Star 45 RC Sailboat Build Blog

OK, here it is built up out of 1/16th plywood and some walnut. I think it looks good but I'm a touch concerned about the lateral strength. It seems to be strong enough where it counts... fore and aft, but not so much laterally. It shouldn't be a problem but I suppose that if I don't mount it perfectly straight that it could potentially twist and break. Not really sure what to do about it though. One thought was to epoxy some support pieces, ribs, to the sides. What I'll do is I'll keep the original solid piece of walnut that I used as a mock up. If this lighter plywood gizmo breaks I'll just glue the mock up in it's place.  Anyway, if you have thoughts please let me know!! I still haven't epoxied it to the deck yet and I want to think about it some more. I also added some decorative pieces to the bow. The king plank is made out of Peruvian walnut (I discovered that yesterday... didn't know when I had installed it). Should be a sort of ...

It's been a bit slow the past couple days... been doing a lot of pondering about the next steps regarding the decking and the rigging. I have to consider them together as I must know the layout of the running rigging before I finalize the deck plans. It's especially important that I determine if I'll run the running rigging out the back or if I'll run it forward. Right now I'm thinking I should run it aft. If I do then I'll need something to hold a mainsheet turning block. This is the prototype I've come up with. Thoughts? It looks OK. Might use this one, or I might make another one with the same design except using layers instead of one solid piece of wood that might eventually crack. Laminations are almost always the way to go. More to think about tonight! Peace!   _/)

Yikes! I've started to cut into my deck panels to rough out and finalize the design. Gulp! The deck itself I've pretty much committed to at this point. The real decision is the shape of the hatch. You can see my current hatch design. It's OK but I'm not yet convinced. I want it to be simple, a bit nostalgic, and have a large enough opening. Will need to sleep on it for now. Peace!   _/)

The deck king plank was cut and installed today. I'm not really even sure what type of wood it is. Might be walnut. It's dark though. I also drilled a hole for the RMG Switch . I used a 3/4" Forstner bit but couldn't get a very good position with it and the hole ended up being a bit caddywhompus. The RMG switch fits just fine though and should easily cover any goofs. It will look just fine. It will also leave more room on the deck by putting it on the aft bulkhead facing into the cockpit. Just a few more small chores to do and then I can start working on the deck! Gulp! Fair seas!    _/)

Last night I glued in two sticks of cedar amidships to hold a shelf for the battery and the bundle of wires. Clear coated them with epoxy and then glued them in place. Today I clear coated two of the knock-outs that came with the frame kit. They are nice, thin plywood and the shape work well because they keep the center of the hull open so I can see the keel and so the rudder control linkage clears everything. Then I just set them on the cedar sticks. Should work fine. They sorta look like bench seats. Then I used the remaining epoxy to give another clear coat to the topside of the keel bulb. This might be the last clear coat for the top of the bulb. I'll need to add some more to the bottom, but otherwise the next step on the fin and the bulb will be to use the Interlux 404/414 Epoxy Primekote on it. Then will sand down that to a fine plasticy finish and then paint it white. More on that later as I get to it. I know that it still looks a bit rough, but you're ...

Here's how the sides look today. I faired the sides to the transom and it looks fine. Then I shaped and epoxied on some cedar trim pieces to fill the gap between the cockpit deck and sides. Not great but cleans it up a bit. Pictures tomorrow after the clamps are removed. Peace!    _/)

Was gone for the weekend but today epoxied on the sides of the cockpit. They don't match well at all and I'll need to run some sort of trim piece down the joints to fill in the gaps. Ugh. Not my best work. To be honest, I should have put more thought into the sides when I was making the cockpit deck. The sides actually are pretty well fitted but it's the bottom that's not wide enough in places. Live and learn. We'll see how it looks when the trim pieces are added. The sides are made from 1/32" ply which is very flexible. I used 1/16" ply on the sides and cockpit decking but 1/32" is fine for the cockpit sides.  Also put the extra thickened epoxy from the sides onto the keel bulb to continue the fairing process. It'll take several more rounds of fairing and sanding though to get it just right. But it's beginning to look how it should. Fair seas!  _/)

Managed to do one last thing tonight, and that was to complete the rudder linkage. The rudder works now! Yay! Go sailing!    _/)

The keel bulb was epoxied to the fin today. Had to do a pretty good amount of trimming on the fin to get it to sit correctly. Then clear coated the newly exposed wood and slipped it in place. Drilled a hole through the side holes and through the fin and locked the fin in with the pins that come with the bulb. Then poured as much of the remaining epoxy into the slot as I could. The bulb is sitting on plastic so I can easily remove it tomorrow when dry. Then I will seal up either the top or bottom depending on which one would be easiest and then fill the rest of the slot with epoxy. Following that I will then filet out thickened epoxy and fair the bulb. Update : I had time tonight to fill in the gaps around the top and to add the first layer of fairing. Then tomorrow morning I can turn it over and fill the inside of the slot with epoxy. There is just enough of a hole on the underside that it should work. Peace!   _/)

This morning I filed and sanded the cockpit deck to the transom. Looks good so far! Then I installed the rudder control line. It's routed through a dowel similar to the rudder shaft dowel but protrudes a bit higher. I'm using a Sullivan "Gold-N-Rod" #503 Control Rod Set for this. The red control line outer tube will later be trimmed closer to the dowel to leave room for the inner rod. Now to let it all cure. Next steps will be to make and install the cockpit sides. Haven't thought too much about this step yet though so not really sure what will happen. Stay tuned! Fair seas!  _/)

***Update for those of you just tuning in for the first time: Please know that this current build is for an experimental Star 47.5x RC Sailboat, not a normal Star 45. The regular Star 45 does not have an open transom or a cockpit deck. *** _______________________________ Took a big step this afternoon and glued down the cockpit deck! Looks pretty flat so far but I've got a lot of weight on it now and I hope it's not tooooo warped when it's dry. Fingers crossed. I started by clear coating the underside. I already clear coated the top a day ago. I used a spreader to cover it and then rubbed it in with gloves. It's a very thin coat but I'll be adding clear epoxy paint to the top later. Then I clear coated the cross supports and added some thickened epoxy to the tops. Finally slipped the deck into place and weighed it down as best I could. More pictures later. Peace!   _/)  

Today I began to install the rudder control line. I had a number of ideas and couldn't decide which would work best and look best. In the end I came up with this. You'll have to decide for yourself how you like it once it's all done. For now though I drilled a hole through a short piece of dowel and glued it at an angle to the bottom of the hull just aft of the rudder servo. It's at an angle because the cable has to go under the cockpit bulkhead that I installed and then angle up to meet the servo. It make more sense by looking at the pictures. More on that later. Also thought it would be useful to show the cockpit deck cross supports that I glued in several steps ago. I wanted to add a picture that shows how the supports gently slope aft, especially relative to the side stringers. This is all new to me so I'm not certain of a timeline, but my guess is that I might be able to install the cockpit deck tomorrow. Haven't decided yet though if I'll...

Today the epoxy was completely hardened around the sacrificial screws that I installed last night. Using an Allen wrench I was able to give a sharp snap to each screw and they easily broke free from the epoxy and unscrewed. After a bit of clean up on both the transom and the inside of the holes, I now have two perfect drain holes with 10-24 threads. My local hardware store sells chromed 1/2" 10-24 hex screws as well as small neoprene washers. They will be the actual drain plugs used when the boat is finished. You can see them in the pictures below now though. However I have now removed them and replaced the sacrificial screws until after the finishing process. They need to remain in place while painting and finishing to protect the epoxy threads. The inside looks pretty sloppy but it's OK as it will all be hidden from view permanently with the cockpit deck. It's more important that the entire inside be epoxy coated and that the water has a place to flow. ...

Today I used a 13/64" bit to drill two oversized holes in the transom and through the backing blocks that I epoxied in yesterday. Be very careful drilling! You want the bottom of the hole to be near or even slightly into the bottom of the hull, but you do NOT want to drill through the bottom!! I almost did. You can see that the holes both dig into the bottom planking. As it is it'll work great, but if I had gone any further then I would have had to do some repair work. Yikes! In the picture below you can see the two 3/4" 10-24 SS hex screws just sitting in the holes. They are very loose and can slip right out. The holes are oversized so that there is still room for thickened epoxy. Then I waxed the screws well with candle wax and set them aside. I mixed up a small batch of epoxy and clear coated the insides of the holes so that epoxy would soak into the bare wood. With the remaining epoxy I mixed in thickener to about the peanut butter stage and with a mixing s...

Only one small thing done today. I epoxied in some hardwood (walnut) pieces inside the hull right at the transom. The center one is to help hold a backstay screw and give it something to bite into. The two other pieces to either side of the center are for drain plugs. The idea is that I will drill through the transom into the two pieces and as close to the bottom of the hull as I can. Then I will bed stainless steel screws in thickened epoxy and put them into the holes to harden. Later, when fully cured, I should be able to simply snap the screws and they should come right out leaving a nice drain hole. I can then use a clean SS screw and a neoprene washer as a drain plug. More later as I do the steps. You can also get an idea of how it works by looking at my Tippecanoe T37 build blog . I made a similar drain plug on that boat and it turned out great.  Fair seas!   _/) 

It's starting to look like a real open transom boat now. Today I cleaned up the edges of the open transom with my rasp and sandpaper, and then worked on fitting the cockpit deck. It took two cardstock templates and quite a number of adjustments before I was accurate enough to cut the real ply. Then had to make several minor adjustments to it, but now it fits well. The 5/8" hole for the rudder post fits perfectly. Phew...  The cockpit decking is 1/16 ply that I also used on the hull sides. It's the same stuff that I used on my first Star 45. For those of you who haven't used 1/16th ply, it may sound quite thin and not very stout. My original Star 45 has a very strong deck especially since it also has a layer of 1.4 oz. glass on it. It's not installed yet, still a bit of work to do. But you can see the general idea. Before I permanently install it I'll need to work out the through hull slot for the rudder control line. I also need to install some su...

Cut open the transom this afternoon! Still a lot of clean up to do but we'll get there eventually. Peace!  _/)

I'm moving rather slowly with the Star 47.5x lately. However I have managed to install a few things. A few days ago I added the cross-supports for the cockpit deck. And just now I've added the support under where the mainsheet block will eventually go. It's made of walnut. At this point I've given up all concern about weight. In the end it shouldn't weigh toooo much but will certainly be outside the normal range of competitive Star's. But again, since this boat will never be legal to race anyway then why try. I'm going for more of an "art" boat at this point. More as I get more motivated. Peace!   _/)