Bob has decided to retire from boat design. He will no longer sell boat plans or do any design work. Of course, he will follow through with current projects, including ours. He has told us that he is still available at any time for advice and “chin-wagging” about our build, and hopes to visit us again sometime.

Those who have been following our progress for a while will know that Bob’s visits have been a regular event. I have actually lost count of them, but a quick look back through this blog indicates at least four or five separate occasions. We did not know Bob prior to contacting him via the internet in 2003. The $6600 design fee we paid bought us much more than a set of plans. At his own expense, Bob drove to Darwin (a 7000km round trip from Hervey Bay) to supervise the first week of our build, organised a Z-press for joining the panels, and then towed the Z-press back from Darwin. He spent a week supervising the start of another 44C project in Albany, Western Australia – a round trip of 9000km. I know he provides this type of support to all his owner builders. Bob’s commitment to his designs continues throughout the build project, beyond launch of the boat, and even to subsequent owners of his boats. That is Bob’s nature; he is generous to a fault.

There are now 41 Bob Oram Designs built or being completed. So, it is not hard to imagine that, like a responsible father of many children, he now feels he has enough boats to care for and worry about. Bob plans to commence building his own 40′ Slim very soon. In a couple of years, he and his wife hope to follow in the footsteps of those whose dreams he helped fulfill, and become, in his words, “genteel poverty stricken wanderers”.

I foolishly used our glue powder (95% aerosil with 5% phenolic microballoons) in the fairing mixture used in the photo below. I sanded it immediately as it cured, but it was still incredibly hard. With the temperature at 39.3°C (103°F), it was an extremely challenging task. Now I’m using a powder comprised of approximately 50% aerosil, 25% Q-cell and 25% phenolic microballoons, which seems to be a good balance between strength, flexibility and sanding-ease. The extreme temperatures have not abated, so I’m hoping that my efforts will be rewarded with the loss of several kilograms in weight.

Normally I hold the extractor hose nozzle to the router as Tom works, but there is no way I’m going near it when the 38mm bit is attached – there’s very good reason for Tom’s hazmat look. The modification meant the standard dust extractor attachment could no longer be used, so he jury rigged one with cable ties and the guide arm. This reduced the amount of flying glass and dust by about 80%.

We wet out the triaxial tape on the deck and then lifted it into place, smoothed and rolled.

Then we rolled on peel-ply, and another curve was born.

Still it was going to be rewarding to finally be rid of this untidy unfinished edge.

The 38mm round-over bit is a huge clunk of metal, for which we have yet to find router with a large enough base plate hole diameter. Tom has been using it in a modified Ryobi router.

Unfortunately, today was the last day in the life of this Ryobi router. One metre short of the length to be routed, it gave up in a huge plume of smoke. Tom has never been particularly happy with this model, as its body flexes excessively during operation, and the depth set pole vibrates out of position. This has required many stops and adjustments in even the smallest of jobs. Tom remembered an older, heavy Makita router that he rarely uses. He performed a test cut using a smaller router bit, and found that despite its weight, it was a much nicer tool to handle. But its base plate hole was still approximately 8mm too small in diameter.

I found some stainless steel jigsaw blades at Bunnings, which Tom used to increase the diameter to accommodate the 38mm bit.

The Makita router performs like a charm. And we now have one side of the deck rounded and taped, at last.

Today they were the last pieces of paraphernalia to be attached to the forebeam. Tom prepared the undersides for bonding by sanding them with wet epoxy, before spreading the glue.

(Additional information in response to a reader comment)
This is a process recommended to us by Bob Oram and ATL Composites. The process is to apply epoxy to the aluminium surface to be bonded, and then immediately sand it whilst the epoxy is in its uncured state. This procedure resembles wet sanding with water, but substitutes epoxy for the water. The goal is to expose fresh metal, allowing it to come in contact immediately with epoxy instead of air, which can cause oxidation to begin quickly.

The shiny bits have been covered in plastic and tape to protect them whilst he worked.

Ratchet tie-down straps were used to hold them in place while the glue set.

Within two hours the glue was set and we could begin taping. A single layer of double bias was wrapped first.

A 1050mm length of 100mm wide uni-directional was folded twice to produce this 25mm strap which completely circled the forebeam twice.

Then another strap of uni-directional…

And a third strap, to completely fill the 75mm space between the two flanges of the bracket. Of course this was repeated on the other bracket. A final wrap of double bias completed the fastening. Once again, totally above and beyond what is required for the situation, but that’s Tom for you.

While they were still wet, Tom blended in the edges of the wraps by applying more glue/bog, and partially wrapping the work with another piece of 200mm wide double bias.

Not the tidiest of peel-ply jobs…

So, using a hemispherical bit in the laminate trimmer, he removed a concave section of balsa from the edges. This was to accommodate a length of PVC hose (OD 16mm) which would form the new profile.

While Tom was doing this, I threaded some second-hand 10mm rope (left over from our tarp shed days) through the two hose pieces. This would help retain the curved shape in the corners, and provide additional overall strength and rigidity.

Trial fitting below…

Trimming to size…

Piping the glue…

Don’t know what we’d do without these clamps.

Before wrapping the edges in 200mm wide 400gsm double bias tape, Tom straddled 100mm strips of 400gsm double bias tape over the glass trenches we created earlier – “so it’s as strong as the rest”. Regular readers and friends of Bob Oram would be aware that Tom is building a “Swiss watch”. More likely The Deacon’s Masterpiece I think…

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then, of a sudden, it —
…
went to pieces all at once, —
All at once, and nothing first, —
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

The storm was benign, with little wind and vertical rain only. The focus for the past few months has been to finish the forward four metres of the boat to undercoat stage, so that it will be well protected when the more horizontal rains enter the open southerly end of the shed. We are inching closer to this stage – just a few more bits of taping until we are ready to do a rough fair and then undercoat.

A single piece of regular tape was not wide enough to cover the patchwork of Duflex in these sections (both port and starboard), so Tom cut pieces of quadraxial fabric to suit.

Various bits of forebeam glassing with double bias tape…

So the catwalk grating would sit properly in the new profile created by the fillets and tapes, its bottom edge was rounded over with a 6mm round-over bit.

Port bow shaping finished below.

Port bow with first layer of double bias glass applied.

The next two photos show the second layer of double bias being applied.

Here’s a short video showing how I managed to shape the flat piece of glass fabric to match the surface.