First day back working after five days off and I was raring to go!
I have to admit, I was pretty nervous about adding the second layer of 1/4" plywood to the bow. Don't know why, maybe I was afraid it wasn't going to fit. But after putting the two pieces of plywood together, cutting them to match the scribe line and laying the first one on I could see my worries were completely unfounded.
This panel only required a little bit of shaving along the bottom edge, and some more out by the tip of the bow and down it went! I pulled the four locator screws, mixed up a couple batches of epoxy (back to the big quantities!) and liberally coated the two pieces of plywood, made a batch of peanut butter for the scarf and up along the fairbody (keel) and started putting in screws and washers.
And more screws and washers. And more... Well you get the idea. ;-) After using most of the washers I started using a hammer to tap the hull listening for gaps between the two pieces. Where they touch there's a "thud" sound. Where they don't the hammer literally bounces back. Where it bounces you add another screw and washer. I ran out of washers so I made some of plywood, about half a dozen before I stopped.
See? Chickenpox! Tomorrow I'll do the other side. I'll pull all these screws and washers, clean up the scarf and then I'll have to do some work on the fairbody before I can lay the second piece in.
Next I needed to do some sanding on the hull. All of the edges of the fiberglass along the fairbody needed to be sanded down as well as the drips and runs of epoxy.
After that I went to work on the transom. As you'll remember, I had cut the hull off, but had left it about 1/2" long. I grabbed the planer and very carefully started trimming it down. It was a little tricky where the stringers stuck out, but with a gentle touch I was able to trim them down too. The sander was next with a new piece of 60 grit sandpaper and then it was just a matter of gently applying pressure and waiting for the sander to do it's job. Back and forth and back and forth... Almost zen like.
Looks good! I rounded off the edges, again using the sander, as the angle is wrong for using the router. I cut some of my scrap pieces of fiberglass, a four inch wide 10oz piece to run from stringer to stringer, an eight in inch wide 10oz piece a little shorter, and a ten inch wide 4oz piece to run from chine edge to chine edge. After more epoxy and putting down the layer of glass it looked like this.
I used the last of the epoxy to coat some of the vertical supports and then drove and countersunk 8d nails in the holes left from the screws used while attaching the stringers.
Last I made a run to Home Depot. I've been looking again and again at the vertical supports and I'm not sure I can trust my small level. Those supports just don't look right. If they're wrong it'll be a pain to fix, but it needs to be done now. Once the sides go on it's too late.
Oh, here's a picture from where I was this week. Enjoy!
8 Hours