I made the mistake of working alone, sick, and out of boredom. I had been sitting on my round bits for a week trying to get better, so I popped out to the ol boat shop to see what I could accomplish. Got side #1 placed alonside the boat without mishap, and felt good about myself. Its actually quite impressive how the butt blocks I did (one sided only so I can be lazy about fairing the sides) held. Using the 18oz woven tape, they really are strong as all hell. That is, until, you botch a lamination and leave a big hooey in it. Hooey is a clinical term defining a joint or line which should be straight but somehow contains both sine and cosine waves. I picked up side #2, got it about 75% in the gap I wanted it to sit until I could stitch it when BANG! Massive joint failure, and I think I somewhat understand that nauseating feeling of a hang gliger pilot watching the wing fold up around him as he plummets to earth.
Enter the Wheel Of Swearing!
Take &)*!@ and add &%)( to it, creates a whole new meaning! %&)* added to any noun becomes an action phrase! Like those old Batman shows, only with more COLOR!
Well, the only thing you can do is fix it, so I cleaned the joint out (as the glass was still in tact and looked good), refilled with epoxy, cured, and we were off. So the next day I pick it up, feels nice and solid. I place a sawhorse against the jig to keep the panel from tipping out, two blocks of concrete to hold it in the stern and start moving again. I get it 99% into place when it decided to l e a n out a little from the jig. This was your typical Jerry Bruckheimer countdown to oblivion moment. I couldn't get there fast enough. The cussing was beginning to ooze from me, dribbling out as I felt it in the core of me. BANG! Same joint, same place.
AAAAAHHHHHHHH! As a passerby, this might have seemed an odd time in our neighborhood. Birds scattered. Deer ran in all directions, and as fast as possible. The coyotes, pinned their ears back and huddled under a tree. Neighborhood animals cowered in corners and peed slightly on the nice rug in the house. The words that came out of my shop were foreign, sounding as if a college sports athlete was speaking in tongues, but with Tourettes....
This time (as you can see above) I sanded the glass back off. I started over. I type this with an itchy fibgerglass mottling on my hands. I apologize to my neighbors and those within a 17 mile radius for what was said and any problems I caused with migratory animal patterns.
On a lighter note, I really live having a vacuum on my sander, WHAT A DIFFERENCE! I highly reccomend it...
Some nice shots, and ones Im going to post over at the bateau forum for opinion from the designer. Here are the bottom panels hard-stitched together to see how well they will take the curves:
Very pleased with the results, I decided to cut all the stitches out! As Jacques would reccomend, final fit-up should be done with loose stitches all around and slowly brought to closure in a fair and smooth fashion.
Here's one from the back, showing the looseitude of the boat, waiting for side #2 to go on:
From the front, bad lighting:
And another, with better composition by the photographer (flash was on):
Its progressing, but its snowing heavily in the hills, so I will be skiing this week a bit. Hope to hang the other side by thurs night, and will hit up another post then.
Hopefully, without a BANG!
E
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