When I got to the shed this morning it was all about prep. Getting the first three roof panels on and doing so before epoxy and peanut butter set up was going to take some coordination and hustle. I cleared the floor space, moved my two step stairs (normally back at the transom) around to the side, set the big ladder up at the bow, made sure both drill batteries were fully charged and got all the extraneous stuff moved out of the way. Moved into the boat and got the post installed to help prop up the center roof rib. Two screws were added, top and bottom, to keep it in place. It will be there for a while, so I don't want it moving. I also made a helper for the second ladder as two of the legs are on the upper deck.
Then the frantic controlled chaos began. Epoxy on the top of the two sides and the three ribs. Epoxy on the bare wood of the rear panel. Set the panel up on top. Make peanut butter and apply it to the two sides, the center rib and the rear cabin wall. Line up the panel at the port rear corner and screw it down. Line up the panel at the other rear corner, verify the panel is lined up on the center line and screw it down. Draw alignment lines over the sides and ribs and starting on one side screw it down, working over the top to the other side.
The middle panel was much a repeat of the first, but part of the alignment process required lining it up with the rear panel and the lines I had drawn on the bottom side relative to the sides. For some reason the lines were off, but I made sure to split the difference and screwed it down. This was interesting as I was working on the roof by standing on the shelves. Felt a little weird and took some getting used to to be comfortable, but not bad. Plus I was working within a couple feet of the roof of the shed so it was very warm!
Was able to take a short break, so took a quick picture.
Now the forward panel was still full width and I really needed to get it closer to its final size, so I did some angles and dangles measuring and got what I hope! is the final size, then cut it down.
Repeat of the first two panels and then I went all around underneath and cleaned up the squeeze out. I think I made a total of eight or nine ounces of peanut butter and squeezed out most of that. While it's good to know the tolerances are that close, most of the squeeze out gets thrown away as it's mostly too hard to use again. I did use some of it to fill all the holes I could find and I also used it in the cuddy to level out an area where the scribing didn't work out so well. :-)
After all that I went outside the hull and took a closer look at the lines I had drawn and how they didn't line up like I'd planned.
Here we're at the rear and as you can see, no line. That's good as I only want two inches of overhang.
Here we're all the way forward. Clearly we're way inside the lines, almost two inches. And it's this way on both sides. Scratched my head for a minute or two and realized I had never measured how wide the cabin was at the rear and then compared it with a measurement at the front. <chuckle> It's okay as all I need to do is cut the panels to size and there's no way I could have drawn these lines at an angle across the three panels anyways. The one really critical line was the center line on the three panels that ran over the top of the center rib and it was within 1/16" all the way along its length. I'm very pleased with that!
Finally, I stepped back and, WOW!
 |
 |
 |
 |
Here's a photo just for fun of the top of the roof.
The scarf joints in these three panels are by far and away the best I've done yet. The joints inside, while not invisible, are very, very good.
I decided to leave well enough alone and give everything time to set up so I called it a night.
7.5 Hours