Hey everyone, I'm sorry I have been so absent on here! I wanted to give everyone an update.
Our summer has not gone as planned, a couple unplanned surgeries really put a damper on progress. That being said, there are lots of projects underway at the shop. We are building some 17's and 14's as well as doing some off-season maintenance to some older boats. The real purpose of this thread is to keep you all updated on the progress of the rebirth of the 21SC, so here goes an update...
The hull and deck were built, and the deck was set aside since it would not be needed for a while. Templates were then made for bulkheads below the cockpit sole; the bulkheads were made and then glassed in to the hull every two feet. Next, we glassed in longitudinal stringers. From there, the next big hurdle was a cockpit sole. We built a mold for a cockpit sole, and it is a huge mold to move around the shop; it is about 8 feet wide and 25 feet long. We then infused the first cockpit sole from that mold. Since the cockpit sole will be supported every two feet, it didn't need to be cored, but since we overbuild everything, we cored the entire cockpit sole. The sole has not been glassed into the hull yet, but will be in the next couple weeks. We then moved on to the decoy shelves. The molds for these were terrible and needed to be ground down and completely resurfaced. Once we made a pair of shelves, we were able to make templates of the foam boxes to be mounted below the shelves. We then made plugs and then molds for the foam boxes. Once we made the first set of foam boxes, we moved on to the console. The console mold is actually in great shape like the hull and deck molds, but holy cow its heavy. Just this week, we ground down the edges of the hull and deck to do a test fit, and to check the fit of the blind templates. The only parts that we have left to make are the ring-frames to go at the fore and aft ends of the cockpit. Other than that, lots of rigging and assembly are what we have left.
It has been a learning process for sure, and it is certainly not over yet. We can't wait to build the next one, when we can focus on just the parts and not the molds. I will try to do a better job of keeping you all updated!