Sunday, April 08, 2007

Joining starboard float

It has been a while since my last posting. I've been busy working and visiting my family in Lillehammer, the skiing town where I grew up. I learned to sail on the lake Mjøsa with short steep waves and constantly changing winds. I prefer the ocean.

Before I left, however, I joined the starboard float. After the last adjusting with the sander I applied generous of bog on all bulkhead and keel joins and strapped the upper hull half down over the bulkhead locations and pressed the keel line together with a number of clamps:
Then the "not so fun taping inside the float circus" began. Laying down putty fillets along the bulkhead, then one or two layers of tape (two layers on the beam bulkheads) and peel ply, everything wet in wet. All done in three and a half hours, wonderful to get up in supine position and stretch the back after the job was done.

I bought an extra long paint brush for the forward bulkhead taping and I think it came out pretty well this time. I left the lower 4" or so till the float is in upright position, will tape it along with the keel tape.
When returning from Lillehammer, the winter was back! Lots of snow and freezing temperature compared to the last weeks when the spring has been knocking on the door. My workshop is inside the door at the green arrow:
I just bougt a small air driven sander and today I installed the compressor and tested this. It works great. Bought from Wuerth, looks like this and use 50 mm sanding pad and a lot of other stuff on 6mm shaft.
I also glued in 4" pieces of tape along the keel between all bulkheads. And I sat up an old wardrobe in which I will keep the epoxy along with a small electrical heater in order to preheat the epoxy to about 30 deg C before infusion as the viscosity of the epoxy is very temperature dependent.

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