Monday 2 December 2013

Flipping the Hull

Prior to painting I needed to flip the hull to trim down the edges and also test fit the Exhaust I had recently purchased.

I had a problem with the stock Exhaust being to long hitting into the transom and with it being fixed to the manifold I was unable to turn it to one side, then after looking around for different options I discovered Coffman Exhaust Systems made performance exhaust kits for the TS model,  they came with a silicon coupling which would enable it to be moved into the back corner. So after keeping a constant look out on Ebay I managed to pick myself up a brand new kit which some guy in the US had sitting around for the last 20yrs gathering dust.



Thank god it actually fits!



Friday 29 November 2013

Sanding

Over the last week I must have put in at least 10hrs of sanding, filling then sanding then filling :-( but is almost at the stage where I can start applying the Primer. I have chosen to go with International Marine paints 'InterProtect' 2pak Epoxy primer.





Sanding in progress








Monday 11 November 2013

Jet ski Transition hull mod

Because the ski hull sat lower and had a different profile than the Squirt hull I epoxied a piece of High Density foam to the hull and shaped it so that it gradually merged into the Squirt.



Cut HD Foam




Fiberglass and Epoxy the foam in place


Once the Epoxy had dried I sanded it down to follow the contours of the Squirt.
600 csm was then used to glass the foam into the hull. 
 To finish and to assist with sanding I smoothed over a piece of peel ply, it was a little tricky trying to remove all the air bubbles but I think it will work well.

Thursday 7 November 2013

Completed Hull

With the skinning of the hull now complete I am currently in the process of filling all the screw holes and small imperfections with Epoxy filler made from epoxy and Q-cel. I figure if I fill a little each day I should almost be ready to start glassing the joins this weekend.

Wednesday 30 October 2013

Skinning

After taking a month off I've picked up the tools again and started by making some templates up to transfer onto the plywood.



Although the template is to size, I cut the plywood over size by 10mm along the chine and ensured I had a straight edge forward of frame#2, the ply was dry fitted numerous times with a little fairing needed here and there ensuring it was a neat fit.
 
 
 All holes are pre-drilled and counter sunk, I also gave the inside of the panel a coat of Epoxy prior to fitting.
 Taking about 1hr20min to fit 1 side (by myself) and with the resin curing, I found it a lot easier on the other side if I pre-screwed the screws in the holes before applying the epoxy, this saved me a good 30min



 The bottom side has been cut down to 10mm over and I now have to cut out a section for the JSki hull and try and get a flat, even transition
 


 


 

 

 

Friday 18 October 2013

Bending and Fairing

With my wife working back late quite a bit over the last few weeks it has given me a considerable amount of time to working on my little project.

Sheers and Chines

After breaking a sheer while bending it in to place I soon learnt my little kettle steamer is no good for anything requiring more than 20-30min of steam so I found myself a piece of 80mm down pipe, plugged an end up, filled it with boiling water and soaked the 2 sheers for about 48hrs. They were then remove, clamped to the breast hook, bent into place and left to dry while we went away for 3 days.

Soaking Pipe
Upon my return they were un-clamped, epoxied and screwed into place.

I must admit I was quite surprised at how easy it was to bend the sheers, the chines on the other hand were a different story. Due to the large amount of twist I decided to put in the chine, it made them quite difficult to hold in place while the epoxy cured, so I thought I should add a chine blocking member to the stem to give me a bigger surface to adhere to, weather it helped or not I'll never know.

After I had started to fair the chines back I soon discovered that I had mounted them to far back (5mm), so I laminated an additional 8mm piece on and faired in back, it actually worked out really well.

 
 


Chine blocking member
 



Chines attached and faired

Joining

While I was in the process of fairing I thought I should start to look at how I will go about joining the plywood and which method I would use, butt or Scarf?

In the end decided on Scarfing the joint and made myself a few jigs that would help me achieve a nice strong and flat join.

Open pressing jig
  I found a scrap piece of 28mm Armor Ply and made up a press that would hopefully keep the joint as even as possible across the width, keep the board straight along the length and fill in any voids where I over sanded/planned. Of course it all had to be covered in wax paper and clear packing tape to prevent the resin from sticking, I then clamped it all together once the epoxy was applied.


Ply being pressed


 
Scarf Joint fresh from the jig


All that was needed was a quick sand and I have a perfectly flat even scarf join, I couldn't be happier with the result and that's another easy job completed which I thought would be a challenge
 
 

Wednesday 29 May 2013

Jet Ski Hull Mods and install


As I have removed a section of the battens to make room for the ski hull aft of frame #1, I have added additional stringers by profiling them to fit the shape of the ski hull, these will be bolted to the transom and frame #1 in place of the removed battens.

Having some spare time while the epoxy dried I thought I would make myself a steamer using an old kettle I had laying around. I bolted a hose fitting to the lid then used Silicon to seal the lid and spout. After a trial run it seems to work quite well getting over 30min of steam from a full pot. Might have to rig up a easier way of filling it though.


Modified Kettle

DIY Wood steamer
 With both additional stringers now in place and the module squared and straightened on a panel saw I have been able to fit the keel and ski hull in position. I have had to fit it with the pump in place for I discovered the ski hull is off centre to the pump by 6mm.
 








Friday 17 May 2013

Plans and where I'm at

With very little to no knowledge on boat building I found reading and viewing pics of other builds an essential source of information, especially when I decided to modify the Squirt hull to suit a jet drive rather than the original outboard motor. Reading and viewing others blogs really helped me with my ideas of how I would go about it. So I thought it might be good to share my project with fellow amature boat builders also.

I have been building on and off now for about 6 months and haven't really been tracking my progress with pics, although, I do have some which will give you an idea of where I'm at and how I went about it.

Working on a site that uses a large amount of Oregon(Douglas fir) I have been luckly enough to get my hands on any off-cuts that maybe suitable to rip down and use as my frames, I made all the frames to the drawings and assembled them the Glen-L way. While doing this I was constantly keeping an eye on the local Classifieds for a used, worn but mechanicaly stable Jet ski, preferably a Kawasaki for they looked a little easier to work with and have been a proven power plant for other Squirt builders on the Glen-L forums.

A few weeks after I had received the plans in the mail I found a 92' Kawasaki TS 650 Jet ski on EBay which I thought would do the job quite nicely and with a newly reconditioned motor I was crazy not to place a bid. Turns out I was the only one to do so and won the auction at a bargin price.
Kawasaki TS 650
I moved it to my brothers place for I had no room in my garage and started to dismantle it over a few weeks.
After stripping it down and removing all the useful items, I cut my way through the hull until I had the section I needed which I cut over size for I didn't know what size it was to be at this stage.

Rear underside of the Jet Housing

Inside of hull motor mounts
 With all the frames assembled and the building form constructed and levelled I was able to start laying out and positioning the frames to determine how long I was going to cut the jet ski hull.

I thought the easiest way to achieve this would be to do a quick CAD drawing of the lay-out. As you can see I am extending the length of the hull by about 150mm, this is to accommodate the extra length in the jet ski hull.

Now because the Squirt has a flat hull and the Jet ski is a V-hull I needed to flatten the jet ski hull to ensure it matches the profile of the Squirt. This was done by clamping strips of Oregon and thicken epoxy into the groves of the ski hull then later planning them down.





I have recently picked the tools up again after having a few months off and have now positioned, aligned, levelled and secured the frames in their correct location. I will now be working on securing the ski hull to the Transom and frame #1.