stubs away!!!!!!

Got cracking after heating the shed up for an hour. Having all the cloth cut to size proved a real help as it was great picking up each piece and placing it on the hull. The only downside in todays proceedings was losing a whole cups worth of epoxy (600ml) bollocks!!!

It seems i'd done such a good job preheating the shed that it was nearly 30 degrees c so knocked off the heater and got down to business, six hours had passed by the time i got to washing all the tools in acetone. My back neck and shoulders were killing me, i had everything done including peel plying the lot I even had the bag and breather cloth ready to go but after three attempts at trying to get the breather material to attach to the hull i gave up. I was so knackered i could barely get my arms above my head so have had to make do with it being squeegeed & roller-ed to death.

If i have enough strength when i do the starboard side i may go for the bag although i may look at attaching the breather material to the bag so all i got to do is stick the bag on the hull which is easy enough.

I have all the spreader washers cut and shaped for each location, all out of 10mm 316L stainless as i needed to make up the stub floor thickness so this was cheaper than epoxy speaking of which is worrying me how much more i'll need based on what i used on the stub. I calculated i've used around 4 litres which at the prices i pay with delivery and tax works out at £56 to do.

That'd buy me 25 litres of poly but i guess it wouldn't give me the protection though, oh well guess i'll have to keep doing the lottery.

cheers

....and start again

Well in all honesty there was nothing to do so i may as well crack on. The financial windfall didn't materialise but the more clement weather did so i revisited an old hobby of mine - that being displacing vertebrae in my spine dragging 600-odd kilos of pig iron around the driveway.

This time cracks had started to appear in the tops of both of them, you may remember when the first keel i rebuilt started to come apart well now both have got the pox. The first keel has now parted company with its top from the middle all the way aft so will have that in as soon as i have the other mounted.

In the meantime i got to work cutting paper patterns with which i could transfer to bi-axial cloth and then epoxy on, i've been doing the same with the wetted ares of the hull for a while and although a largely time-consuming process it makes fitting so much easier when everything is made-to-measure.

Now the first keel is completely sheathed three times over i (rather controversially) am going to tape the keel to hull joint when i have attached the keels as i want a completely sealed joint.

More pictures of the stub to follow

cheers