MiToS re-built/fit- versilcraft Mystery43

[jfm]

More fantastic stuff Vas, and George is quite a hero.

Yup, blue is a "your arse" idea. Stick with the silver/white/black combo and it will look the biz, and it will retain a nice reference to the versilcraft originality esp with the black window detailing. I can't wait to see it painted!

I think you're doing the right thing by deferring launch till next Spring. Fact is, everything on a boat takes longer than you estimate and so really you are actually on track. It will be much more satisfying knowing you haven't cut corners and that the thing keeping you dry is well made

 

[jfm]

Meant to say, lovely bit of detailing around the b/t tunnel

 

[vas]

Its good to see the great progress you are making Vas, when you have some finish colour on the boat will look so very different. We are off to Kos at the weekend, as last year, perhaps next year you will be cruising around the Islands.
Regards, Paul

thanks Paul,

true she looks very different even now with the grey primer on!
Actuallly there is a plan for east Aegean in July next year. You are lucky in that you visit at the best of times IMHO (kids back to school, nice and warm weather and quiet!) but I cannot

More fantastic stuff Vas, and George is quite a hero.

Yup, blue is a "your arse" idea. Stick with the silver/white/black combo and it will look the biz, and it will retain a nice reference to the versilcraft originality esp with the black window detailing. I can't wait to see it painted!

my thoughts exactly!
Explained to the wife that the forum decided that there wont be any blue on MiToS, wasn't overly impressed, but accepted it

I think you're doing the right thing by deferring launch till next Spring. Fact is, everything on a boat takes longer than you estimate and so really you are actually on track. It will be much more satisfying knowing you haven't cut corners and that the thing keeping you dry is well made

yep, I've already dropped the tempo and working at a more relaxed pace, getting things done in the proper order without going back and forth. Painting is planned for this coming week. Mon final primer coat on the sundeck (was in really bad condition from the begining and keeps on troubling us till now and during the week the top coats on the superstructure and f/b. Weather is meant to be ideal (22-29C daytime, dropping to a 15-16 at night and northernly mild winds good to keep the humidity low). We shall see how it turns up.
and some pics:

In order to finish up the hull preparations I asked George to block the two 1.5inch water intakes for the engines and put another 15mm ply on the inside on both of them as well as a third hole that was for the sumlog speed thing. Now, sumlog wheel was BEHIND the flow of the stbrd engine intake
I've removed it and have a NMEA2K triducer to install somewhere. Cannot place it behind the engine intake as sounder wont be particularly happy, so this third hole will be used for the genny intake. The genny one was in a shockingly inaccessible space under the stbrd axle just before the P bracket for some odd reason. That's going to be blocked with great difficulty as the genny is on top of it and you cannot even place a screwdriver in there...

Scarfing and epoxying the plugs and the result:

On the e/r, the new clearing tank (or however you want to call this 4-5lt box) fabrication was completed based on my design- assymetrical square compared to round, engine intakes on top, genny/visual tank level in the middle and an extra outlet at the bottom to clear up any deposits (thanks to Alf for mentioning it ). Cost 60euro for the tank (ss304 2mm thick) with all the in/outlets welded on, valves, elbow, connectors, et al another 50euro. So 110 for the lot, not bad although I was targeting for 100 .

fully assembled:

and in place:

cleared up all the mess around (pipes/filter/cables) and trying to figure out how to fabricate the brackets holding the water strainers in place.

Decided to place the separs (yes I know LS is not happy but I'll keep them for now) on the 12mm ply that sits in front of the tanks (removed in these pics for ease of access and keeping things tidy.

Now, got to sand/clean/epoxy the ply strip, epoxy countersunk screws for the separs (don't want to have things prodruding at the rear) put it back in place and measure new flex pipes from the clearingtank to the separs. Decided NOT to go for ss all the way as the two pipes will be over 200euro, whereas plain ones will be around 40!

next installment during the coming week!

cheers

V.

 

[vas]

short update as I've spent 4 days sanding and epoxying the port side of the hull. Happy to report that I'm almost done on the port side, got to do do the stbrd now (but I'm not looking forward, well my arms and right wrist is definitely not!)
After the 280gr/m2 mat and epoxy, followed another coat of epoxy, then sanding with 120-100grit and another 3 coats of pigmented epoxy. Just plain white so that I can easily spot areas that need a bit of touch up filler (with epoxy filler again)
Tomorrow I'm going to give my arms and body a rest by only doing a morning worth of touching up with epoxy filler and helping George who's going to spray gun the white(ish) colour on the superstructure. It's interesting how "ready to paint" can be 3 days away to actually masking and painting but we're getting there.

On the e/r I did remove the separ 2000/5 filters orgnised their new placement, epoxied the ply, got nice ss countersunk 8mm screws, bolted all ready for the filters. So, just to be safe I dismantled the filters (well, mainly the not_so_clear bowl) as the valve under it wasn't doing anything...
They've been there for 12yrs, I doubt anyone has bothered to ever clean the bowl, just messily replaced filters and this is what I found in the one. The other was cleaner. Not bad for a 35+yo boat and tanks... BTW, both yellow ball valves were blocked with crud and I had to poke with a thin screwdriver and then flush them with a few glasses of diesel to get them back to full working order.

Cleaned, refit, checked on their site and realised that they now offer them with handscrewed fly nuts and not the 8mm ones (that you can easily overtighten and crack...) so got new flynuts and mounted them in the piece of ply together with the visual gauge for the tanks.
Have to admit that I got a pic of the setup and then had it resting on the transom when this massive cruiseship departed so took another pic with it in the background. It's Costa Pacifica, sistership to the Costa Concordia, only still floating and much cleaner
Mind, 290m is a hell of a big thing and it's horns were seriously loud!

knackered,

V.

 

[rafiki_]

Sounds like good progress again Vas. I guess you are really looking forward to a nice white finished hull? Nice pic of the Costa Fortune too.

 

[Tender_aft]

Really looking forward to seeing hull painted....there is so much hard work that doesn't make much visual difference in jobs like this....then you make a great visual leap forward, then you can really stand back and smile

Congrats

 

[MikeBrazier]

Update, Update... UPDATE.



Mike

 

[KevB]

Yes Please. Must be time for an update...

 

[vas]

OK, so the weather turned nasty you're all back home by the fireplace and bored, right?

teaching started in real work land with a heavy program, kids school also started and struggling to get them both (er, mainly the son) to study mode as compared to xbox/psp/football mode so I'm usually too knackered to post any decent report.
Further, I'm afraid I'll disappoint you as there's no top coat pics! George was for the whole week struggling with headaches and nausea as a result to his accident 3weeks ago and only today is OK and able to function. So he's going to be working Wed onwards, good news!

Me, after all the sanding the hull induced pain I decided to have a change and spent 3 days working on the aft deck. This simply means pain but in DIFFERENT bodypart. Working with a chisel bend it half, at 600mm hight and outside the hull is no fun. Trying to accurately shape the ex rubbing strake to be flush with the 200mm strip of ply at the top of the hull sides is no fun either and back definitely objected! Then the top of the transom that was built by thin strips of iroco (thin enough to bend without breaking) and epoxied together needed chiseling and sanding to get the curvature and slopes right. A piece of 15mm ply will be epoxied on top (and teak on top of it) but the basic shape should be accurate enough for the layers to come. It still amazes me how wrong I get the estimates for completing a job... Thought it would be a days job, took me 3 and one of them was a 11h affair! Anyway, now looks good enough, had a couple of coats of CPES and is ready for the ply caping and nylon sheet cover stitched on top to keep the rain away while I work on the aft deck before I can finish it all off with aft seating a'la Alf's, two side boxes/steps for lines, etc.

Hull wise, this is the bow view and port side:

Mind bow needs at least a days work to get all the screws countersunk and covered, sanded and epoxied to get it smooth with the rest of the hull and make the pointy bit smooth and symmetrical as it was before the operation. It's notable that it's NOT that pointy with a 50mm radius (in plan) making it quite difficult to get a decent finish on it. The rest of the port side will have a final coat of white pigmented epoxy (after some touching up) and then wait for copper based A/F in spring.

And this is the condition of the stbrd side after many days of sanding/filling and sanding again. Really only have 2-3h of sanding before I can start epoxying but I'm still not in the mood/haven't recovered enough.

Another issue I noticed is that the decks I replaced last summer (and spent all the winter covered) are fine EXCEPT for two seams where I stupidly listened to a local "expert" and left a gap between the adjuscent sheets of ply and used black sika whatever # in the seam (instead of scarfing the join). It bloody leaked in two strong showers last week so having already redone the port seam two months ago (for other reasons) I set about doing the stbrd one today. Main tool is the small angle grinder with a 24grit wood sanding hardpaper disposable disk (probably bestest ever invention-definitely 10X better than sliced bread!) Sanded a 70mm wide V shape on the seam, made a suitable wedge and epoxied and screwed it in place: 4:30h only, well impressed with myself!

the piece I used to patch this up was from the f/b side skirts and painted white hence the thin strip in the middle and the top view on the last pic. Will be sanded and epoxied soon.

When back or arms ache I get to do various small jobs that don't stress the body but still need to be done. So fitted my new all led 24V sealed e/r lights (3 of them two to go) and messed about with the bilge pumps again. This didn't make it to the end of the project and snapped in action

cheers

V.

 

[Tender_aft]

I'm sensing exhaustion, frustration and also on the plus side some successes.

I always walk away when things aren't going quite right...come back the next day and it often works easily; but then having been at this a long time, you know that.

Every little step you can take is progress, keep it up, you are getting really close now.

 

[MikeBrazier]

Thanks for the update Vas, sorry to nag but I really look forward to your updates and I was getting withdrawal symptoms.

I would guess, now you are putting more together than you are dismantling so you can look forward to some milestones as things take shape again.

Mike.

 

[vas]

I'm sensing exhaustion, frustration and also on the plus side some successes.

I always walk away when things aren't going quite right...come back the next day and it often works easily; but then having been at this a long time, you know that.

Every little step you can take is progress, keep it up, you are getting really close now.

not absolutely right
exhaustion yes, frustration not really (would be silly to feel like that almost 2yrs into a project when one can see the light at the end of the tunnel)

yes, leave something and pick it up the next day is something I do regularly. Lucky I have so many things that I cannot really say I'm loosing time doing it.

Thanks for the update Vas, sorry to nag but I really look forward to your updates and I was getting withdrawal symptoms.

I would guess, now you are putting more together than you are dismantling so you can look forward to some milestones as things take shape again.

Mike.

np, true, tiny milestones still though. George is still recovering, will hopefully start working on Monday and the weather is OKish for the week, so lets see...

tiny update, managed two coats of white pigmented epoxy on the stbrd side. Even after all these hours of filling and sanding, white shows off quite a few spots that could have some epoxy filler and a bit of sanding.

So, got maybe couple of days filling/sanding both sides and doing all the touch ups. Wont do it now though as I'm decided to remove the rubbing strake made of iroco and bolted/glued on top of the original again iroco rubbing strake (when the plywood 200mm wide strip was added to the hull many moons ago)
This involves removing the old one and chisseling the original rubbing strake to make it flush with the 200mm wide strip.

The plan is to check for problems there, smooth it properly and finalise with a layer of glassmat epoxied on the 3coats of epoxy ply deck. Not sure I'll add the teak on the bow deck now, so better to have a solid and watertight, uv resistant deck from now. Further, I'll wrap the mat up under the superstructure on this 40mm resessed strip and roll it over the edge and down to the old rubber strake. Once I figure out how, I'll install some toe rails but I'll come back to that over winter, not happy with any of the solutions I've seen/designed yet.
So plan for the next few days is to prepare this rubbing strake area and epoxy the mat on the deck, AND cut the hole for the bow cabin portlight which is sitting there gathering dust for over a year now!

few pics of the stbrd side:

next pic shows the whole side and you can spot the CPESed area where the rubbing strake were removed and smoothed. Almost the (front) half of the stbrd side. Hopefully finish tomorrow and get it ready for matt and epoxy.

cheers

V.

 

[rbcoomer]

Hi Vas,

Thanks for the updates - I look forward to these and you've done a great job of not only the boat, but in keeping us all informed...

The epoxy makes quite a difference doesn't' it? You can see so much better looking at one, untextured colour. I often do similar when painting woodwork around the house - a layer of undercoat after sanding shows all the blemishes much better. It's not so bad when you expect to see them, but I can imagine it's quite depressing after hours of sanding when you think the surface is smooth - so sympathy there! It's really coming together now however and starting to look like the end is in sight and that must be inspiration in itself.

Have you had any more thoughts yet on the swim platform? (I'm guessing that with many ongoing 'mini projects' within this one, you are prioritizing the main structure so forgive my impatience... )

Best regards,

Rob

 

[Robg71]

Good going Vas, I'm sure you will appreciate it all the more when done.
I still don't envy what you have left to do. But great going.

 

[vas]

Good going Vas, I'm sure you will appreciate it all the more when done.
I still don't envy what you have left to do. But great going.

of ALL the forumites, look who's talking

you definitely nuts!



sort out the IP camera in wales plz!

cheers

V.

 

[vas]

Hi Vas,

Thanks for the updates - I look forward to these and you've done a great job of not only the boat, but in keeping us all informed...

The epoxy makes quite a difference doesn't' it? You can see so much better looking at one, untextured colour. I often do similar when painting woodwork around the house - a layer of undercoat after sanding shows all the blemishes much better. It's not so bad when you expect to see them, but I can imagine it's quite depressing after hours of sanding when you think the surface is smooth - so sympathy there! It's really coming together now however and starting to look like the end is in sight and that must be inspiration in itself.

Have you had any more thoughts yet on the swim platform? (I'm guessing that with many ongoing 'mini projects' within this one, you are prioritizing the main structure so forgive my impatience... )

Best regards,

Rob

True you can see all the annoying details that you miss on plywood/filler combo
I decided that she's never going to have a baby's smooth bum, happy with a 35yo one with a tad cellulite, life's too short and I'm not going to miss the 0.1knot that I may gain with a fully streamlined and perfect bum. Still copper antifoul should help keeping things smooth underneath.

Swim platform no, not yet. It's a winter dark and cold night sketching by the fireplace.
Although if this winter is like last one, probably wont even use the fireplace! This week's forecast is 20-24C light winds, sunny (working on shorts today...)
I'll setup another thread on the platform design, as I need to keep it light and I'm not planning on having a 18mm ply and teak on top and may go for a ss frame (or 4) and solid cedar on top with 15-20mm gaps in between. Cedar as it's much lighter, strong enough and 1/3 the price of teak. Designwise I'm missing a few things so I'll keep quiet for now.
For sure I don't want to go to the grp frame with insets of teak. We shall see

cheers

V.

 

[Robg71]

Hahaha, easier to build than rebuild/replace/repair. I think... Ask me again in a year

Not yet on the camera, and I wouldn't make it live and public anyway.

 

[rbcoomer]

of ALL the forumites, look who's talking

you definitely nuts!



sort out the IP camera in wales plz!

cheers

V.

Hee Hee - my thoughts exactly! A giant 3D jigsaw puzzle comes to mind... The only plus is that Rob's team can change the shape of the pieces as required!

I'm actually looking forward to this winter's project reading!

With a few more biggish purchases (The timber, compressor and 2-Pac paint) I should be back on mine too - rainy season permitting. The shed's a bit of a chemical hazard zone at the moment with stockpiles of resin, cpes, acetone, buoyancy foam, flo-coat - good job I don't smoke!

 

[vas]

Hee Hee - my thoughts exactly! A giant 3D jigsaw puzzle comes to mind... The only plus is that Rob's team can change the shape of the pieces as required!

I'm actually looking forward to this winter's project reading!

With a few more biggish purchases (The timber, compressor and 2-Pac paint) I should be back on mine too - rainy season permitting. The shed's a bit of a chemical hazard zone at the moment with stockpiles of resin, cpes, acetone, buoyancy foam, flo-coat - good job I don't smoke!

yep, actually would be nice to have an update on your project! Even a few pics of the shed with all the stuff and the hull next would be helpful in visualising what you're going to facing

v. short update down here as had a hectic week at real work and had a couple of showers on two days (that I had more time to spent on MiToS)

BTW, weather is amazing, light N NW winds (nice a dry) amazing sunshine and temps between 20-25C for today and the coming week.
George seems that's fully recovered (which is excellent news) and is planning to do the top coats on the superstructure.

I finished the stbrd rubbing strake and hull ending strip, cleaned, CPESed, patched, filled, sanded. It currently looks like this: (and I'm waiting for the painting before I apply the mat and epoxy on the deck and side strip.

Currently working on the port side that just like the decks is in worse condition to stbrd side. Actually had to plain remove around 4m of the original rubbing strake and replace with new 15mm ply bolted to the iroco frame. Should finish it tomorrow (if family permits) and sand on Monday.

Obviously screws removed...

Hopefully more interesting news during the week.

cheers

V.

 

[rafiki_]

yep, actually would be nice to have an update on your project! Even a few pics of the shed with all the stuff and the hull next would be helpful in visualising what you're going to facing

v. short update down here as had a hectic week at real work and had a couple of showers on two days (that I had more time to spent on MiToS)

BTW, weather is amazing, light N NW winds (nice a dry) amazing sunshine and temps between 20-25C for today and the coming week.
George seems that's fully recovered (which is excellent news) and is planning to do the top coats on the superstructure.

I finished the stbrd rubbing strake and hull ending strip, cleaned, CPESed, patched, filled, sanded. It currently looks like this: (and I'm waiting for the painting before I apply the mat and epoxy on the deck and side strip.

Currently working on the port side that just like the decks is in worse condition to stbrd side. Actually had to plain remove around 4m of the original rubbing strake and replace with new 15mm ply bolted to the iroco frame. Should finish it tomorrow (if family permits) and sand on Monday.

Obviously screws removed...

Hopefully more interesting news during the week.

cheers

V.

Thanks Vas. What did you decide to do about your portholes?