Inner gunwales continued

Yesterday I was able to make the bevels for the other inner gunwale. Again, not perfect but as good as I could get them. Predictably, the last one was a bastard but I won in the end.

Today was finally D-day for joining the lengths. I spent some time sussing out how I was going to handle the job first. The only place under cover where I could do it was on our back verandah. I stuck some scrap timber strips in the gaps along one of the grooves in the decking, so as to (hopefully) make them as straight as possible. I also used a couple of old doors (weighted down with some of my gym weights) for either side of the scarfs, to give some clamping stability.

Well, at least the dry test run looks like it'll work.

I tried to chock the ends as best as possible too.

Deep breath, here we go. After laying down some plastic, I mixed up a little bit of epoxy with the additive which makes it more runny. I applied this to the bevels, allowing it to soak into the end grain a bit.

Then I mixed in some of the glueing/filling powder and applied it liberally to the surfaces, and matched them up. Bit messy, but hopefully I've got them aligned properly. It's a bit hard to see once the epoxy and plastic is all around, but I reckon it's ok. I fired a staple into the top joint to stop it from sliding, and covered it up.

Because the job is now laying across a high-traffic area, I took some steps to increase visibility. I'd hate to have to violently eliminate a member of my family for tripping over it and wrecking the joints.

I'm going to leave it like this until Saturday, when I will hopefully be able to clean them up and fit them into the hull. This has been a big mental hurdle for me. It is so good to now be moving again on this project. Hopefully I will be able to get some real momentum going again.