Saturday, March 23,2002
Phew, I'm worn out after a day of fairing the shelves and gluing the two curvy pieces together. I don't know what my deal is but I was off as much as a 1/4" inch in the width of the shelves. Other than extra weight I suppose it isn't a big deal, but just the same it annoys me that going from the lofting to a pattern to the final cutout I'd be so far off. I put the shelves back down on the lofting to keep things aligned and went about planing off the exess. I'll have gorilla arms if this keeps up. Had to stop and sharpen all three plane irons. Update:I figured out where I went wrong. The 2x8 I ripped in half for the rear shelves ends up being 1/8" shy of 4". The plywood part of the shelves ended up being 1/8" too wide because of a combination of cutting wide of the mark and increasing width by having a pattern cut out exactly 4inches. I didn't figure in pencil width...
After the fairing, I glued the two front pieces of each side. I admit that I still have a problem with butt joints. So I cut a 1/8" slot in the 12" scarf area of each piece. I soaked those slots and the 1/8" plywood slat, first with un-thickened epoxy, let that sit for a while, slathered on some more and then filled each slot with epoxy thickened with microfibers and a little cabosil. Squished the pieces together, scraped off the squeezeout and screwed the shelves together. I now feel more confident that I won't break the things when I'm handling them. Will also coat each side of each scarf with epoxy and 6 or 10 oz cloth. I forget what Renn said to use...
I ripped the rear shelf pieces and then stood there scratching my head wondering about planing the shelves down to 1 1/8". My friend who has a thickness planer is off working on his house in the middle of nowhere, so I decided I'd just use the Dewalt hand power plane. First I cut a bunch of diagonal slots going across the rear shelves at the thickness I wanted to take off. Then I planed down just to where the slots disappeared. Wha-Laa! I had my rear shelves down to the proper thickness. Looks good, too.
Did I mention that planing down shelves makes a lot of sawdust?
Tomorrow: Glue up the rear shelves and fill in all the ding dang voids in the subflooring ply that makes up the front shelf pieces. Will also try and cut the curvy bits of the lofted bottom pieces.
Jumbo building is fun! (and exhausting)
Sunday, March 24,2002
Today was a fine sunny (rain was the forecast) and warm day. Perrrrrrfect for cutting wood and gluing. I finished gluing up the shelves and now only have a tiny bit of fairing and three fiberglass patches to apply. Might just get up early tomorrow and do the patches before I head to work.
Cut out the curves on the bottom panels and drilled the stitching holes. If I have decent weather next weekend I'll have the bottom on the jig! I'm so excited looking at my handy work up to now. This afternoon I stood there and looked at the shelves and had to pinch myself. This is a big boat I'mma building.
I used Dave Nolan's tip of using a pickle jar to hold my brushes with a bit of acetone and it works great. I'm throwing away far fewer brushes. Only thing is every thing smells like dill pickles with extra garlic now. Might have to experiment by adding ground coffee or cocoa bean shells to the epoxy just so I don't have to smell pickles all the time... Heehee. I can hear it now, "The Original Scratch and Sniff Tolman Skiff. Comes in seven odiferous flavors." Eeeeeeeeeeep!