thickness of John Welsford's spec.
3) Gig Harbor Boat works, sells an aluminum mast with a .065" wall thickness, that is 13 pounds or roughly .776  pounds per foot, of linear length.
4) Dwyer specs the DM-284 as .908 pounds per foot, of linear length, which at my length, will be 15 pounds, quite comparable to the Gig Harbor SCAMP mast.

IMHO, my mast is probably a little heftier than what numerous SCAMP owners are using and probably not as prone to failure, as the FB guys would have me believe.
Even though the mast is tear-drop shaped, instead of round, the interior cross-section walls are very nearly round.  (The tear-drop shape is for the main sail bolt rope.)
That smaller 2⅛" diameter versus the Welsford 2¾" diameter having a ⅝-inch difference, versus the doubled wall thickness, in my view, cancels each other out.
In fact, I will be splicing the boom together with a round aluminum 6061-T6 tube, that just fits inside the DM-284 extrusion. I intend to affix it with epoxy and pop-rivets.
In my view, the reason for the 3 stays on a Luger, is because the mast is stepped on a plate on the cabin roof.  There is nothing else to hold the mast in place.  Lotta leverage for a single mast step plate. The SCAMP has a 34-inch mast trunk for the mast to reside in.
I think it's strong enough not to fold when subjected to winds in the range, that I intend to use the SCAMP.
Once upon a time, airplane wings needed wires to hold the wings up, too. No more.

If it turns out that everyone was right, then I guess I'll be building a wooden mast and spars, too. 
But it's going to take a structural failure, for that to happen. 
Of course, we ARE talking about a guy who once dis-masted a Sailfish (plywood pre-cursor to the Sunfish board boat) down in the Keys when he refused to slack sail, in Force 5 conditions.     A 3" dia. Douglas Fir mast, with a  3 foot aluminum sleeve, snapped right at the aluminum mast partner. 
So, I've had PRACTICE!! 

Hope this clarifies,
Charles Brennan

[Timm R Oday25]

Charles , I may well have missed the post about your getting a free mast .
My thinking is thus; you will turtle the boat long before you break a piece of extruded aluminum .
If you would like someone along to help you bail all the water back out of it ,just let me know .
I'll help and take pictures the whole time . No need to thank me ,that's what friends are for .

[Noemi - Ensenada 20]

Since you'd have to be a left-handed, double-jointed, albino Dwarf,    to mount the bow eye after the deck goes down, the optimum time to mount it, is NOW.

You could hire a teeny weenie meany.....

[Frank B.]

As usual good progress and interesting report.  Can't wait for the final, or in boating world that point at which all the future work was not anticipated but is still there. 

The mast/boom discussion took me back to my aluminum extrusion plant experience, a stint with Olin Mathieson Aluminum nearly sixty years ago, but fairly memory fresh.  I was, at various times during the two years, a puller, stretcher operator, saw operator, dummy block setter, billet saw helper, cast house slug, fork lift driver, extra man on shift (my favorite, you got to do everyone's job for fifteen minutes at a time) and whatever else they could think of.  That mast, as all others I think, was run with a porthole die, a little more complicated than a plate die, and might have been water cooled.  Thanks for forcing the memories, keeps an old mind a little sharper than it would be.

[Riley Smith]

I missed the free mast part too. Good score! And I think you'll be safe with it. (Maybe!) That's what is so cool about building a boat; the experiments you get to stake your body on!!!  I had reservations about  whether I liked your choice of base color and now I'm finding myself liking it more and more. You didn't expound on the motor mount but it has a "soft" surface for the motor mounting to "grab" doesn't it?

[Charles Brennan]

Riley, I still have some rubber gasket material left over from replacing the dead lights and repairing the swing keel bolt gaskets. 
I'm going to cut 2 circles of the appropriate diameter and contact cement them to the indentations.
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The reason for contact cement instead of a screw or a nail, is so that I don't penetrate any epoxy or fiberglass, on the working theory that if water can't get to the wood, the wood can't rot.
(Sneak peek at final coat on motor mount bracket.  Still wet, in fact.)
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This way, when they get too beat up, I can simply contact cement on a coupla more.

Glad you're warming to the colors; I think it'll look even better when I get the Grand Banks Beige on the roof and the Hatteras Cream painted on the sides and the cockpit.
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Hope this clarifies,
Charles Brennan

[Riley Smith]

Hey, color changes EVERYTHING. I remember doing color schemes with the catboat and a standard file I'd made in the drawing program. And ALMOST painted it black but I realized my hull smoothing skills weren't up to that standard. The green was a compromise with history of this place because a green-hulled wooden boat was very common back in the day. Strange how much the world has changed. Those under 20 will never know about ONE bench seat and a three speed floor shifter in the pick-up!

There is rubber and then there is rubber. I'd advise using that rubber that tires are made of rather than the inner tube type 

[Travis Chapman]

Well reported as always Charles. My to favorite quote "All the holes I think I need." Perfect! But truly, you've shown such a great example of detailed planning in that area.