MiToS re-built/fit- versilcraft Mystery43

[rafiki_]

Yep, brilliant thread V, you keep me a mix of amused, entertained, and full of admiration!

I like the sound of your current build plan, so very best wishes. I expect there to be a series of forum parties around the UK and the Med when you fianlly launch

 

[KevB]

Hi Vas,

As promised. A pic of the anchor switches located under the locker hatch.

 

[vas]

Hi Vas,

As promised. A pic of the anchor switches located under the locker hatch.

View attachment 40632

Kev,

thanks for the pic, completely different layout though with windlass "hidden" under the hatch, means most likely you do open the hatch when working there...
Will keep it in mind and think if I really want to do it this way.

Bow cabin hull/bulkheads ply all fully soaked in teak oil. Must have used more than 3lts of the stuff most parts needed 2.5 coats, some areas went to 3+ (was 50euro for the full pot which I think is 4lt, will check tomorrow)

A sort of panorama of the cabin (should really have a new phone with these builtin panorama features, but it would eventually get coated with epoxy as the current one, so I'll get a new phone once epoxying is over )

Also cleaned the two heads and part of the stbrd cabin (hull and bulkheads) and I need 2-3h to soak them in teak oil.
Next step is to get a Sika 291 and fit the skin fittings and start finalizing all the underfloor bits. Yes, I've kept the hull holes clear of teak oil, just a couple more coats of CPES and then sika. BTW, I guess once skin fittings are in place, there's no way out (reinforced plastic fittings by TrueDesign), correct? Or should I be very careful and try to avoid getting any sika in the 30mm bore so that cutting around the outer lip would loosen it?


O another topic, anyone got any ideas how to secure a 108lt polywhatever black water tank??? 40cm high by 60odd wide, currently sitting between the frames (at 350mm intervals moreorless). Is that sufficient, or should I create a 1.5mX.6m plywood "base" for it to sit on???
Last thing I want is a cracked tank dumping it's contents in the bilges...
I guess some sort of straps holding it in place??

Upholstering is getting much better (as in faster) I can now do a 2mX.2m strip in around a quarter of an hour.

Next pic shows 4 strips second has a 52mm dia hole for the motion sensor. Took them to the boat and fitted them in place, look v.nice indeed, quite happy about that (forgot to take a pic, doh!). Only catch is that I need to finish the bulkhead lining first before fitting them for good and getting the light fittings secured in place.

Finally today spent the whole afternoon preparing the aft deck cabinets for mat/epoxying. Filling holes, sanding, and more sanding...
I know why I don't like painting, all this endless preparation gets on my nerves!
Tomorrow it's real work day, Thursday should see all aft deck cabinets epoxied, ready to be primed and painted.
By the w/e I should have all the seats/lids for the aft cabinets and I'll be trimming the capping of the aft deck bulwarks.

For once it seems that project goes to plan

cheers

V.

 

[Robg71]

Upholstery looks great.
I have a bit you can do too
keep up the great work.

 

[jfm]

Nice going. Is the electric stapler a nice tool?

I would stick the skin fittings in totally bedded on adhesive including inside the bore. I wouldn't want a cavity where water gets into end grain. If you have to remove them it will be multi tool to remove the flange and power tool to clean out the bore of the 30 mm hole, so there is no sense in pussyfooting around. Get the adhesive into the bore IMHO!

Black tank should be ok if sitting on smooth hull ply, and not sitting on any edge. Otherwise you'll have so make a ply pad. I would fasten it using wood battens to stop it sliding, plus webbing belt with cam locks or friction buckles to stop it lifting. Fwiw mine are fixed with s/s flexible bands maybe 20x1mm with tensioner screws, as used for fuel tanks, but I see no reason why that is necessary. Simple 30 mm webbing plus friction buckles should be fine IMHO

 

[KevB]

Great progress Vas. From the comfy of my chair it looks like you're almost at the stage where everything suddenly starts coming together. You have amazing dedication to the project.

 

[symondo]

love build threads

the work people never see which is the basis of forming a magic end product always tells a good story. Looking forward to seeing the shiny bits going in

its motivated me to just roll the sleeves up and get on with our own (much smaller) project.

 

[vas]

Upholstery looks great.
I have a bit you can do too
keep up the great work.

yes, by the time I'll finish MiToS I'll be an expert upholsterer and you're going to take advantage of it

Nice going. Is the electric stapler a nice tool?

I would stick the skin fittings in totally bedded on adhesive including inside the bore. I wouldn't want a cavity where water gets into end grain. If you have to remove them it will be multi tool to remove the flange and power tool to clean out the bore of the 30 mm hole, so there is no sense in pussyfooting around. Get the adhesive into the bore IMHO!

Black tank should be ok if sitting on smooth hull ply, and not sitting on any edge. Otherwise you'll have so make a ply pad. I would fasten it using wood battens to stop it sliding, plus webbing belt with cam locks or friction buckles to stop it lifting. Fwiw mine are fixed with s/s flexible bands maybe 20x1mm with tensioner screws, as used for fuel tanks, but I see no reason why that is necessary. Simple 30 mm webbing plus friction buckles should be fine IMHO

el.stapler is a not so cheap Skill (was told that it's a cheap offspring of bosch or something like that), works nicely, light and accurate, powerful enough to drive ss staples 8mm into 12/15mm marine ply. Only problem I realized (but I have to check if others are better in this respect) is the distance it staples from a corner. Mine is around 6-8mm and in certain cases that's unacceptable. Ideally I'd like something capable of stapling 3mm from the butt joint. After the first upholstery pieces I did today (too knackered now to post pics, will do tomorrow) I realized I wasn't doing it as the pros do. Searching about the cabins (I'd left on purpose pieces of the old upholstery still on....) I noticed that on a bulkhead for example, the top staples DONT go on the bulkhead itself but turn 90deg and are done on the butting surface facing up. Thought that this way upholstery wont stretch properly, but because you then slide and force in place the ceiling sections it all stretches nicely. So will follow this approach tomorrow onwards

J, regarding skin fittings when you say adhesive, you mean Sika and not epoxy. It would be cheaper and easier for me to bed all skin fittings with thickened epoxy but I guess lack of elasticity between the two rather different materials is not good. Found two tubes of Sika 221, I guess wont cut it.

Black tank is currently empty and sitting on the 25mm edges of the main hull frames Yes, I'll get a nice smooth floor out of 12mm ply for it. Yesterday was next to a big lorry on a set of traffic lights and realized that they hold their massive diesel tanks with metal straps (around the dims you mention on your tanks). We do have a decent truck shop in town, I'll have a look, else webbing belt with steel eyes which will probably rust quite soon...
Thanks!

Great progress Vas. From the comfy of my chair it looks like you're almost at the stage where everything suddenly starts coming together. You have amazing dedication to the project.

True, that's the point and it makes it more enjoyable and rewarding.

love build threads

the work people never see which is the basis of forming a magic end product always tells a good story. Looking forward to seeing the shiny bits going in

its motivated me to just roll the sleeves up and get on with our own (much smaller) project.

glad to hear, that's on of the purposes of this thread

cheers

V.

 

[jfm]

Ah ok. I think I understand what you mean about "turn 90 deg". FWIW, on my boat it isn't done like that. Where there is a cloth-covered bulkhead and an abutting upholstered ceiling panel, the cloth just continues up on the face of the bulkhead into the ceiling void. I mean, the bulkhead generally rises up beyond the plane of the ceiling panel, and the cloth on the bulkhead simply goes right up the face bulkhead into the ceiling void. Then they attach a wood batten 20x20 or whatever to the face of the bulkhead, sandwiching the cloth. Then they attach the ceiling plywood panel to the lower soffit face of that batten. So the cloth that covers the bulkhead doesn't turn any corner or need any special treatment. Hard to describe; hope that makes sense

Interesting to hear the elec stapler wont go loser than 8mm to an edge if there's a corner and an obstruction. I've done loads of upholstery when I used to bodge/make boats (before the age of digi photography so don't ask for any pics!) and would find that quite a PITA. Still, you could just buy a manual stapler for the times when you need 3mm not 8.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to seeing an outside photo of MiToS all painted

 

[vas]

apologies for the late update, didn't realize it was 10days from previous one!

Bow cabin bulkheads and various pieces of upholstery are done, 3mm alloy sandwich is in place around the portlights on both sides and as far as I'm concerned, it's done for now. Tomorrow I'm picking 24sqm of 50mm mineral wool to stuff on the ceiling before fitting the ceiling ply panels that are almost finished.
At some point (hopefully before the end of April) I'll come back with a support means for the slanted trapezoid panels that slope down from the ceiling to the sidedeck ceiling. I need them fit in place as the BMS controller is going to be on it as well as one of the GMI10s kindly donated to MiToS project by JFM (to be used as an anchor alarm and black water tank level gauge - and surely a few more things I'll come up on the way...)
Various pics:

An interesting afternoon was spent head scratching and trying to figure out the least waste method of cutting all the alloy panels I want out of 3 sheets 1.25X3.20m
Conclusion is that they wont fit, so need to order an extra one (at least) as I've decided to use this material on a few other spots.

the other pieces not cut in 6mm ply (but sketched on an offcut ):

Another detail worth mentioning was the folding of the alloy sheet in order to wrap around the iroko frame and out towards the bowmost portlights. Having a decent detail meant I had to mark accurately the cut and using a 90deg router tip remove enough material to get a clean right angle fold. Worked v.well indeed.

Anyway after upholstering a few panels twice, I got the hang of it and I'm (imho) reasonably good at it
Detailing looks v.good, not perfect but definitely passable, so I'm happy.
Even the worksurface was finally spray painted/lacquered by George and carefully secured in place yesterday. Bed ply base is also in place. Wonder if I should drill any holes for vent/reducing condensation etc, but will leave it for later.

Looks more like a proper cabin now:

and the worksurface in place:

Mind this long strip over the worksurface was a pig to do, as it was originally test fit with screws straight through to the frames mounted spacers. Obviously couldn't be done like that so had to spend a good 3h cutting/fitting/bolting stubs at the back visible in the next pic that would enable securing it in place after being fully upholstered.

In the meantime George added two thin strips of iroko on the tip of the bow from deck to the first chine and smoothed it properly test fitting the bow roller and getting everything right. Quite happy with that, means that no more work (other than sanding) on the bow, so scaffolding moved to the transom and the port corner was treated today to a good cleanup. Water ingress had damaged the top/hawsehole area which was removed, scarfs made and ready to cut and fit a new transom panel.

Interesting detail re ply thickness:

hull below w/l ==15mm
hull above w/l ==12mm
transom above w/l ==18mm
decks == 12mm
dunno transom below w/l thickess though and not drilling holes yet, although I got to drill 3 holes for the u/w lights, so i'll measure it then.


Also applied a light mat with epoxy inside the aft deck cabinet and on the one side of the removable rear panel there. Too busy with other jobs to get on with that, so will wait a while.

will try to get next update sooner rather than later. Currently sealing hull at the two heads and port cabin and will do some upholstering in that cabin tomorrow.

cheers

V.

 

[vas]

Still, you could just buy a manual stapler for the times when you need 3mm not 8.

John,

that's what I did and I'm basically doing all bulkhead upholstering with the manual stapler
Use the el one for the loose pieces and all the ceiling panels.

cheers

V.

 

[rafiki_]

Great progress again Vas, she really is starting to come together. It must be great for you to see this.

 

[MarieK]

Great update - portholes turned out very well

 

[wakeup]

Great progress Vas. It looks like you are aiming for a retro-modern feel with the interior and certainly seem to be achieving it. Can't wait to see more photos as you progress with the furniture etc. How are the showers going, I think you had started the mosaic tiling quite a while ago?

 

[jfm]

Great going Vas. We are all on edge of our seats now waiting to see pictures of a whole cabin fitted out and that kind of thing! What you are doing there looks really really nice

Ref those upholstered panels, don't forget that 3M dual lock often makes for an easy fitting method. Lots of panels on my boat are done with this. Have you tried some? I can mail you a metre next week if you want to try it (I have rolls on the boat and I am on board tomorrow)

You asked above about adhesive for hull fittings. Yes I meant polyurethane adhesive like Sikaflex, not epoxy. I think you need the flexibility of the polyurethane, as you say - epoxy might be too stiff. The normal Polyurethanes used in boatbuilding are Sika 291 and 3M 3200. I just had a quick look at the spec sheets and tbh Sika 221 seems to be very similar to 291, except it has slower cure time and is aimed at the building trade rather than marine. But it's still a thick polyurethane and if you are installing seacocks etc I'm sure you don't care if the tack free cure time is 24 hours rather than 2 hours, or whatever, so you might as well save yourself e50 and use the 221. Its shelf life is quoted as 12 mths

 

[Firefly625]

Great pics, always like seeing your next instalment!

just staggering the amount of work you have done....and got to do. Vas, I take my hat off to you. :encouragement:

 

[Robg71]

top job, starting to really come together there..
:encouragement:

 

[KevB]

"Bed ply base is also in place. Wonder if I should drill any holes for vent/reducing condensation etc, but will leave it for later."

I would recommend drilling holes, it's something I need to do. I've tried the 'special' matting but still amazed at how much condensation I get under the mattress. What probably doesn't help on my boat is the fresh water tank being located under the bed.

As usual vas, you've made amazing progress.

 

[RIN]

There's going to be a big hole in my life when you have finished this project Vas. I just went back to look at the original posts today. I wonder how far you have had to change from the rough plan on your first post?

 

[MapisM]

I would recommend drilling holes

+1.
Unless you're planning to use those low profile supports specifically made for keeping the mattress slightly raised.
Actually, I have no 1st hand experience on them, but I heard some enthusiastic feedbacks.

Oh, and of course +1 also on the congratulations on the progress made!
Do tell, you don't want Robg71 to launch his boat before yours, do you?