Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cutter

[Chris Narum]

Great build thread and I am following this with interest. I really like the look of the apple series.
If you don't mind sharing the videos he pointed you towards, could you paste the links here?
Or is it the raid Finland videos of Peter Lords apple?
I have never seen the boat in the flesh, but I have participated in Raid Finland a few times and talked to Peter about the boat.

By the way, which sail plan will you go for?


Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk

[dbp1]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />

Great build thread and I am following this with interest. I really like the look of the apple series.
If you don't mind sharing the videos he pointed you towards, could you paste the links here?
Or is it the raid Finland videos of Peter Lords apple?
I have never seen the boat in the flesh, but I have participated in Raid Finland a few times and talked to Peter about the boat.

maybe there are some new videos, but the best ones I know of are from Matt Bowser (who is a member and occasional poster here):

https://youtube.com/c/MattBowser

he also wrote up his boat in small boats monthly (which requires a subscription)

[jamieduff1981]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />
Hi,

I didn't claim it was a great video, but good enough and not so far from me so the weather is fairly typical

This is Bill Haylock's Apple 16.

https://www.facebook.com/10000078340...1264757242942/>>


I'm building the gaff cutter sail plan, mostly because I'm not especially practical and will choose the prettier option 9 out of 10 times

[jamieduff1981]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />
I've peaked too soon today although maybe that's a good thing.

I remembered the chainplates which the gaff cutter version has. This detail is only on the gaff cutter versions of the drawings. The chainplates for the standing rigging pass through the gunwales so it's necessary to mark their positions and cut 4mm deep slots out of the gunwales before gluing to the hull. I'm sure if I missed this I could have drilled through and filed them out but I'm glad I didn't make life difficult for myself here. These were kerfed and chiselled out.


Like this:


Next I marked and cut the stem ends of the gunwales to neatly (a relative term wherever I'm involved...) fit the stem post. In retrospect I should have done this first then marked the slots for the chainplates afterwards as the latter is easier to get right than the former but I never was that bright...
Once the inner laminations were cut to fit I clamped up the next lamination dry to get that fettled also.


It's probably just because I'm messy but I burned through 4 or 5 pairs of rubber gloves gluing up the first set. Also, I've learned that when buying clamps one should forget the sets of 4, 6 or even 12 and just select "All" in the online shopping cart.


I assume it goes without saying but the joints in the laminations were staggered. Each strip is roughly 11ft long so they're approximately 2/3 : 1/3 of the length of the boat so the inner lamination has the joint down aft and the outer one is more forward.


Now I'm out of clamps so I'll stooge around and relax I think. Tomorrow morning I can do more.

[Hugh MacD]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />
Just found this thread....following! I especially like the fact that you're getting your daughters in on the build Once they get bigger, I expect the Sprite will be the next project!

[jamieduff1981]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />
The other side is glued up. It's starting to resemble a boat now with curves in the right places

[jamieduff1981]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />
Hi,

Yes they're dragged in to this often, usually with moans of complaint to begin with but they seem to genuinely enjoy themselves once they're started. Adults are the same I suppose - I think lots of us probably dread the thought of stuff that's ok once doing it.

That car is the simplest I've ever had and also the one which mocks me the most. I have a V12 XJ-S also which I find much easier to keep in good working order!

[Chris Narum]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />

maybe there are some new videos, but the best ones I know of are from Matt Bowser (who is a member and occasional poster here):

https://youtube.com/c/MattBowser

he also wrote up his boat in small boats monthly (which requires a subscription)

It is a bit hard to come by any videos of these boats, but I don't know how many of them that has been built.
I am a subscriber of small boats monthly and have read his write up on the boat there, plus found his blog and youtube. His boat is a looker for sure, just like yours.
I have also followed your building thread and look forward to see your boat with sails up.

[Chris Narum]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />

Hi,

I didn't claim it was a great video, but good enough and not so far from me so the weather is fairly typical

This is Bill Haylock's Apple 16.

https://www.facebook.com/10000078340...1264757242942/>


I'm building the gaff cutter sail plan, mostly because I'm not especially practical and will choose the prettier option 9 out of 10 times

Thanks, I have not seen this video before. Following your thread with interest

[jamieduff1981]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />
Work has been rather busy lately, but I had Friday off (well, it was Schrodinger's Annual Leave really) and a productive Saturday and Sunday with my wife who, uncharacteristically, was feeling very industrious towards the dinghy.


We cleared out our downstairs garage, wired in a bigger heater with more clever thermostatic control, made a cradle with trolley wheels and moved Melitele out of the shed. As it happens, this is the first opportunity I've had to look at my boat from the side.








It just fits diagonally in the downstairs garage with room to squeeze around the stem, but with wheels it's easy to swing the doors open and move the boat to a better position to work on and then tuck it away warm for the epoxy to cure.





With Melitele out of the shed, I built racks to suspend the good timber off the floor for winter and cleared out space to get my old Jag X-Type in which needs a new sill. I was planning to scrap the car, but looking at what else is out there a new sill, a brake pipe and fixing an exhaust leak seams like very cheap 3.0 V6 AWD motoring for a while to come so there's a new sill on order and I've plenty welding consumables already. It'll make a good tow car for the boat.


Without a sill here already though, my wife was quite keen that we got some immediate benefit from the relocation works, the results of which are that by 9am on Sunday we completed all of the internal seam taping. This picture was from Saturday evening where we still had the last chine and the short slash on the top plank for the tumblehome transom to deal with.





We're going to flip the hull over and tackle the outsides of the seams next and will probably glass the exterior of the hull at that point. We could glass the interior now, but turning the hull over isn't really difficult and I would like the visual progress of the outside looking more matured.

[jamieduff1981]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />
I managed to capsize the boat alone yesterday, but I'll admit it was pretty awkward. The outside of the hull was then power sanded to remove any splinters or drips of epoxy through the tie-wrap holes. The stem post was shaped also.










That done, my wife laid out, marked and cut the fibreglass cloth ahead of time. We made up a filler paste from epoxy and milled fibres (heavier but a lot stronger than using microballoons) and filled all the seams and tiewrap holes.





Rather than let this cure and sand it back, we went straight ahead and glassed over it. The squeegee action to wet out the cloth takes care of any rough bits of filler while it's all still wet.





This was wet out in the usual way (at least it's usual for home built aircraft builders) - pour a little resin on then squeegee the bejesus out of it to see how far the resin will go whilst still wetting it out fully.





It still used loads of resin. It's a good thing I bought another 6kg pack of the stuff!

[dbp1]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />
Looking great! Profile on the stem looks nice too! I tried and failed at getting it to look right, and eventually gave up and just left it squared off...

[jamieduff1981]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />

Looking great! Profile on the stem looks nice too! I tried and failed at getting it to look right, and eventually gave up and just left it squared off...

Thank you Daniel

I'm quite keen to give it an initial flatting back to see what I have, then get the false keel and skeg cut and fitted I should probably make up the dagger board case about now-ish also.

[Wagemaker]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />
Nice work!
I'm still trying to figure out what I've accomplished in the last two months!

...congrats on staying off the couch!

WgMkr

[jamieduff1981]

Re: Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cuttebr />
I need to rebuild many threads on many forums thanks to the Village Photos webhost disappearing and not renewing the security certificate.

A while ago I built the daggerboard case and cut the hull to fit it in. It's not glued in yet.












In the mean time though, I've started adding the lower rubbing strips. These are temporarily screwed in place whilst the epoxy cures.





The screws are out now, actually, and I'm ready to glue the next lamination on, which will be screwed from the inside this time.