Hartley Vixen 17 Build

**NC Vixen** · 13th September 2016, 04:54 PM

Hello All,

More work this week, painted the whole boat with epoxy!

Damn it'll be a shame to paint over that

Also as you can see from the images we painted the hull (but had already painted the transom) so we prepped, glassed and peel-ply'ed the transom, sadly I don't think I have any pictures of the transom.

But we removed some of the peel ply, and the finish has come up incredible (pity the stuff is so damn expensive).

We then glassed the starboard side of the bottom, which went well, and came up pretty great.

And Last night we glassed the port side of the bottom... This did not do well, it started well, glass out, cut to shape, mixed up the epoxy (same amount as the other side, same epoxy, same everything) then wet-out the glass, this went well, we added a strip of glass tape down the keelson, which was supposed to have tapered edges, we only really noticed that these edges were not tapered as we wet-out the strip, this suddenly posed two problems, the peel ply will now form a ridge, where it jumps from the layer below to the strip, which will need to be sanded down some, and also as it doesn't blend back into the glass smoothly, this will add to fairing. We then proceeded from there and applied the peel ply, and probably took too much time with the tape, and with getting the ply out so as to remove wrinkles or bubbles, as this happened the epoxy went off and was tacky, ruining our rollers, pulling the peel-ply off instead of pushing it down.

Panic mode - realising that there is now two options.

Scrap the lay-up, tear everything off and clean up as best as possible and sand the boat back to where it was before yesterday.

Scrap the resin, 1 mix new batch of correct quantity of resin, and find new rollers that haven't been ruined.

I thought screw it, grabbed a couple of metal serrated rollers, told dad to mix 200 of resin, while he did this I rolled like no man has rolled before, literally gave it everything I had, once the resin was ready found a new roller cover, and applied it to every dry looking area then rolled and rolled and rolled until pretty much my back and arms could do no more.

The last image shows how it looked at the end of all that. It looked like it should work... It had the right amount of resin in it, it was fully wet-out, no bubbles or anything.

Received a call this morning from my dad to say he's been out to have a look, it worked, it's come up really really nice.

Holy. SH&T. I can't remember the last time I breathed such a hard sigh of relief. That was an experience.

Sadly... Barely slept, couldn't stop thinking about it all night, and also (in case anyone remembers) I'm quite allergic to epoxy resin, and once I knuckled down there was no time to be careful, there was epoxy up my arms, hands (wearing nitrile gloves) but they were soaked, even some on my legs and neck. So today Satan himself is raising through hellfire (my skin).

But you know what, I'll be fine, the itches will subside over a few days, I'll have learned to never deviate from the plan once resin is mixed (even on the coldest night in weeks). and most importantly, the boat is okay! Moving forward this weekend!!! (Going to take a few nights off during the week).

FullSizeRender.jpg

FullSizeRender (2).jpg

FullSizeRender (1).jpg

IMG_8447.jpg

**labr@** · 13th September 2016, 10:47 PM

Glad to hear it turned out OK - I had to strip a kayak hull once due to buying glass cloth over the net and having it turn out to be rubbish. Apart from the sheer extra work involved it's really unpleasant also dealing with the "might have beens" and "should have dones" going through your mind. I can understand why you didn't sleep.

Reminds me of the definition of experience - it's that thing you get just after you need it

(or should that be

).

**NC Vixen** · 6th October 2016, 04:17 PM

Hello all,

Long time no post... Ha-ha

Been working away on the boat, haven't had much time to get online or even take pictures as everything's been changing, but here's another update!

So to leave off from the last post, we have moved forward with glassing the boat, the whole boat has been glassed and peel-ply'd, the rest of this has gone quite well, single layer of 200gsm over the boat now, with 2 layers over the chines and 3 over the keelson.

We are absolutely ecstatic with the finish produced by using the peel-ply (god damn that 's not cheap though, but totally worth the time and money).

Since then, we have started fairing with epoxy/q-cells, the flare of the bow has had one coat on each side and has been faired back.

Last night we moved onto the transom, this time instead of just painting the high-build on, we lined it with a plastic sheet. Basically paint the epoxy/q-cells on, then roll on a layer of thick plastic that doesn't adhere to the epoxy, this has given a fair and mirror finish to 95% of the transom with the remaining 5% being able to be filled with a blade (so that should come up just epic, we hope...). So then transom done!

And for now, we keep sanding and painting.

Any thoughts on this stage, or tips would be really appreciated as this is the part which we both have the least experience of anything in the entire build >.<

PS. Broke one of the work benches which someone... we don't know who... over the last 15 years at some point cut into about 75% of the way, so that got fixed too...

IMG_8580.jpg

IMG_8627.jpg

IMG_8791.jpg

IMG_8842.jpg

IMG_8792.jpg

IMG_8840.jpg

IMG_8841.jpg

IMG_0780.jpg

**mob** · 7th April 2017, 04:00 PM

About time for an update I should think.

**NC Vixen** · 2nd May 2017, 08:48 PM

Sorry guys, another injury, and a lot more travelling meant things went a little slow, I'll knock something up as an update as I have done some work on her.

**fubar** · 3rd May 2017, 07:05 AM

hey don't feel obligated to post. we can wait till your all better.

cheers

**NC Vixen** · 3rd May 2017, 12:19 PM

Oh nah, It's all good now, just had an injury that stopped me from doing much sanding for the last few months last year, been travelling this year, and kinda forgot to post, tonight the last bit of top-coat of paint goes on, she looks a might different.

Admittedly f*&^ me I hate sanding now. But worth it for the finish... I hope! Ha-ha

**NC Vixen** · 3rd May 2017, 04:38 PM

Hi Guys, apologies for the delay in posting, I haven't really spent much time on the net this year and forgot to post any updates, been pretty busy with that "physical world" ha-ha

See below for some update pictures that roughly stage through what I've done, which is sand, sand, sand, sand, add fairing build (epoxy n Qcells), sand, sand, sand, sand, add fairing build (epoxy n Qcells), sand, sand, sand, sand, add fairing build (epoxy n Qcells), sand, sand, sand, sand, add fairing build (epoxy n Qcells), sand, sand, sand, sand, add fairing build (epoxy n Qcells), sand, sand, sand, sand, add fairing build (epoxy n Qcells), sand, sand, sand, sand, add fairing build (epoxy n Qcells), sand, sand, sand, sand, add fairing build (epoxy n Qcells), sand, sand, sand, sand, add fairing build (epoxy n Qcells)...

Then 3 coats of primer and more sanding.

Miraculously we thought the boat looked good enough to put the top-coat on as of this weekend, so painted all weekend, Monday night, Tuesday night, and now TONIGHT (Wednesday) the final coat of paint goes on!

If Y'all wanna know more, just ask, I don't even know where to begin as it's been a little while.

I'll head round this weekend to look at the boat and prepping the building stock (already built) for flipping the boat the next weekend! Hopefully I get a great pic this weekend

**labr@** · 3rd May 2017, 11:38 PM

Originally Posted by NC Vixen

been pretty busy with that "physical world" ha-ha

There's no such thing - it's just a figment of your operating system.

Good to see you're back, I thought you'd sunk with all hands. It really would be good to see this thing completed.

**NC Vixen** · 27th May 2017, 10:18 PM

ing love it! Hahahaha My man.

Boats flipping next weekend (hopefully), fractured my hip the other week as a result of going for a dunk and getting fouled at basketball (so been out for a little bit). Don't worry back on my feet all good now and will be back in the shed this week to give her a buff before the flip!

14953587601270.jpg

She will be completed.

**labr@** · 28th May 2017, 02:39 PM

Is that 3 injuries during this build now? I think we need to put you in a padded suit!

Not sure if this has come up earlier but what type of top coat are you using?

**NC Vixen** · 3rd July 2017, 04:28 PM

IMG_20170702_155902.jpg
IMG_20170702_155839.jpg
IMG_20170702_160223.jpg
IMG_20170702_161859.jpg
IMG_3647.jpg
IMG_3658.jpg

Got everything ready, flipped her over and cleaned her out.

**PAR** · 4th July 2017, 04:27 PM

Very nice work, appears to be quite fair.

**Dry Water** · 4th July 2017, 07:35 PM

Now the fun part really begins! Looking forward to the next phase!

**NC Vixen** · 25th July 2017, 08:56 PM

IMG_3796.JPG

IMG_3798.jpg

IMG_4041.jpg

We've been cleaning up the inside of the boat, over the last couple of weeks, getting everything all neat and tidy, shaping everything up and getting it right to fillet/cove all the joints/joins, and fill in any voids/temporary holes etc. to get her 100% sealed up! Prior to that (and painting the area under the floor) we’ve temporarily fit the floor bearers and joists into place, little bit of work to go there as well as dry-fitting the engine well, boarding platform and rear wall to the cockpit.

I think that it will be a very nice day once the floor and boarding platform are together, all sealed underneath and there’s something nice, flat and level to stand on to get the coamings, cabin and anchor well finished from!

Anyone who’s worked on or seen a Vixen 17 will notice my floor is a bit higher than normal; it will also finish a little further forward of the stern to incorporate a flat full-width boarding platform instead of having an in-set anchor well with storage on either side (usually fuel tanks/safety gear) I will have all that stuff under the floor and well forward and centred in the boat. The outer 1/3rd’s of the floor will be fixed and the central 1/3^rd (between the two wide floor bearers) will be hinged and be able to be locked down.

I am hoping for the interior to look similar to pic 1 below, and the boarding platform to look similar to pic 2 below, however with a smaller door/no door and with much more open sides (we do a lot of diving and a good boarding platform goes a long way!). 3rd pic is the actual transom in the plans and is gorgeous, however I really need a big platform as we tend to get on and off all day as we hit different dive spots.

interior-transom.jpg

exterior transom.jpg

hartleytransom.jpg

Thread: Hartley Vixen 17 Build

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Update time

Similar Threads

Hartley Vixen

hartley vixen deck repairs

Hartley Vixen 17

Anyone with a Hartley 'Vixen 20 Cruiser'

Posting Permissions