Hurry Up and Wait!

/ Capt Kise

It has been more than two months since my last post. Sorry about that, I don’t expect that to be the norm but I’ll explain the reason for the break later in the post.

First off, I want to start this post by walking through the transom work.

The Beryllium transom forms are made up of 8 pieces like the one above. It’s a little complex but should result in a nice quiet backside with clean chine returns.
Both of these pictures capture the detail that goes into the transom. Credit to Brian Floyd and Corey Brueckner on the two boats pictured.
After a lot of brainstorming on how to get an even radius drawn, I found using a flexible piece of PVC and some nails, I was able to get really good results.
After I got all the pieces laid out, I used a combination of tools: sliding miter, jigsaw, chisel, and oscillating belt sander.
Super handy way to follow up behind the jigsaw is by using an osculating sander. If you cut just on the outside of the line with the jigsaw, you can get it perfect with a sander like this.
Cutting out the pieces was the easy part for me. I struggled like hell to get everything to fit up true. Not sure what I could have different but I hope it works out for you!
As you can see in the pictures above I did a lot to check for level and parallel. Going back to the laser trick from the earlier post. I made sure that the starboard and port sides were at the same elevation as one another.
With a little patience I eventually got it to where I was happy. I spent a lot of time on this but I hope that it makes life easier for me when I get to fairing/sanding. Also, you can see I put some extra supports to keep from sagging during glass layup.

I was all finished with the forms for the hull around the beginning of December and was hoping to make some major progress over the holidays.

The next step is putting structural foam on the forms. Lesson Learned to those that follow, the good foam is made in Europe and can take a while to procure if your supplier does not have any in stock. Due to all the Covid craziness, the warehouse in Florida was out of stock. Because of the $/sheet, I was willing to wait.

I ordered 15 sheets of Divinycell H80 from Merritt Supply. I don’t think I will need 15 sheets but that is how many come in a box and there was a HUGE discount for buying a box versus buying it by the sheet. Total cost for 15 (4’x8’) sheets, plus shipping from Pompano Beach, FL to Clear Lake Shores, Texas, was $2,474. I worked hard to source that and it was by far the cheapest I could find.

I placed my order December 11 and I was ready for it the day I ordered. I was quoted 3 weeks originally so with all my time off I decided to give the shop an overhaul.

I didn’t take many pictures along the way but here is the end product.
Updated all the lights to LED and added a few more.
I gave away a bunch of stuff and did a lot of organization.
I built this miter saw station on rollers for added layout flexibility.

Anyways, the foam is supposed to arrive tomorrow and I could not be more excited. Crossing my fingers there are no issues and I can hit the ground running!

For every minute spent in organization, an hour is earned.

Benjamin Franklin

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