DIY Dodger - Dulcinea

So after deciding our original (although rebuilt a couple of years ago) canvas dodger just wasn't cutting the mustard any more we asked Lloyd how much to make a custom hard dodger and after coming back with a price for something around the price of a new family saloon we held off. After some discussion between myself, Emma and dad we thought we would give it a go ourselves, how hard can it be?

Stage one: Templating

Timber template/sub structure

Basic timber structure made and crudely attached to the boat with clamps and tape

With a van full of plywood, a dozen sticks of cavity battens strapped to the roof, drop saw and all the other woodworking tools under the sun Dad and I headed up to the boat to plan out exactly how we were going to shape it and what on earth we were going to do with the traveller system for the mainsail.

Over the course of 3 days we managed to template up the basic shape with 18x35 cavity battens and plywood. But we had to make sure we could disassemble the entire thing to get it to fit into the back of the van...which turned out to be the biggest challenge I think.

Stage two: Reassemble and 'cladding'

Reassembled back in the garage and gluing together

After getting back just after lunchtime on Sunday afternoon we pulled all the pieces out of the van, reassembled them in the garage and called it a weekend. The following day I finished work a little early so cracked on and managed to 'clad' the outside in 7mm plywood and over the next week we strengthened up certain areas, rebated the frames with the router for where the acrylic windows were going to sit.

Stage three: Fibreglassing

Top and majority of the underside glassed, ready to start fairing

After many nights looking on trademe wondering what way to go with fibreglass and resin I found someone selling a massive 30kg roll of chopped strand matt pretty damn cheap, and also a really good price on 20L of polyester resin so after that turned up dad and I were into it, turning our garage into a potent stink fest, this stuff is potent and I would definitely recommend a good quality respirator to anyone undertaking any work with this stuff.

The fiberglassing stage is probably one of the worst, the stuff is stinky and itchy! and frustrating...turns out glass matting of any type does not want to go around sharp corners so make sure you round off any external corners or you will get some annoying bubbles as the matting lifts up. We layered up a good couple of layers over large flat areas and 2-3 heavy layers on corners etc, and with that its time for the next stage.

Stage four: Fairing (bogging)

Roughly faired using two pot epoxy bog

Another annoying and time consuming process...but before all that I had managed to find some cheap 1:1 ratio epoxy bog fairing compound on trademe and ordered 8L (2x 4L containers), this seemed promising and mixed fairly well, gave plenty of working time compared to the pink body filler type stuff I was used to, but if you don't get it completely mixed there are patches that just never cure and stay goopy which is really frustrating when you sand through trying to get your final finish. The epoxy bog never seemed to go as hard as the 'pink' stuff as well, it was always ever so slightly soft but i'm not sure if thats due to the cold cold weather and very slow curing as a result...

Anyhow we spent the longest time of any job on the fairing, working on either the topsides or the under sides but it felt like an endless process of flipping the dodger over and trying to fill in all those imperfections that showed up after each subsequent sanding session. It got to a point where we had to just say enough is enough and live with a few blemishes.

Stage five: Painting

First bit of two pot undercoat applied

This was probably my favourite part, its the easiest so far thats for sure. We are working with international paints for this project and started out with the 2-pot undercoat which after a couple of days curing in the cold weather (with a bit of fan heater assistance where possible), we gave a light sand and onto the perfection 2-pot polyurethane top coat. Oh and did I mention this stuff smells? its twice as bad as the polyester resin so don't even consider using without a respirator unless you want permanent brain damage and/or cancer!! anyhow, this stuff goes on pretty easy and I just brushed tight areas and rollered large areas but be aware the paint seems to eat rollers its so strong! I ended up finding little bits of foam in the paint if I tried to use the roller for too long.

Stage six: Transport and installation

Building a structure to mount the dodger on for transport

This is by far the biggest part to date crammed into such a small timeframe. Dad and I both took a week off work, spent a couple of hours on Saturday building some weird timber frame onto the trailer so the dodger would sit on it, screwed and strapped the dodger to the trailer and Sunday morning we were off to Havelock.

All ready to go

We arrived just before 1pm, got right to work and removed the old dodger and frame, handrails, liferaft and blocks I had spent so long making look like slightly better P.O.S's. The blocks had to have the fibreglass tops chiseled off to expose the screws, take out the screws and then chisel the blocks off. A lot of grinding later to remove all the glass and bog and we had a blank canvas for the new dodger. We manhandled the monster through the dock gates, down the dock and onto the boat without too much drama. And as the sun was setting on our first night we had managed a herculean task and the dodger was sitting in place ready for the next day.

Epoxy bog (filler) around the base of the dodger to give a radius to glass over

Filler around the dodger to deck join

The following day we were on the grinder again removing paint back to glass so the new fiberglass to be installed had something decent to adhere to. Dad spent a lot of the remaining day mixing up epoxy bog and filling around the dodger to start blending it into the boat. I dropped in wires for the new solar panels and wired up the charge controller, wired in two new LED lights on the inside of the dodger and connected them to the 12v system. And with all that it was another day done and dusted.

Dodger glassed to deck (using West System Epoxy)

3 penetrations through the dodger for ropes (outhaul, furler and mainsheet)

Glassed and faired ready for undercoating

Tuesday morning dad spent sanding the bog to a more uniform shape while I worked on some rigging stuff to plan where new turning blocks, deck organisers and clutches would go to handle the new mainsheet system. After that we were into fibreglassing again, this time we were using West Systems epoxy resin and this stuff is nice to work with! It has virtually no smell at all, can easily be mixed with fairing filler to give a thicker consistency for filling holes etc. It didn't take long to get the dodger glassed to the deck. Next step was to give a good sand of the glass and then start applying fairing compound. We used the pink builders/car filler type as it goes off soooo much faster and we can sand within and hour or so even in the cooler temperatures. This was a long process but the more time you spend fairing and sanding to get rid of as many blemishes as possible the better result you get in the end. Paint will not fill gaps!

Coat of 2 pot undercoat on

After a couple of days when the undercoat has had a chance to harden we got to work on fitting the 8mm acrylic windows. The rebates were made to a perfect thickness and the windows sit flush with the front of the frames. We left the paper on the acrylic, pre-drilled all the holes and masked the frames of the windows to limit the mess from the silicone. Now the messy part, apply several tubes of Sikaflex 291 marine sealant and install screws, its a good thing to get plenty of ooze as all the gaps are filled and the windows should be bedded well without air pockets between the glass and frame.
Simply leave overnight to cure and then all you need to do is run a sharp knife to cut the silicone as needed and peel away the tape and paper backing and you have VERY little sealant to try clean off unwanted places.

The final result (bar final top coats)

Wiring up the new panels

The final step for this blog will be fitting the solar panels. We have gone with two 100w flexible panels running to their own independent solar charge controller (Sunsaver Duo with remote meter) as one of these controllers is already installed for the other panels and it seems to work really well. Next time we go to the boat will see a couple of final coats of topcoat applied to the areas where we glassed the dodger to the hull.