Now that the beam mold is complete and I'm still sourcing the cloth needed to build the beams, I decided to start the centerboard. One decision I made about this boat was that the boat would be wood free with the exception of maybe the tiller handle. The plans for the centerboard say that the centerboard and rudder are built using two layers of 1/2" plywood with two layers of triax cloth between and two layers of triax cloth on the outside. Since I'm not using wood, I purchased some high density PVC marine foam (130kg/cu meter) and I will use this material instead of the 1/2" plywood. I also wanted some additional mass in the board to aid in raising and lowering the board. To get this mass, I cut a groove in the foam to accept a piece of 1/8" x 3/4" x 36" long piece of steel. Each piece of the two pieces of foam will have the steel. I cut the groove the full length of the foam, dammed up the end of each groove, installed the steel and filled the groove to the top with epoxy completely encapsulating the steel plates. The steel will be in line with the pivot bushing.
Once the epoxy cured, I cut two pieces of the triaxial cloth and laminated the two foam pieces. I weighted and clamped the foam together to allow the epoxy to cure. One last note, since the temperature is starting to drop, I got to use my garage heater which really worked well at keeping the garage toasty warm to allow the epoxy to cure. However, it won't be long before I'm going to have to stop work in the garage and start to lay up the fiberglass beams in my basement. Here is a photo of the centerboard curing.
The next step is to sand the hydrofoil shape, cut to the final shape, round the corners, and fiberglass the outside. The last steps will be installing the pivot bushing and paint. More to follow.
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