Day 36 - Making clamps

A quick day of work on the boat. As mentioned in yesterday's entry, I added the reinforcing strip between the deck and the hull. The hull is currently tipped on its side. I found it was easier to paint the resin on the wood, then lay the fiberglass tape on top. Then all I had to do was touch up those areas that were looking a bit dry. This was preceded by a little light sanding to take down any rough spots from the fillet work, and to vacuum out the inside of the hull. Today's work on the boat took a whopping 20 minutes.

With all that time available, figured I would create a number of disposable clamps to hold the cockpit combing in place with. I had picked up a 10 foot stick of 4" diameter schedule 40 pipe to create the clamps. I threw a couple on the cockpit opening to provide some idea of what I'm talking about.

To make the clamps, I used my 12" sliding compound miter saw. It was just big enough to fit the pipe in and cut it. I did have to tape the guard back - and be very careful not to get my hand or arm in the way. That would be bad. From the cutting operation, a significant amount of black sawdust was left over. The shop vac made quick work of that. I figure I made around 75 of the temporary clamps.

I mentioned the other day that I used a long handled syringe. Well, here's what it looks like. Found I needed to add some nails to help guide the dowel. On the first attempt, the dowel was flexing. Next time, I would use a bit larger diameter dowel for the plunger.