Parts that look like a boat

 Worked hard on the boat this evening.


Using the West System scarfer worked out really well, although one of the joints that I created was misaligned so I had to cut the boards apart, re-cut the angle joints and re-glue the boards.  Today, I cut the bottom and sides from the three 24 X 4 sheets of Hydrotek.  

The picture on the right shows the bottom piece.  and in the foreground are the folded up tyvek sheets for these large components.  Like most people of the other i550 builders, I just taped them onto the long sheets and used spray paint to outline the appropriate shapes.  After I cut out these shapes, I did a bit of destructive testing on the long angle (8 to 1 I believe) joints made using the scarfing device, with the scraps that were cut off of the long parts.  As I had hoped, in every case the plywood broke on either side of the glued joints.  In fact the joints were so strong that I have delayed reinforcing them with fiberglass.  Really this wasn't a conscious decision - I just ran out of epoxy resin.  However I felt comfortable cutting the components out, without the reinforcement.

To the right is the cradle that I've built to hold the boat during construction.