Work has continued on the centerplate case sides over the past days, I’ve just not posted anything about it, until today.
The port side now coated with neat epoxy and much less messy without so much tape.
During the vacuuming part of the process, however, the pump started to overheat after an hour and I noticed that it had managed to pull a greater vacuum than before indicating that the seals were better but the pump was working harder as a result. So I resorted to some cooling. After a couple of hours, however, the pump was still too hot, so I ran it for 30 minutes then let it cool for 30 minutes with the fan still going.
Just to prevent the top laminate from lifting during the cooling phase, I put some lead weights on the top. Each of those is 2kg so plenty of downward pressure. Not that I expected the laminate to lift, but there’s not reason not to put the weights on, just to be sure.
Now I have the two sides laminated up and you can see that one is the mirror of the other. After cleaning up the squeeze out I put the port side aside for the moment since I need to remove the old side from the boat before I can continue with that piece.
But there’s nothing stopping me from working on the starboard side. I clamped the runners in place then dry fitted the side to the space. I had to trim a few sections but once it fit snugly I glued and screwed the top and bottom runners in place and took the workpiece inside to speed up the glue drying.
Once the glue had dried I made the reinforcement at the pivot bolt hole and this was also glued and screwed in place.
Then the diagonal brace was constructed. At least, I presume that it is a brace, I can’t think of any other reason for it except aesthetics. The original case side was just one layer of 8mm plywood so a brace may have been needed. Whatever the reason I decided that I would replace it anyway.
This was a little tricky since the angle of the cut required at the top of the brace is not the same as the one at the bottom. I knocked up a simple scarfing table saw jig for this.
Nothing fancy but it does the job well enough.
The problem at the lower end is that whatever I do, it impinges on one of the screws that holds the bottom runner to the keel. So once the glue has dried I shall drill up through the screw hole and then drill a hole in the brace that is wide enough to allow me to put the screw in and tighten it up. I will plug the hole once the screw is tightened as it will be a water trap otherwise.
Then it was back to the Rayburn to warm the workpiece up. At this point I had to order some more No.8 1″ 316 stainless screws as I’d only bought a pack of 50 previously, and I’ve used 32 on this side alone.
There won’t be any more going in from this side, but there will be some more from the outside and into the end block, but those require screws of a different length, as do the screws into the keel which are longer still. However, I’ll have to do the same for the port side once I start on that.
Once the glue has dried I’ll run a round-over bit in the trim router around some of the edges, just to give a better edge for paint. Right angle edges tend to shed paint quite quickly.
But for today, I think that it is time to pack up. It has been a very successful few days with the few mistakes made being minor.
Time for a cup of tea.