Monday, November 20, 2006

Disaster Strikes

Well, had a bit of a crisis tonight. It was really windy today (wind getting up to 40mph) so I thought I had best check on the marquee after work. Got back at 9.30pm to find that some of the corner junction poles at the base had broken leaving both ends of the tent flapping in the breeze!!!!!!

Have just spent the last 2 hours dismantling the marquee on my own in the dark!! Also didn’t know what to do with the canoe which is not fully epoxied yet! By some miracle I managed to manhandle the boat through the garage door using a webbing strap for grip (bearing in mind the thwarts and seats have not yet been fitted. Having got the boat inside I then had to take all the marquee poles down in the rain!!!

Learning point- marquees don’t like Scottish winter weather!!!!

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Tales of Woe


Ok folks sorry for the delay in posting (I had computer issues). Using another computer now so it’s all good.

I have now managed to complete all the taping on the outside. This is not as easy a job as it sounds and too be honest I’m not 100% happy with the job as there are quite a few runs. I’m hopeful that with a light sanding it will look a lot better. Having completed the external taping I removed the moulds and turned the boat the right way up.



I still had a little filleting inside to do from the areas where the moulds and cable ties had been. In my infinite wisdom I decided that I would try and fit the gunwhales on the same day (with retrospect this may have been a bad idea). I used my router to create a round edge on the wood prior to fitting. Previous attempts to join the wood together prior to fitting had failed so I decided to join then in-situ. I started in the middle of the boat and worked along using clamps for positioning then securing the gunwhale with brass screws from inside. It was all going well until the end where I should have used steam / boiling water to soften to wood to make it easier to bend, in my rush I decided not to do this so the gunwhales were about 3mm below the upper edge of the ply. However I have since discovered that the old 40 grit sandpaper on the orbital makes quick work of the 3mm of plywood!!! The joins in the wood are not perfect I should have used scarf joints but I just could not get these to work, in the end I opted for a mitre cut- which once filled will hopefully give a satisfactory appearance. My sister helped out with fitting the rest of the gunwhales which was a big help. Also managed to crack one of the bits of wood but I think it will glue together without too much problem.




Spent today sanding down the inside of the hull- hard work. Managed the front half but will try and finish the rear half tomorrow.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Outside sanded, centre tape on

Haven’t been able to update the blog since Friday!! Managed to get the whole of the outside sanded down. Used a rotating disc style sander with 60 grit paper! The lines are looking really good now :-) Got the centre seem taped on the outside. Planning to tape the rest of the external seems on Monday.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Cable ties removed


Well, turned the boat over for the first time today. It has a nice bottom ;-) Took all the cable ties out which was a bit of a nervous moment: had visions of it all falling apart without them!! Fortunately it stayed together, spent the rest of the day filling all the joints with epoxy filler (very sticky stuff!!!)

The sanding begins tomorrow