Square Meter: Varnish on the top sides

The mahogany planking on the topsides is in fine shape with the exception of two planks that had some rot.  We replaced these and did our best at spot staining to bring them close to the old mahogany color.  At this point we sanded up to 220, blew everything off and started varnishing.
Here are some photos:

Before we got to varnish the house, we added 6oz glass set in epoxy.  This stiffened it up and stopped what would have been a leaky roof.

Ready to go. We dropped the straps before varnish.
The hull is balanced on it's keel with steel angles holding the boat upright.

The hull is getting a light staining above the waterline.
In this photo the new biaxial glass skin is visible. From the waterline down, we added layers of glass set in epoxy.
The boat will most likely be used for a month each summer, so this was the route the owners decided on.

Before and after the first coat of varnish.

Square Meter: Non skid deck

The original canvas deck was rotted but still intact when we started the reconstruction of this boat.  The decision was made to move to dynel set in epoxy.  It has the same fabric type texture but creates a watertight and structural skin that painted canvas can't match.

A toe rail will be added over the seam. You can see the texture in this closeup.

As you saturate the dynel with epoxy, it continues to absorb it for a while and swells a bit.  This brings the texture back to the surface and provides the non skid attribute.
Here are some photos:

After the epoxy firms up but before it is hard, it is easy to trim the cloth with a razor.

Square Meter: Rudder Fairing

After the rudder was trimmed to shape,  we sanded the surface in order to prep for fairing.  The vacuuming really gets the cloth tight to the tangs.  It is showing its ribs like a starving dog.

To smooth things out we will be adding epoxy thickened with colloidal silica and then outer coatings will be with epoxy thickened with West Systems low density fairing compound (#407) to ease sanding.

On other rudder rebuilds, we have used some foam with many layers of glass cloth to get the strength up.  This doubled over heavy carbon cloth feels as stiff as 1/4 inch steel plate, so glass cloth is unneeded. All we have to do is build up a fair surface.

 

Square Meter: Rebuilding the Rudder

The original rudder was fortunately with the boat.  This allowed us to fabricate a copy faithful to the original design.
To do this we had a 1 inch steel shaft cut to length and had 5 tangs welded on.
After we received this we were ready to vacuum bag on carbon cloth.  Once the cloth became rigid, we cut it to shape and over the next few days we will sand and add fairing to make a nice foil shape.
Here are photos to date...

The original wood and steel rudder is visible off to the right.