It's Independence Day weekend and I'm trying to get a bit more done. One thing that is working out really well is a new way of doing the filleting. I've been trying to do it with "pastry bags" made from freezer bags, which might work really well standing at a bench, but not so good in this situation. After filling a bag with thickened epoxy, I would have to clamber into the boat and get in some really contorted positions to get at the floor fillets. The bag was flopping around and dropping epoxy here and there, and with the fatigue factor I was finding it really hard to get a good bead going.
So I ordered some fillable caulking-gun tubes from West Marine. This is much, much better. I have a lot more control and it is nowhere near as tiring so I end up doing a better job. Here's a photo:
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| West System Fillable Caulking Tubes |
An unused tube is shown below the gun. You fill it with thickened epoxy then put in the cap. I found it is best to have the tube in place before pushing in the cap and installing the gun--quite a bit of epoxy is ejected while doing that. Also I have a gun that has about a 6:1 mechanical advantage. Even something like Gluezilla or Six-10 is extremely hard to push out with a standard gun. This gun makes it very easy to do--just a lot more trigger pulls.
I'm also having to do a not-so-fun job and may as well get it over with. The mast is made from four "staves" that form a very long (16 feet), square box. Rabbets are cut along the length of two of the staves for the two others to fit into. Well, I cut them 3/4" wide according to the plans, but what I did not realize is that the boards I bought are slightly less than 3/4" thick (a standard 1 x 4 is 3/4" thick, these turned out to be non-standard). So, I am filling the rabbets with epoxied-in strips of wood. When I get that done I'll cut the rabbets again to the proper width.
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| Gluing Wood Strips into Rabbets |
The mast: oww, that hurts. sorry. I cut the staves for my mast over the weekend (no table saw so used a router - THAT took a while). I got the depth as accurate as I could, and the rest will just have to be good ol' epoxy.
ReplyDeleteI think that should work fine. I had planned to fill in the extra width I had cut (depth was fine) with thickened epoxy, but some on the Forum thought it would not be strong enough. I disagree, but am the neophyte so am filling in with wood. I really don't think you will have a problem--epoxy stronger than wood in my humble opinion.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the caulking tube tip. I am still a couple of weeks away from getting my kit. For now I will have to live vicariously through you and the rest of the Pocketship bloggers : ) Looks great! Bring it down to Corpus Christi when I finish mine and we can start our own fleet!
ReplyDeleteNothing worse than waiting for the kit to arrive! I spent the time working on spars--I had already purchased the manual and was glad I did. I love the Corpus Christi area, as long as there are islands between us and the open sea I might be willing to attempt it. For now, I am strictly a fresh-water sailor.
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