Well, the outer hull is done so now onto building inwards. First order of business is installing the stringers.
(1) Stringers are the long, skinny bits, the outer support for the decking. At this point the instructions refer to the 5" line that we drew super-carefully as a 'guideline'. Hmm.. so accuracy wasn't that important after all. Works for us. Anyway, we cut the notch for the butt strap using a saw and small chisel, and made a series of cuts at the front end of the RHS stringer. For some reason this was heftier wood than the LHS which didn't need it. We cut the stringers to length, and used a number of hand clamps, with shims we had lying around acting as clamp extensions, to test fit the pieces.
(2) Using the 5" pencil line as a guide, aligning the side stringers with the front and rear transom stringers, and with a bit of adjustment to get it as straight as we could, we did a test fitting and clamped things in place temporarily. Several of the original pencil lines needed erasing once the fitting was done, so we redrew the lines where the top of the stringer would be as a result. It seems that 5" American isn't quite the same thing as 5" Canadian on the pre-glued transom stringers, but somehow we coped. No comment on which is the larger.
(4) Next step is to glue and nail them into place. We used some 403 in the epoxy mix for thicker consistency. We then used as many clamps and shims or similar as was necessary to press the stringers flush up against the hull. A couple of minor tweaks later and we were ready for nails.
(5) In went the nails next. Best way to do this is to hold a very solid block of wood against the stringer (as well as the clamps) as you whack the nails in. There's also a slight lesson to be learned here so check out the 'Hot Tips' section about avoiding nailing yourself to the boat,
(6) Leave lots of clamps in place and call it a day. Go visit the Berkeley Yacht club, as we did, to tell of great feats of boat building, and grand tales of our construction prowess.
At this point we've begun to realize that the boat may well be bigger than any existing exit from the workshop. Perhaps this may be a problem. Look out for the future 'Workshop Demolition' tab.
(7) Since we may make a cradle to hold the Mirror stable, now was the time to draw and outline of the forward and aft bulkheads on a couple of bits of scrap.
Trace a line using your trusty compass to give a extra 1/4" or so to allow for the hull width. Perhaps we'll use them, perhaps we won't. Who knows - certainly not us. Mark explains all above, and demonstrates the early affects of epoxy intoxication.
Today was also an important day for us - we had Cap'n Ken drop round to check us out for general sea-worthiness (or was it sanity?). Anywhere, here Cap'n Ken (Rest in peace Kenny - we'll miss you buddy) peers into the boat with the bulkheads test fitted.
We think he was assessing the boat for potential stealth military use, but whatever the real reason, we went out to lunch. We went to a pub with an Indian restaurant attached. Culinary perfection.
(8) So onto a bit of taping and bulkhead work. First thing to do is test fit the bulkheads. We did this and trimmed them for best fit (a rasp seems pretty good for this bit). We also found that we needed to clean out a few spots of excessive epoxy so the moral of the story is be careful and save yourself the scraping. We also found that the bulkheads aren't a perfect fit no matter how hard you push, so we just accepted that (after a couple of 11th hour mods Mark insisted on) and moved on to our happy places. We'll fill any gaps later with a bit of microfiber/epoxy/fiberglass tape for a decent seal. Basically, we'll hide our lack of quality control. Don't tell anyone.
(9) With bulkheads ready to go, now it's on to the taping. We pre-measured everything and cut as the instructions tell you (we're getting better at that), and used a large brush ($0.49 at Harbor Freight Tools) to spread on the epoxy as time is of the essence. Mark placed the tape, Shawn sloshed on the epoxy, and then followed up with lots of strategic dabbing to soak the tape further and make sure it was both solidly attached and saturated. This process uses lots of epoxy so we lost a few more brain cells as a result. The respiratory system probably took a hit too.
(10) Now in go the bulkheads (and the mast step support) starting at the front - we pushed them into place pretty hard, working against time as the tape/epoxy cured. We got them in with a few last minute adjustments, but there will definitely be a need for some gap sealing and equalizing of stringer heights. We're not too far off but will need to do a bit a work later. We secured them with pins and nails which worked fine when you've got two people (one nailer, one shover). We also squeezed the hull a bit at the middle bulkhead with a couple of pipe clamps to try to get a tighter seal - worked a little but we're still going to have a small gap. Oh, well, c'est la vie. You may also have spotted that we took off the front temporary strut as it didn't seem needed and made jamming the bulkheads in harder. Stay tuned to see if this was really a good idea...
(12) The last bit we did was true up the yet hull again. It seems that this thing will wander off every chance it gets, so with a lot of adjustments to the props, and throwing on a few lead weights at the back, we got it pretty true. We fully expect it to spring off at some other odd angle when things have hardened up and the weights etc get removed, I guess we'll end up adjusting throughout the project. Hopefully it'll end up straight in the end. Also went back and used a scrap of stringer to fix the break mentioned earlier - you can see the clamp holding it together in the photo on the RHS
(13) Seeing as we had a bit of epoxy left over, we used it to stick the center case together. It was a huge challenge but as usual we rose to the occasion. seeing as Lorne Bellamy autographed this bit, just below the MSD stamp, we epoxied over it as our homage.
(14) So we returned a week later and the tape/epoxy had stiffened up the boat nicely in a true position. Guess this happens as more goes on - a good thing as long as we remember to keep the boat straight.
So, now the good news is out of the way, onto the screw-up-du-jour. Test fitting a few pieces, starting with the side tanks made it obvious that we have our bulkheads a bit out of true - up to 3/8" in a couple of places as a matter of fact. See the 'Hot Tip' on not doing this as it makes a lot of things more difficult to fit so, as we were also working on getting 36322, we didn't end up doing much other than muse on our predicament and conclude that we'll have to do some fancy custom cutting and some wider fillets in places. Probably nobody will ever notice but us but annoying all the same. It's as well we don't work for NASA.
We also found the glue blocks, despite being measured exactly, didn't appear to line up as we'd have liked for the side tanks so we'll need to work around that. Epoxy and shims if needed we suppose.
(15) OK, we take it back. A stout 'whack' on the rear bulkhead put in in true. Never underestimate the power of a mallet. Some fresh brass pins and a blob or two of epoxy and perfect alignment results (the front is still out a bit but close enough for US government work). We also take it back about the glue blocks. When you actually fit the side tanks everything does actually fall into place with the desired curve - it just doesn't look that way when you look at the block positions relative to the bulkheads - so the lesson of the day is trust you did it right if you follow the patented 70407 scribbled diagram. That said, the side panels do take some serious shoving downwards to seat tightly so have a buddy on hand with a hammer to get the pins in place and make sure everything is pre-glued. We added 403 fibers to stiffen up the epoxy to make sure we filled any holes on the glue block/side tank contact points.
(16) Final activity of the day was to glue the stringers to the side tanks that support the topsides you sit on. Easy to do and we held things in place with lots of clamps as shown. We fitted the stringers more in line with those glued to the hull than the top of the side tanks as we figured we'll shave things down in due course when the decks go on. Another fine adjustment for later. We have lots of those.
(17) Onto the center case and stuff. Did a bit of rasping and sanding to shape the edges a bit, and then, a moment or rare brilliance, we decided to spread the side tanks with a couple of pipe clamps used in reverse (rather than trying to jam things which we'd been told was a nightmare) so the thwart (looks like a bench seat to me so why it would be called a thwart is a mystery) would easily fit in. Trust us - when you first test fit it, it looks like there's no way it will fit. Worked brilliantly. We marked the position for the thwart battens with everything test fitted, but decided to deviate from the instructions a bit by assembling everything outside the boat so we'll fit it all next time.
Below is the center case being glued and assembed for next time. It seems easier this way. We'll see.
(18) And the last job for the day was the rather easy fitting of the rear deck support. This one just requires a bit of presassembly (try it and mark the support beam) and a few copper nails and glue to hold it together, followed by more epoxy to secure it, and a couple of brass pins to finish.
An interesting development was a race against the clock on our epoxy use as it's super hot here at the moment. The heat means we're at the fast end of the slow hardener scale so have to be careful not to mix up too much at a time.
Something to baffle anyone not Canadian. The screws supplied, which we're using are all Robertson's. These have a peculiar tapered square head (not a cross or slot) which actually works pretty well as long as you have the supplied screwdriver bits. Any future owner of this boat, should there ever be one, will have to move to Canada.
(19) Next, in went the thwart and center case. We spread the side tanks to make it easy using the pipe clamp technique; however we ran into a couple of minor disasters as usual. First thing was finding the center case wasn't exactly at 90 degrees to the thwart. We were a few degrees off. Bummer. Our problem was trusting that the pegs that come with the kit would hold everything in the correct position - they don't - there's a degree or two of wiggle room we should have realized and could have easily corrected before the epoxy cured. Secondly, as we spread the side tanks - crack - the LHS stringer split at a knot we hadn't really noticed. Second bummer of the day.
Taking stock of our disasters, one at a time, we figured the important thing is that the center case is in line. We marked the center and test fitted (penciling around the exact position), and since visually you'd never be able to tell, we decided to not attempt any heroic efforts to break it apart that would have only ended up with split wood. So it won't be perfect - we'll survive. We did trim the edges (not much) to reflect the non-90 for a snug fit, then glued everything in place and weighted everything down with some lead blocks. Next visit. we'll add more epoxy/403 glue to make sure this is well and truly sealed in place.
(20) We started to tape the interior joint, and epoxy them into place. We have a few more to do but this job's 90% done now, but we stopped as the fumes were starting to get to us big time as 95 degree heat and epoxy really create some noxious gases, as well as having to work faster than we like (which isn't fast, as the gentle reader will probably have noticed).
And finally, the clamp-o-rama as we left off for the day. If you look closely you can see the tapes, and the hand clamps are holding the stringer repair in place. You can also see the string we used to check the center case was in line. We added a bit of scrap screwed into the stringers to even out the pressure on the crack repair as we only had one pipe clamp spare. The front clamps (there's another under the boat) are squeezing the non secure bulkhead joint while the epoxy does its work.
Final task of the day was to recheck the transoms to make sure they're in line (they are - yay). The boat is actually starting to feel pretty rigid now. Also did another string check (a string run between the midpoint of the front and rear transoms) to make sure the center case ran straight down the center of the boat, which is does, once again surprisingly given our usual quality of work. We added a few weights to keep things in line and that was that.