Glassing the interior

This is what was I was working on over the last month. We call it the Bump Out. I removed 2 sets of double windows on the south west end of our sun room and pushed part of the wall out 18" so we could make the TV look built-in and have storage for Vicky's knitting supplies and a small cubby for Poppy to sleep in.

Back to Unicorn!

I put 8oz cloth (also called 8oz woven roving) on the entire interior surface of the hull to stiffen it and to make the interior more durable. As I mentioned in my previous post, this is the "expensive" cloth, but I STILL had problems with bubbles. They are less visible in this thicker cloth but what a PIA.
Even with the thick cloth, the hull construction is clearly visible which was intended.

I also started working on the rudder assembly and drive system. It turns out that my initial (apparent) success in drilling the drive shaft hole straight was not so successful afterall. If you look really closely at the picture showing the whole interior, you'll notice that the rudder post is ever so slightly off center in the keelson (the oak wood strip). The Rudder post is on centerline of the hull, but the oak strip is not! The oak strip is slightly towards the starboard side of the hull and the inside end of the driveshaft is on the centerline of the oak strip. This means the driveshaft is not aligned with the hull centerline! Argh...!
I measured and measured and photographed and measured more and it looks like it is about 1.2 degrees off angle. This may seem like a little, but it meant that the plastic stuffing box that I glued and screwed on months ago lined with the outer hole but was not coaxial up with the shaft hole. I had to smash it to get it off and am in the process of fitting another one in its place.
The remains of the bedding compound that held the "old" stuffing box in place.

The next post should show the steering assembly and the drive assembly. I decided to build those up first and then fit the other interior bits around them.






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