Conall's Trawler

[Conall]

I sort of ( kind of maybe ) swore I'd sub contract this job out. At least I'm consistent in that I change my mind frequently. I had a fair price on foaming my hull, but things have not worked out how I'd planned, so in order to get a few jobs done in the engine room, without going backwards, I decided to foam the engine room and lazarette myself.

I measured both rooms as flat panels ( ignoring the framing ), and came up with 440 board feet needed to foam these two rooms. The kits come in a 600 board foot size, and while I knew I was cutting it close, I bought one kit. I'm happy ( not really) to report that I almost got it finished. I ran out of foam with one panel ( 30" x 20") to go in the lazarette. The area where I ran short is an area that would have to be re painted anyway due to having to weld the aft line of the upper cabin bulkhead when I attach the cabin to the hull.

I used a fire retardant foam, but before I sprayed the material I tested to see how fire retardant it really is. I could get the cured foam burning with my acetylene torch, but the second I took the flame off of it, the fire immediately went out. The material has to be between 70 and 90 degrees so it can be applied, so I've been running the boiler in the shop pretty hard for the last two days. I got the shop temperature up to 80 degrees, and my floor ( radiant floor heat ) is right around 100. I kept the foam back by the boiler, and I was able to get the bottles up to 90 degrees.

Now I can do the sound proofing ( still figuring that one out) and finished wall covering in the engine room so I can drop my generator in. Once the generator is in, I'll weld the access hole shut, and finishing buttoning up the engine room. Not so bad of a job, and all in all I think I did OK. I have to say that spraying foam is not near as tough a job as spraying the paint. I'm not saving much by doing it myself ( probably costing a bit more), but I feel like I'm moving forward. Two more kits will be more than enough to finish the cabins, so in a month or so, I'll spray again.

This picture was take right after I finished spraying.

Conall

[Conall]

I think it was the movie Apocalypse Now staring Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, and Martin Sheen among others. Duvall is walking along a beach in Vietnam, shells are exploding all around him and he makes the comment, " nothing I like more than the smell of Alkyd Enamel in the morning". Well, lucky for me, I have a fresh air respirator and don't have that problem so I decided to throw one more coat on the engine room floor.



I've been doing some work in the engine room prior to foaming it, and the hull has taken a beating. Now that I'm foamed in the engine room I'm ready to start the sound deadening and the sole. One of my main motivators to do this painting on this rainy Sunday was due to my 14 year old son. I got a look at my cell phone bill the other day and noticed he'd tried to sneak a few music downloads and rang up quite a nice bill. I gave him the choice of working off the bill or working off the bill, so after a brief discussion, he saw it my way. I gave him a respirator mask, a few scuff pads, the shop vac, and turned him loose in the engine room to do a manual scuffing of the old paint. Five hours later he emerged with the job looking fairly respectable. I had a gallon of Alkyd Enamel in the shop so I decided to paint the floor today. I'm happy to say that this is the last nasty job I've got to do on the boat for a while and from this point forward ( at least for a while) I get to do some assembly.

Surviveair respirator

Engine room floor 003.jpg (226.17 KiB) Viewed 414 times

[rkingsland]

Looking good Conall.
Foaming is one of that's jobs it's nice to be done, or nearly done with. Nothing terribly difficult, but the masking and clean up sure can get tedious.
The paint looks great.
And I'm with you on having your son clean up his bill. If you can get him interested in the project now, all the better.

[Conall]

Greetings all,

The engine room is pretty much sheathed and the aluminum sole in. I added 1" mineral wool boards over my foamed framing/hull, then covered all with the perforated aluminum I posted about in the "cutting metal" thread. It's pretty amazing how much the sound seems to have vanished. I know it's not the same as having my engine running, but I'm happy with things so far. There's a chain of gas stations in my part of the world that has what they call the "beer cave" in one section of the store. The beer cave is pretty much a jumbo walk in cooler, sheathed in aluminum...kind of reminds me of my engine room.

I ended up with 4'10" of headroom on the starboard side of the engine, and 5'1" on the port side. I purposefully dropped the sole on the port side as that's where I'm planning on putting a work bench and tool box. On the picture, you can see the white paint of a frame poking through the sole, where I notched the sole, by the fuel tank due to me dropping the sole elevation. I also had to notch the sole around a fuel tank drain valve in the same area.

I'm going to have some 1" trim pieces sheared to cover my seams. I was told to brake a little profile on both edges of the trim pieces to hold things straight and help tighten things up. I'm thinking maybe one sheet of 14 ga., sheared into 1" strips should give me enough to trim it out.

[nofacey]

Geez that looks nice Conall - great to see a vision come together - there's hope for me yet!

[Conall]

Thanks Norm. It is a big motivator to finally see some finishing going together. My engine room is a large space, and given that I'm a power boat, the engine room is becoming an entity all of itself. It's kind of odd how I prioritize what I'm going to do next. I don't need a work bench in my engine room to make my boat go, but I want one, so that's what I'm going to do next. I have so many projects that I have to do in ER, and I want a place to sit comfortably while I do whatever I have to do. I'm also psyched about being able to build some cabinets to start stashing away "stuff" in the ER.

Conall

[KevinMorin]

Conall, Looking good, could you tell use the alloy of the aluminum wall sheathing? I found some 3003 punch plate but wondered what alloy you've selected?

Do you have designs for all these many projects or at they "in the design locker between the ears"?

I'd be proud to make a bracket or two, maybe a mount for something if I knew how it needed to look, I can work off of fairly conceptual sketches, turn them into an agreed image of the part I'm building and make that part and send it down? If you're accepting that type of contributions? Being part of this boat would be a privilege.

Does this yacht have a name -yet?

[Conall]

Hey Kevin,

Thanks for the good words, and I'll for sure take you up on the offer of a custom made bracket or a fitting of sorts. I'll have to figure something out, but I'll let you know. You've got an NC router table right?

I don't know what the alloy of the wall sheathing is. The material is .050 thick with 3/32 holes 5/32 on centers. I thing the open space was somewhere around 32%. The 1/4" diamond plate for the sole was the scrapyard find of the year and I don't have a clue as to what alloy that is. The wall sheathing came oiled, 3x10 sheets. I got the inspiration for using it by contacting Soundown Inc. They sent me some samples of various products, and the perforated aluminum was in the sample box. Soundown anodized the material they sold a white color. Nice looking stuff, but outrageously expensive. I lease the hunting rights to my property for deer season, and one of the hunters works at a large fab shop, so I bought the material through his shop at a good price. Any shop manager would be happy with my scrap pile, but I did end up 1/2 a sheet short. I've got to get another sheet to finalize the job.

There's no design on any of my projects other than me kind of eyeballing and guessing as to what I think will work. Truth be told, I get most of my inspirations off of this forum, talking with vendors, and surfing the internet for what I think looks good. I do have to get a little more careful on doing more design as I move along on the project. My next move, I think, is going to be fuel distribution from my tanks to my engine and generator. I also need to transfer and polish fuel, so I'm actually going to try to put a pencil to some paper. I'll be wanting some advice from the forum as I start that, but that's for another day.

I've not named her yet, but I have some ideas. I've got five dogs living on my place...all strays. We've always named the dogs after they've hung around for a while once we get a feel for their personality. Ellie, Bean, Pongo, Smitty, and Coco. I'm starting to think that naming a boat might be about the same process as naming a dog. Something about her personality will strike me one day and she'll be named... well at least I hope it will work out that way.

Conall

[KevinMorin]

Conall, yes we have an NC router have you built the electrical panel distribution and AC/DC power control center and panel covers? We're a UL 508 A shop so I might be able to lend a hand there too?

Happy to help, just let me know how.