Today I E-cycled to work to try and reduce my carbon footprint (not to mention the cost of fuel) and to make up for the fact that I had to drive in the 7 kms twice yesterday because I forgot my esky and laptop. It was good exercise and at least I didn’t have to wait for those slow traffic lights on Ocean Beach Road. What a great turn up today. Stefan, JP, Nick, newcomer Bo, Paul H, Veronica, Lesley and Mark arrived roughly in that order, all keen to get started. This of course sent me into a tail spin of job creation which ended with me making a cup of tea and eating one of Lesley’s delicious muffins.
Stefan prepared the layout tables with new sheets of baking paper. JP and Lesley donned gloves and later with Stefan applied glue to the laminates. We missed the step of damping the boards first in the first set and I, as Chief Glue Inspector (CGI) declared we had better up the quantity of glue used to get squeeze out.
We were going for broke today, laminating both the inner and outer stems together. Once the requisite amount of glue had been applied Bo wrapped each stack of laminates in clingfilm like the tea cake above. JP then took charge of his clamping team and clamped both stems to the jig with precision that comes from the experience of having done this before (if only once).
Nick and Veronica were tasked with more finishing of the frames involving sanding and using a router. The important bits were the water access tunnels which once glued into place would be difficult to work on and routing a bevel into the inside edges to minimise future damage. Veronica had never used a router before and Nick was an excellent instructor. We were all pleased with the outcome. Lesley then finished it off with finer sanding.
Meanwhile Mark had been putting the finishing touches to shaping the hog as far as possible. Then Harry arrived back from the shops having dodged the rain showers but suffering a leaking milk bottle in his shopping bag. After sorting that out he joined us for a cup of tea and muffins (the tea cake went untouched).
Once tea and chat was over Harry and JP lead the team up to Harry’s other shed where he keeps all his machines. There he used a thicknesser to make the stern stems 50mm thick and what a lovely job it did of it. Everyone came back impressed and, happy with today’s progress, they started to say their farewells. JP, Harry and I stayed on to glue the top sections onto frame 6. This central frame will be a guide for landing the inwales when we turn the boat over, the others will go on afterwards giving us a chance to shape them to lock in the inwales.
When JP and Harry had left I couldn’t resist cutting the top off the stern inner stem so that I could dry fit it to the boat. It looks good. On Thursday we’ll be shaping it and the bow inner stem to receive the ends of the planks and the hog. Then we’re on to planking.
Cheers Dave