Day 24 - Down with the forms

Today - worked on the top and the bottom. Applied the second coat of resin to the underside of the top deck. After that, lowered the hull from the ceiling and then attempted to lift the deck. Found it was a bit "flexy", and I didn't really want to snap it in half. That would be bad. So, just used the ropes to hold it in place while I worked on the hull.



With the hull on the bench, I used a wood burner with a spade tip in to melt the glue off the temporary frames. I used a 1" putty knife to scrape up the freshly melted glue. After getting most of the glue off, I was able to snap out the frames. They did leave a little residue of wood and some of the glue. Sanding off the hot glue gun glue is a pain. It immediately clogs up the sand paper. Using a chisel just digs into the wood. I got most of it off, but may borrow Sheryl's razor to get the last bit. I don't think she'll mind.

Here's the hull all naked. No temporary bracing. Now time for some sanding. Tonight, I sanded all the seams in the stern, and around the butt joints - where you can see the two transverse stripes on the hull. Got them nice and smooth. I left some of the strapping tape in place. Will rip the rest of it off tomorrow.








Started at the stern with some really thick epoxy to fill up the back 3". This is supposed to allow the cloth to lay smoother in the hull, and also provide a place for me to attach a rudder at a later date. I squished in quite a bit of material there.




I added a strip of 3" wide fiberglass to the stern butt joint and a piece of 3" and 4" to the bow butt joint. This will reinforce the joints so the boat doesn't split in two while I'm paddling. I went with a bit more reinforcement than was called for (none was called for on the stern). What the heck. You can also see my last little effort for the evening. I spread out some thick epoxy in the keel seam to make it smooth for the cloth. Need to finish that up tomorrow - let it cure, then sand.