Weblog Entry

Day 6: delays delays but the end is in sight

I'm officially declaring that we won't be sailing on Sunday. Sadly too many delays are pushing back the paint schedule. Most of it was losing too much time in Home Depot researching supplies, and the rest lost to the troubles custom fabricating all the remaining pieces. That said, everything other than the rudder, keelboard, and mast are now complete and we've finally begun the final assembly. Using some 2x4 to keep the angles of the corners 90 degrees we glued the rear side on.

Next came the rear inner bulkhead wall. Due to the thinness of the plywood used the sides were actually bowing in, which created a unique problem. With the sides pushing in we could neither get a straight line on the bulkhead. On top of that, the bulging was pushing against the bulkhead and thus moving the sides out further than they were supposed to be, making the boat look more like a parallelogram. Thankfully though I already anticipated this problem and picked up something to solve it. This something was a set of comealong ratchet straps. Lashing them over the sides then across the top of the inner bulkhead I ratcheted the straps tight. This had the effect of pulling the two side pieces together. The bulkhead in the middle pushed back against the inwardly bulging sides, flattening them out and allowing us to glue it down.

That problem solved, we turned our attentions to the front. It suffers the same problem, though much more pronounced. So pronounced in fact that we weren't really able to position the forward inner bulkhead wall at this time. To make it easier for ourselves we've attached the front outter wall to the front. Once that dries and is nailed in place (we've forsworn screws for shank nails, which seem to hold just as much) we'll batter the middle wall into place and finally glue it down.

You'll notice in our picture that the bulkhead hatches are cut out. A big thanks to my boss for loaning me his jigsaw. It made the work both possible and easy. The method of using it was simple. First I drilled big 2" holes with my new power drill (a decent 7amp one with a good strong torque, forward mounted handle, and variable strength trigger) then just cut straight lines to each one. Method suggested by my father, who is in France worrying endlessly about my doing this project and the possibility I'll sink beneath the waves .

The weight of the boat has gone up a bit due to the extra wood and bracing I've put on. Better safe than sorry though, and I'm planning on stopping by home depot tomorrow to look at roller wheels to mount to the side. that way I can just tilt it up then roll it to the truck :) I have to check first to make sure I can mount them above the waterline to prevent them dragging in the water.

Anyhow, here's the view. I'd have gotten more photos showing the various joints (a week of prior planning, measuring, gluing, cutting, botching, and working all has come together surprisingly fairly well) but sadly my camera ran out of power after the first photo. As such here's the only shot I've got. I know it's similar to yesterday's though this time the work is permanent. :)

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