Crossbeam Hinge Saga continued

Things are coming together nicely on the crossbeam hinges. I'm super thankful for my friend, Jim Ellis, at Credence Engineering for offering to do all this for me at no cost. He's put a lot into this and I just can't appreciate it enough! So I'm doing some of the manual cleanup of these parts with files and a buffing wheel. Also made this wood block (in pic) so that the pieces can be clamped together square and then welded. Still got a few hours of work left before Jim's ready to weld the pieces. Seeing it all come together, I'm certain this is going to be a solid hinge and will be worth it's weight in gold when transporting Shan Skailyn.

Folding iako hinge in the making

My friend emailed me these photos today of the hinge parts having been cut. Awesome! Can you guess what these were cut with? W A T E R ! ! Yeah, these were cut out of 1/8" stainless steel with a water jet!

Folding iakos (crossbeam) hinges

I worked together with a machinist friend of mine to design this hinge for a folding iakos conversion. Obviously the design originated with Gary Dierking's as seen on his Va'a Motu. Thought we'd beef it up a bit and make it a complete box construction. Not sure when they'll be ready, but I'm quite excited to see the real thing and get it installed on Shan Skailyn!

Boom Jaws and Varnish

OK... Whew! I can rest now knowing that Shan Skailyn's bamboo spars have at least one coat of varnish on them before I leave them sitting there for 6 months.
Also, here are the pix of the boom jaws which are now complete other than a few holes for lashing the sail and downhaul, etc.

Bamboo mast / luff spar

Interspersed with some other 'chores' in preparation for our return to the US, I managed to squeeze in a bit of time today on Shan Skailyn's spars. The rig is going to be a stub mast configuration. The stub mast is solid wood, and the other spars are bamboo. I've been hoping to get at least one coat of varnish on the spars before leaving them so the bugs don't eat them while we're away.
Today, I glued up the boom jaws (pix forthcoming - probably after boom jaws completed) and I also put some finishing touches on the luff spar. Since I want to be able to drop the whole thing at a moment's notice if things get hairy, I wanted some kind of quick releasing joint/mast step. I got this idea somewhere online... I think Gary D. mentioned it somewhere on his blog. Here you see the step assembly all together. Gary mentioned that this was the original universal joint that windsurfers used to use. The rope that passes through the step (located at deck level) will be tied off on a cleat (or maybe even a cam cleat for quicker release potential). Then the other side of the rope will have a loop tied in it, both to keep it from pulling through the mast base and also to secure the boom downhaul to. In this setup the mast base pivots freely in it's little socket joint / step. The luff spar is held upright by a halyard running through the top of the stub mast.
Today, besides gluing up the boom jaws, I applied the fiberglass wraps around the ends of the luff spar to help prevent splitting. I also had to doctor up a split about four fifths of the way up. I think it must have split when it was originally cut and fell. The split was there when my friend brought it up. This was such a nice piece of bamboo compared to the others I had available to me that I decided to take a chance and try to fix it. So today I pried the split open a bit, loaded it with thickened epoxy, even used a hypodermic needle to inject epoxy into the narrower parts. I then covered the split with a piece of fiberglass (see pic). I'm sure hoping this will hold up well for me. Anyone out there ever tried repairing a split in bamboo before? Any luck? I'd love to get your input. I'm wondering if I should also put several full wraps of fiberglass on there too, or was what I did enough?

Tadaa... Finished paint job

Our family took this whole week off after Christmas... well mostly off. Still had some little work things that came up but all in all it was a decent week off. So I managed to get Shan Skailyn's hull, iakos and ama completely painted! The paint job is finally done!!! That was a huge job!
So check it out! Shan Skailyn in all her slightly gaudy, painted glory! Our two older girls and some visiting friends were quite excited to play with 'Rusty' the tree kangaroo in the boat.

Even though I just used exterior acrylic paint, I'm thinking that with the 4 coats of primer and at least 3 top coats (the red needed more to keep the primer from showing through) that the paint job ought to hold up a good long time. I sanded in between all the primer coats (not the top coats) which helped produce a nice smooth finish overall.
One little tip for any other would be boat painters out there. If you're not using masking tape and still wanting some fairly clean lines in your paint job, use a little edge painter like the one I used. I actually had masking tape but on the pieces I tested it on it just was leaving a ton of hard to remove junk and the adhesive was just too strong. I was worried it was going to remove paint. So I first opted to hand paint the lines in using some little artist paint brushes we had on hand. S-L-O-W! Also, the lines were still too ragged for my taste. That's when I rummaged through my supply cabinet and found that I had this little edge painter. It's just a flat pad, with lots of short, soft bristles and a little grip on the backside. It's made for painting right up into corners with no mess and no masking. I decided to try it and was blown away by how smoothly it lays down paint... no bubbles, hardly any streaks... just smooth. It also makes it so much easier to paint a nice clean straight edge. Everything about this little device really made it the perfect applicator for the whole paint job (except for filleted corners). So I used it for everything once I discovered I had it. Can I say again that this thing laid down a super clear coat? Better than any roller or paintbrush I've ever used. I think a sprayer probably would have done better, but for the low budget people, this thing is a treat! Get one for your boat!

Total weight so far

OK, so yesterday afternoon on a whim, I decided I'd weigh everything up that I have done so far... or nearly complete. Right now is probably a great point to weigh a bunch of these things since all the fiberglass is done and the first coats of paint are on and dry already. Very little weight will be added later with the exception of some little bits of hardware here and there. So without further adieu here are the weights of individual parts:
Hull fore section 22 kg
Hull mid section 24 kg
Hull aft section 21 kg
Both crossbeams 15 kg (7.5 kg/ea)
Assembled ama 14 kg
Leeboard 6.5 kg
Rudder assembly 2.5 kg
Roughed out stub mast 7 kg
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TOTAL 112 kg (246.9 lbs)