The skeg is complete, glued up, and ready for service. I wanted a nice strong skeg, as the area we live in has some shallow mucky areas that might try to get their grubby little hands on our skeg.
Our friend the skeg needed to be not only glued up parallel to the centerline of the boat, but also vertical, as well as straight. The board I purchased had a bit of a hooey in it, which complicated the task slightly. It did work out fine though.
Here you can see the clamping to the 2x4 to hold the skeg straight. To get it vertical, the long level was run up to the rafter, trued up with the board, and clamped to a truss. There are perks to not having your garage completely finished!
After the initial cure, here is how it looks (frail, in my opinion):
Next, its time for filleting. My original mixture sagged out, which was a bummer. Instead of wasting the epoxy, I ended up scraping it off quickly, throwing in some more silica, and making it VERY stiff. It went back on, and turned out to be a pretty decent fillet. Not my best work, but not bad. I figured out a better idea of what it should look like when its right for a no-sag stick.
If you have ever made bread (or if your lucky like me, the wifey makes foccacia), you know exactly how it should look while stirring. It gets that floury texture while stirring in the last of the powder, then saturates into a nice dry putty that won't sag for anything.
Mediocre first fillet, after remixing:
Eh, not that stellar, but strong.
Other side, some of my best work:
Im proud of that one.
Here is a view from aft of the fillets with glass laid up, almost like a cutaway:
Cool huh.
A nice perspective, taped up:
Finally, the bow end, which is going to have the glass trimmed up this morning. I wanted it semi-blunted so that if something strikes it, its unlikely to splinter or break the end. I think the extra silica should really make it strong if we bonk some debris:
Off to trim, and decide on this fill the weave or flip it over thing.
E
No comments:
Post a Comment