Creeping evidence

Heres the starboard side arm where it joins (or is supposed to join) the top frame on BH1. SOB decided to go for a walk after I thought it was going to set in place. How to avoid this?


And this is my new paperweight/epoxy trophy that I just cracked out a yogurt container. At least I got my container back! There are 2 ziploc bags and probably 20 bucks worth of epoxy in there.

Wet on wet epoxy coating

Today I coated one side of my BHs with two coats of epoxy to seal and waterproof the wood. I used the wet-on-wet method that Storer recommends. The first coat when on quite well, I used a small cheap squeegee thing to spread it around, and a small roller held stationary to smooth it down. I kept one BH on just using the spreader, to little difference. Once the first layer got tacky I added the second layer of epoxy, again with the squeegee and then rolled smooth. The second coat went on waaaaaay smooth and took less epoxy as well. I was actually surprised at how little epoxy this whole operation took. A little goes a long way.

At this point my wife called me to join her downtown for dinner, which I happily did. I thought I would have had enough time to get back to apply coat three, but I was wrong. I came back and the epoxy had all hardened up. Some bulkheads will have to be "de-waxed" and sanded for the final coat, because I need these to be waterproofed up. Others are good to go right now with two coats because in some places it went on a little thick. So Im good in some area, not so good in others, all in all, Im not worried. I made a little more work for myself, but oh well.


Damn. Those look good.

The gluing of the buttstraps and the chinelogs yesterday still goes. The temperature is maybe around 50 deg. in the garage, so today I built a heat box with a space heater and a sheet:


Not the most efficient design, but better than nothing under the circumstances. The glue has set up, but if I press firmly I can still get a fingernail in, which is a Storer-failure. So Im not touching anything and well wait until tomorrow before I move anything.

The dreaded stem still continues to stump me, but I shall solve it by jove!

Transom takes a hit!

In the course of beveling the bottom edge of the transom, I took a couple of chunks out of the endgrain of the starboard side frame. Then, I head a ***CRACK*** on one pass of the plane. I ripped a sizeable piece of the side frame away from itself. I carefully chiselled off the exposed end, and on another pass from the plane... ***CRACK*** and I took another strip, this one very deep. I can epoxy this all together, but Id just as rather not have the integrity of the wood comprised. I only had one remaining bevel left with an endgrain, and I beveled it with a rasp and then planed the rest to match. Dammit-- This is an amateur mistake! Other amateurs beware!



Take note that I did not break the epoxy bond between the side frame and the transom ply, the surface layer of the side arm remains firmly glued to the ply.