BUILDING FRAME - Epoxy glued and bolted the building frame together. Glued in some additional cross members and chipboard gussets to stop twisting and racking.

Intend to level frame up by adding some 50mm high 4x2 legs. This will give a reasonable working height of approximately one metre from the ground to the top of the keel.

DECK MOULDS - Started cutting and polishing the foredeck mould, got around a 1/4 of it done before getting back into the building frame.

BUILDING FRAME - Squared the frame up and screwed chipboard gussets into the ends to stop it moving. Have also coach bolted the ends to really stop it moving. Cut out a couple of "ladder rungs" for the middle to stop bowing. Will hopefully dry fit everything tonight and then epoxy glue it in place. Have borrowed some clamps, spirit levels, and a builders dumpy (theodolite) level to line up the frames, hopefully, on the weekend. Many thanks to Bob Vernon for the tools.

DECK MOULDS - Sanded back entire mould surface working down from 120 grit paper, to 400, than 600 grit paper. Test polised a small area, and left rest to complete curing over night.

BUILDING FRAME - Picked up some 250 x 50 mm kiln dried Pine for the hull building frame. Have tack nailed it together, and will screw and glue it together tomorrow when we can level it in its final position in the garage. Far end is 1200mm apart (to stop mould rocking) and 400 mm at small end to keep it under the mould and out of the way. Total length of frame around 4300mm, or about 50mm longer than the final hull.

TIP OF THE DAY - When picking the timber choose something really straight, with enough grunt to stop the frame bending as this will affect the rocker of the final hull. Never trust your garage floor, the beams in this picture are 1 inch off the floor at the camera end. Legs will be fitted to ensure the frame is level in the garage and the frame will not be moved again until the hull mould is complete.

DECK MOULDS - Sanded back Duratec using an 80 grit paper, found a few low areas (see picture) that needed a bit more of a build up. Tried a small 80mm mohair roller and it definitely gives a much better surface to sand back against. Spot painted foredeck and left to dry.

TIP OF THE DAY - Sanding with a pair of the latext glove we when painting etc stops the finger tips wearing out quite so much.

DECK MOULDS - Test sanded a small area in the morning before going to work, looks like it will sand back and polish up really well as the coating is now really good.

HULL MOULD - Collected another 15 odd sheets of Chipboard for building the hull mould. This stuff is HEAVY, had to chuck some more air in the trailer tires and jack the drawbar up to get the trailer off the car at home. Also brought 2 more sheets of plywood for sheaving the hull mould. This time have a 3mm Hoop Pine instead of Meranti which should take the bending a lot better.

No more work on the boat tonight as we are writing another article for Sailing New Zealand.

DECK MOULDS - Got two pretty heavy layers of Duratec sanding primer on the foredeck and side-deck moulds. Applied the Duratec by brush and roller (until the roller spat the dummy and fell to bits). Ideally Duratec should be sprayed on as it achieves a smoother finish quickly, but without the spray gear a brush was the next best. Will have a bit of sanding to get out the brush marks, but a quick test showed that it should sand nicely. The moulds are now a battleship grey colour, sort of reminds me of my last job...

Part of our reason to work on the deck moulds first is to make all our mistakes on the less sensitive areas before we start dealing with the hull. We might try and borrow some spray gear when it comes time to Duratec the hull mould.

DECK MOULDS - After lots of longboarding yesterday, and another coat of bog, and sanding tonight the decks are looking pretty close to being ready. Next step is for coating with a sanding primer, and then sanding back, cutting and polishing. Hope to stick on some Duratec (sanding primer) tonight if I can only figure out how to open the tin...

Planning for the Hull Mould is progressing, Unitec have the frame plans and are re-formatting them for CNC cutting. We have another supply of chipboard coming this week so hopefully should get the hull frames cut ready for assembly this weekend.

Decided that the garage was a little lacking in light, 2 x 150 watt bulbs were replaced with 4 sets of twin 5ft flouro tubes. The light difference is amazing, with some irrigation we could grow a pretty effective cash crop after the project is finished. Thanks to Javelin sailor and electrician John Wilson Electrical for the wiring efforts.

DECK MOULDS - Made up a couple of ice cream containers of Polyester Resin and Dera Lite fairing powder to make a bog to smooth out the mould surfaces. Used a slightly higher 3-4% MEKP catalyst ratio to allow for the powder and get the bog hard enough for sanding later in the afternoon.

2 hours later - Started sanding off the Bog using a Sureform Rasp, seems to cut it back pretty quickly.

DECK MOULDS - Primed the timber mould surfaces with a Styrene/Cobalt mixture to give greater adhesion to the polyester resin. Layed a single layer of 450g Chopped Strand Matt on the Foredeck and Sidedeck moulds with Polyester Resin. This soaked up a lot of resin, probably around 6 litres for 5 square metres of deck area.

As for the rest of the day, in the early afternoon we were showing a prospective Javelin Owner a few of the excellent second hand boats we have in Auckland ($3500 - $4500 range). At evening went out for dinner, and found that I brought my first Javelin of one of the guests uncles, small world...

Rang around and found some good sources of material for the moulds and hull laminate, will pick some stuff up today.

No progress on the boats tonight, went to the International Comedy Festival instead. If you Aussies think Steve Irwin (the most well known Australian in the world) is funny, you want to see a Pom taking the piss out of him on stage...

FOREDECK MOULD - Removed around 400 staples, and 50 screws from the foredeck mould. The Epoxy glue set well, apart from a couple of small areas where the ply sprung back a bit. Bogged all screw and staples holes, glued down the "sprung" areas. Mould should be ready to sand tonight, and hopefully glass and bog later in the week when I can get the materials.

SIDEDECK MOULD - Re-bogged some areas where the glue attaching the Mast section has sagged. This mould should also be ready for glassing and bogging this week.

Pricing out some Polyester Resin, and chop mat for sheaving the mould surfaces.Trying to decide on the curvature in the false floor. The aim is to have enough curvature to get water out of the boat quickly, but not too much so that you are climbing the floor during roll tacks. Currently looking at around a 5 degrees rise from the centre on each side.

FOREDECK MOULD - Planed and faired up stringers. Tortured some 4mm ply over the stringer mould, this was glued down with epoxy glue, and held while drying with some grunty 2 inch screws and lots of staples.

NOTE: Photo updates will appear later this week, someone else has borrowed the Digital Camera.

FOREDECK MOULD - Epiglue still a bit rubbery, so left the mould alone for a while.

SIDEDECK MOULD - Started building a sidedeck mould, used a piece of broken 63mm mast tube to get a fair curve along the inside edge where the top of the deck transitions into the vertical section. Mould was made using 6 x 16mm chipboard frames built into a solid box. These had a 63mm hole bored in them to align the mast section. Frames were then cut to final shape. The top and inside surfaces of the mould were bevelled to fit around the tube, and the gaps were filled with some spare HT9000 resin and bog powder.

Did a bit more shopping in the morning, more screws, some heavy duty staples, and picked up some old stools from the Navy Yacht Club for "Saw Horses".

FOREDECK MOULD - Not much progress last night, had a friend round for dinner, so worked on increasing my sailing weight with some Pizza for Wellingtons windy conditions.

Got the final stringers onto the mould. Have borrowed a second 12V cordless drill, keyless chuck, 20 torque settings, life is sweet again, I love power tools...

FOREDECK MOULD - Cut 9 frames out of 16mm Chipboard, and screwed them to another sheet of chipboard as a base. Have attached about 1/2 the stringers so far. Stringers are 15mm square Redwood, and will be spaced appoximately 70-100mm apart across the mould. Stringers are screwed in place for now, but will be eased off and glued down after they have been fitted.

TIP OF THE DAY: Make sure you have lots of cordless drills. Changing drill bits, countersink bits and screwdriver bits with one drill is a complete waste of time. New drills arriving soon.

Purchased 4 sheets of 3.6mm Meranti plywood for sheaving the moulds. Might not quite be enough, but the supplier is within visual distance of home. Running out of screws fast.