These photos show how fine the last planks on each side were. I'm a bit worried that they were different sizes (just how asymmetrical is this hull?).
Ta daaa. Doesn't look too bad I think. We'll see once I get all that glue stripped off though.
The next steps are to laminate both outer stems & shape them in to the hull, remove all of the approx 2, 500 staples and sand/fair the whole hull exterior, prior to epoxy glassing.
Yesterday I got stuck into pulling out the staples around the bow area. I found the best way was to place an old scraper next to/underneath a staple, then slip/wriggle an old skinny chisel under the staple. Once the staple moved a bit & I could get a good grip with some pliers, I'd just pull it straight out.
Then I started trying to strip some glue back before sanding. Although the surform is ok, I found a sharpish flat chisel best but I did have to control myself. A couple of times I got carried away, slipped & started gouging the planking, but it's not too bad. Once I'd gotten as much of the glue off as I could, I began sanding with some 80 grit paper on my orbital sander (soft rubber backing pad). This did a good job, although it was pretty slow going & I quickly chewed through my small stock of paper. I've got to say, I'm pretty excited at the sight of the grain coming through now. The photo below shows how it's looking. There are numerous gaps that will need filling & the area still requires more sanding, but if the rest of the hull looks this good then there should be no problem with having it left showing and it should all look shit hot. Fingers crossed.
Back I went to Bunnings for more sandpaper, but this time I got a 15mtr roll of 40 grit. Hopefully this coarser paper should rip through the rest of it quickly.
The weather lately has been pretty miserable, but at least it hasn't held me up too much. That changed this morning, it's pissed down all day. In future, I will only build inside properly enclosed shelter. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to finally be making progress, only to be held up by inclement weather again.
Scotty, I've given some thought to building one of these for my (still hypothetical) boatbuilding project.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.by-the-sea.com/stimsonmarine/bowroof.html
They're remarkably sturdy and really cheap to build. If you've got a significant amount of work left, maybe it's still worth doing?
Congrats on the major milestone - and you're right, it's gonna look like AU$1,215,456.60 (that's an even million in US dollars - had to adjust for the exchange rate).
Hi Rick. Thanks for that, I have seen these before & I did almost try to set one up, but I thought that my finances might not extend to set one up so I shrewdly decided to invest in an inadequate, half-arsed, cheap-skate, make-shift tarpaulin design instead. That is my power, to lead by poor example. If someone does the opposite of whatever I do, then it'll all turn out great.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the congrats. Optical value may have been slightly devalued somewhat, due to internal influences (namely, incompetence of the builder).