Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Festina Lente

Making haste, but slowly. Some days, the work just melts away.  Others, it seems nothing gets done.

First Kevin & I measured the bulkhead marks on the side panels, using a folded piece of tape, marked with each bulkhead spot, attached to a screw in the bow post.


The goal was to keep them symmetric side to side, but also equidistant b/w port vs starboard marks marks along the chine.

This lead to some head scratching, several cups of coffee, and re-marking. Eventually I pretty much used the original lines.

4 simple words from the previous blog post, "tomorrow, Saturday, the bulkheads".

Man, what a pain.



The first two, BH's #2 and 3, the large central ones framing the oarsman footwell, were drawn from the plans, cut, and then fiddled with for what seemed like hours.


I added cam straps to try pulling in the side panels, and kept cutting the bottom and side edges for a better fit.

And then finally decided it was a mistake to make the boat fit the plans. There are just enough differences b/w my boat and spec to mean the bulkheads, and later the decking, need to individually measured and cut.  The shape is what the shape will be.  Besides I like the way it looks now.

So off to the side go v.1 of #2 & 3.  Not, however, to the ignominious fate of the first transom. I'll cut them down and use them for the smaller bulkheads. This time I measured directly from the boat.  This wasn't as simple as it sounds since there are angles everywhere, and the width at the top can only be determined after establishing the height, while inside the boat, since of course each side panel is sloping.  And at a variable angle depending on where in the centerline. This required several calls to able assistant Kevin to hold various things while measuring.

Ruby, the Dory Dog, was however absolutely no help.



A dry fitting of all 6 bulkheads looked pretty good. I did cut down the height of two of them a smidge to leave enough room on the top of the side panels for the gunwales.



On to more glassing. Each panel got covered on both sides

Oh yeah, I also faired the joint b/w the bow post and the side panels.



3 comments:

  1. I'm famous! Isn't that the picture where Viv said I didn't look like I knew what I was doing? (Although probably a fair assessment)

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  2. It's just tough to believe you know what you're doing when you're not even looking at what you're supposed to be working on. Thinking this is more of a staged photo than action shot.... :)

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