We Can Finally See It. Building a 52ft Sailboat Ourselves - Ep. 488 Ran Sailing

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:01]In last week's episode, we began building the sidewalls for the deck house.

[00:00:14]Then we prepared our small house on the farm to be a welding workshop.

[00:00:28]Each sidewall will have four windows and the process of doing all the steps was very complicated and timeconuming.

[00:00:38]It took you on two full work days to just cut all the grooves and bolt holes.

[00:01:14]Making it dustfree before filling the grooves and holes with thickened epoxy.

[00:01:36]It's the first time we will have rape seed around the farm and it's so close to being full bloom now.

[00:02:16]So, Finally, I have all the slots um for the windows cut.

[00:02:23]This whole thing has been uh been taking way longer than I first thought it would. And um yeah, I made a mistake on these two first ones here where I cut on the wrong side of the line.

[00:02:38]And because of that, I had to fill that cut um to be able to use it as a mold. Yeah, complicated. But anyway, it took way longer than I first thought. And just cutting the new slots now after I have filled the first slot with thickened epoxy has taken me yeah full day today.

[00:03:00]Over eight hours of cutting with the router. But the good thing is that now we have like a frame around all the openings or what will be the openings with thickened epoxy. All the positions of all the bolts are surrounded with thickened epoxy. So we can drill those holes without having any foam around the holes if there will be any leaks in the future.

[00:03:27]I also have made the cutting files for the stainless steel frames that will uh hold the window panels in later on. And the holes in those corresponds to the holes that we'll have uh in these uh yeah epoxy fillets that we have here.

[00:03:45]So, a lot of prep work, but it's a lot easier to do it now down here on the table than later on when we have everything up there. And that's why I wanted to have the window frames already built in. Uh so not a lot of visual progress, but it's a lot of work behind this. Uh so next step will be to um yeah send away some excess epoxy and uh start laminating yeah the styles and the rails if you can call it that the areas in between uh the openings and down here and up here. uh because down here in the slots now uh I will also make a laminate at the bottom and then later on once that is cure I will come back and cut that.

[00:04:37]So we'll have a co-planer resting area for the window panel. So, lots of different steps to arrive with the finished panel with laminate and the builtin yeah window um frame I'm filling up all the raised beds in the kitchen here in the kitchen garden.

[00:05:38]I just got some burnt cow manure from our neighbors. This is what I've used uh every year here in the kitchen garden and it works really good.

[00:05:53]Then I have pre-oed kale, uh, Brussels sprouts, a uh, leak.

[00:06:17]This is kale from last year.

[00:06:21]still growing.

[00:06:23]All of these I'm going to add in the bottom of a sink bathtub that I found secondhand and I'm going to plant a lot of flowers in it. So, this will be great to fill up so you don't have to fill the whole thing with h soil.

[00:07:46]So, Most of the prep work is done now.

[00:07:48]So I can start laminating today. And the plan is to use unidirectional carbon fiber in this direction down here and up here and in this direction on the yeah what should you call it the post in between the windows.

[00:08:04]Um and then on top of that I will have a bax cloth just normal bax uh fiberglass uh to help with torsion movements. uh and the carbon will be just to because these are quite thin and I want this whole structure to be as stiff as possible so that there is not a lot of movement in it because we have these big window panels in here. Um and yeah, of course I don't want to have movement because that will affect the glass. Um, so using carbon is just a way to get this whole panel to be a lot stiffer.

[00:08:49]So three layers of uh unidirectional carbon fiber on either side, but for now I will only apply it on the outside. And then we will lift these two up on the boat and mount them in the correct curve. Maybe we need to cut some curve cuts in these posts uh on the inside because I want to have most of the bending in these posts so that the actual um area where the window sits is less affected by the curve.

[00:09:24]And then once we have the curve set and the panels installed on the boat, we will start laminating the inside to lock that curve in. Yeah. And hopefully this will be a bit easier than to make a big mold for this uh because we already have the actual curve on the combing. Uh so we'll use that as a guide when we mount these. And I hope that this will be a lot easier than to make 5 m long molds with the correct curve and do both laminations in one go. And I forgot I also need to get um a laminate down here in this groove at the bottom. And then once we have all the lamination done on the top side or the outside, we'll come back with the router, the shaper, and cut all the holes for the bolts and cut out the window panels. So that's why I've left all the domino tape. So we still have the digital cutting file attached to this. Uh so we can come back and make the cutting after we have the lamination in place. So one thing that is really important now is that this tape doesn't move because then I will have a problem coming back with the router later on.

[00:11:20]It's a Thin fiberglass strips goes into the groove to reinforce the window frame lip.

[00:13:17]Are you Heat. Heat. N.

[00:14:34]Another big lamination job. This took 7 hours.

[00:15:09]So, it's Monday rain, gray skies, but that's okay because I'm going to work all day out here today cutting these. Uh, everything has cured now over the weekend and there is lots of cutting to be made here now. And I hope that the tape has stayed in place. It looks like it, so I'm not too worried. Uh, and I'm thinking I will start cutting the groove.

[00:15:39]uh to get the future resting area for the yeah for the windows. Yeah. Or maybe I start with the bolt holes. But either way, there's lots of cutting to be done here. So, this is probably going to take me the whole day.

[00:16:01]To cut out the holes for the windows, there are five different steps. First round with the CNC shaper is cutting the bolt holes.

[00:16:11]The next one is cutting the groove for the sidewall in the recess.

[00:16:16]Third step is cutting the floor for the lip.

[00:16:20]And number four and five are two rounds with the CNC at different depths to cut through the foam inside of the lip.

[00:16:36]Sounds complicated, right? And it is very complicated.

[00:17:12]Hey.

[00:17:17]Hey. Hey.

[00:17:28]Well, yesterday was painfully slow. I only managed to um finish one of these with all the cuts.

[00:17:39]There's just so many different steps here, different cuts, and yeah, it just takes a lot of time to make this. For this one, I managed to do all the bolt holes on all the for all the windows here. Um, and um, yeah, started to cut the first panel here. I'm a bit faster now from when I started out, but I'm still guessing this will take me at least half a day more to get this one finished. Yeah. And then once we have all the panels cut, I need to trim the edges here. So, a lot of work, but I have to say I'm still really pleased with the result from the first one. So, I still think this was a good way of doing this. This machine, I'm just waiting for it to give up on us because we've been cutting so much and it's still holding up. And cutting in this type of material is really tough on the motor because of the Yeah. Especially the carbon fiber dust going into the motor.

[00:18:40]And we've been cutting quite a lot of glass and carbon fiber and been pushing the machine really hard. So, I'm just waiting for something to happen with it. And we haven't even changed the carbons in the motor yet. But it's still holding up.

[00:19:00]And uh I don't want this to give up because we still need it for a lot of things um for the interior.

[00:19:09]So hopefully it will hold up uh for the whole build. But I have to say that I'm really surprised that it's that it's still here.

[00:19:22]All right, time to do some more cutting.

[00:19:50]Heat. Heat.

[00:20:22]Are you feeling So yesterday I got both uh the deck house walls test mounted. There's going to be lots of different measurements here to make sure that we have symmetry on both sides. The same curve and the same distance from the wall to the center line. Check that nothing is tilted. And the biggest challenge here, like I've said before, is this seating area here for the glass to keep that as co-planer as possible so that we don't introduce any flex or bending and stress into the glass panels later on. Some of it we can make up with sealant, but we want to keep that to a minimum. Um and the problem here is that we have a curb on the wall but at the same time we want to keep the co-planer u area here the seating area.

[00:22:16]Uh so what I've done here now is that we have the fair curve but it's only meeting up at these posts and in between the posts the wall is actually quite flat.

[00:22:30]Um, and you don't really see that because there's not a lot of depth to this curve. So, what I will do is that once we have um everything tabbed, um, I will come back and put fairing uh on the rails, if you can call it that, the area below and above the windows.

[00:22:49]And then I will longboard that curve in so that we get a fair curve all along the whole wall. also at the flat areas in between the posts.

[00:23:04]So, as you can hear, quite a lot of work and it's been a lot of work making these uh with the frames integrated, but I'm happy with the result and I think this will be really strong and it will save us time in the end. So, the next step now after we have uh positioned everything and glued it in uh will be to make the front piece. I'm thinking because I want to have that in place before we start laminating the inside here. Uh because without the inside laminate, this whole structure is still quite flexible. But once that is in place, it will be super stiff. So it's better to make that part first so that we have everything in the correct position before we start putting on the laminates on the inside. Uh and for the frames, we will also tie the inside laminate together with the outside laminate here in the frame together. Uh so we will laminate over uh the lip here to tie that together. And of course, one of the biggest challenges that we have left here is the roof.

[00:24:12]It's massive. It's 13 square meters and it has a curve to it. And yeah, it has to fit and Yeah. And it also needs to be really strong and not flexing. My initial plan was to uh make it in one piece, but uh I think I have left that now because that will be really hard.

[00:24:37]Yeah. So, I'm guessing it will be a day with lots of different measurements and try to get this fixated in the correct position so that we um yeah can move on to the next step here.

[00:24:54]It's so cool that we have all this visibility from inside the boat. It was the most wanted criteria for our boat to have a dexalon to have that connection with the uh outer surrounding from the inside of the boat.

[00:25:15]and it feels like it's going to be really, really good.

[00:25:21]Exciting. So, that was all for this week's episode. I'm going to go inside and continue editing and Yuan will start working on the front piece of the deck house. So, thank you so much for watching. A big thanks to everyone who contributes to our production, our patronons, and everyone else. And uh we hope to see you again next week.

[00:25:46]Bye-bye.