August 14th

No interesting photos.

Keel bolted on again after final welding and grinding.  Used up about 70 3.2mm welding rods doing skip welds in different directions to try to reduce built in stress from weld shrinkage as well as clamping onto thick steel under mounting plate to try to hold it straight. ( my welding has improved with a bit of practice) Even with all my efforts there is still a deformation from flat which I will correct with epoxy before the final mount.  The steelwork was delivered to the sandblaster/zinc sprayer operation on the island today for collection on Wednesday. (tomorrow is a public holiday).  Took the opportunity while Nuts is upside down again to give the bottom a sand and 2nd coat of epoxy primer.  I plan to mount the keel on the hull again once zinc sprayed (not possible to get it hot dip galvanised) and fill the gap with epoxy once it is all aligned up properly. It might be possible to pull the steel flat onto the hull with the bolts but would require a lot of pressure.  I will put a plastic release tape on the hull and hope that the epoxy just sticks to the keel.  Once the keel is removed once again there should be a bead of epoxy all around the edge of the mounting plate where there were gaps which just need to be filled in for the perfect? fit.

 10th August

Nice weather day so back to painting house and garden work. Did manage some Nuts work later in the day.

Spent some hours grinding the leading and trailing edge of the keel plate then set it up on my jig and welded the fin to the mounting plate.  I had prebent the mounting plate yesterday and marked and drilled for the bolts and prefitted.

Happy with the fit.  It is all nice and straight and vertical and the bolts still slide in nicely.  There is some distortion on the keel mounting plate from weld shrinkage but that  was expected.

Only one root weld bead done so far.  I ground the 12mm plate at 45 degrees  each side to get complete penetration.  I guess another 2  passes each side to get the specified thickness.  This is a photo of a nice weld - you dont want to see some of the others I did.  Just as well I have a grinder to get rid of bad welds.  Was a good welder 30 years ago but lacking practice.😐

 August 8th

Filled keel bolt holes with second coat of epoxy after a quick sand in the holes.  Then did some keel plate grinding till I used up all my discs.  Still lots to do. Doing the grinding at a different location to spare the neighbours the noise.

Then turned nuts upside down again.

bow pulleys

Stern pulleys

45 degrees

90 degrees

Hope I never sail at this angle

Upside down again.

Keel bolt holes ready for cleaning up after epoxy filling.  Bolts have a nice snug fit now.  Next job is to mark and drill keel mounting plate and prefit before welding.

 7th August

Did fillets in bow section and fitted oak mast compression post which still needs to be glued in.

Drilled through the hull for keel bolts.  Bolts are 12mm diameter and drilled 13mm holes.  I lifted the boat up a bit to get access to the underneath.  I put my finger over the hole on the outside and Mrs Nuts poured epoxy into the hole till full and waited a bit for the epoxy to soak in and then dumped the epoxy into a plastic cup and moved on to the next hole.  This way the inside of the holes will get a good saturation of epoxy.  Going to do this twice before turning the boat upside down again for marking the keel holes onto the steel plate.  Planning to do some tack welds on the keel and fit it to the upside down hull to check all is good before doing the big weld. (without the lead)

 5thAugust

Did some bits on Nuts today.

Glued in the fwd keel bearer.  It does not have countersinks for the nuts as there is no floor resting on the bearer in this compartment. Next work session this compartment will get fillets.

Cleaned up and put fillets on the other keel bearers.  Fillets are of a stronger mix with less than 1/3 of glass beads and a bigger radius.  

Also made up supports for the keel mounting plate to the correct hull profile for welding jig.  All marked and ready for grinding and cutting session.  My keel mounting plate is going to be 6mm thick instead of 5mm as specified. I could buy an offcut of 6mm steel plate but would have to buy 1.5m x1.5m square sheet of 5mm at 90 euros+ per m2 plus vat!!  The other steel supplier on the island would also only sell a half sheet and  that size was 1.25m + 1.25m and would mean I would have a huge offcut and also have to weld on 50mm to make up the 1.3m strip. The extra weight is 2.04kg so not a huge problem and it is in the right place. Also hopefully a bit less distortion from weld shrinkage.  

 August 3 

Glued aft 2 keel bearers this morning then spent day painting our house.  After dinner this evening glued another 2 bearers.  One more to go forward of the bulkhead maybe on Saturday as have lots to do tomorrow.

 1st August

Been going for about 7 weeks so far but slowing down.  Got lots of other work to do so limiting Nuts time to late afternoons and evenings.  Big house painting day today so only a few hours in the bow of Nuts

Sanded glue joints in bow in preperation of making smoothing fillets and also planed and marked fwd keel bearer.  Just need to cut/chisel ends and make to fit then drill for keel bolts. Dremmel sander is great for smoothing tight corners.

My sisters patio is finished and she has donated 2 small hatches as a thanks. 😘  My recently acquired AIS is working a treat  and can follow passing ships and the local whale watching fleet.  Just need to get all the registration and MMSI number programmed to check the transmission. April/ May (2024) launch date is still on the cards.

Going fishing tomorrow so dont expect much progress!!