| 08/09/29 |
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Building the Eastport Pram (continued). Last week, I glued on the thwart, the seats and the transom stiffeners. Now it's time to glue on the second ply on the gunwale. |
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Building the Shearwater 16 as well. Last week, I stitched the hull and now it's up to to the decking, upside down. I am curving the deck on this temporary form. |
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There we are ! The interest of such a curve is to stiffen the deck and to provide more room, buoyancy and height at the feet. |
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Click on the photos to see larger versions. |
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Now tat the deck is fully stitched, I am going to try it on the hull. The interest of this "dry" assembly is to check that the edge of the deck is covering properly the hull's edge all around. |
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Rather than stitching the deck to the hull, I hold them together with stretch film, much faster and easier than introducing the stitches through the crack between hull and deck. Not being Mr. Houdini, I choose the film... At this stage there is no epoxy on the boat yet (except for the puzzle joints). |
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After verifying the joint all around the boat, I cut the film to separate the hull and deck. This picture makes me thing of the transition from chrysalis to butterfly... but I am ahead of myself! |
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My wife came to help me apply glue between the stitches, first on the hull... |
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... then on the deck. |
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She deposits a bead on epoxy with a syringe along all the joints except along the temporary forms at the ends of the boat, which will be taken off as soon as the epoxy will harden. |
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And we put the deck and hull back together so that both elements will harden in a compatible shape, with a neat joint all around. We put tape and film on the joint and on top of all bulheads, because deck and hull can't stick together yet. |
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Indeed, now that the epoxy has hardened, we must extract all the stitches before applying a second coat on the joints, which must then be strengthened with fiberglass tape. You have missed the best moment yesterday because I had forgotten my camera: the cutting of the hatches ! You can see the sawdust lines resulting of the cutting of the aft hatch. |
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View of the aft hatch. Cutting these hatches is a delicate moment because you can make no mistake: both of the edges will be permanent in the finished boat. |
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I apply one coat of epoxy on the outside of the deck... |
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... and on the hull. Indeed, I'll have to plug all the stitches holes and I don't want to stain the wood around the holes. If the wood is already saturated, it won't get stained when I plug the holes. |
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Here is the aft hatch structure, ready to be glued after fitting. |
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And it is glued. I had to be careful to support the deck properly to avoid warping under the weight of all these clamps. |
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The cockpit is ready to receive the final joints. The tape will help me to work cleanly, which is important for these joints which will remain visible at the bottom of the cockpit. |
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The joints are made with a spoon of a size depending to the thickness to achieve.. it's tough work! |
| Back to the future |
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