Squirt Plans

Squirt Plans

Monday, June 25, 2012

Transom Planking Complete, Front Panels Fit

I made good progress this week by screwing and epoxying the transom panels into place. I also trimmed and  countersunk all the screw holes for the front two panels, which will go on this upcoming weekend. To trim the front panels, I used a wet towel to dampen the side plywood near the transition joint, and then using a blue marker, I drew on the edge of the wood. This meant when I was fitting the bottom plywood pieces, I could simply bend them down to where they met the side plywood, and the blue marker would leave a line for where to cut. I'm not sure if my strategy comes across when explaining it so the pictures should help.

The first two pictures show the marking process I used to trim the plywood, and the third picture shows the bottom plywood completely fitted.






I would also like to add some mistakes I made this past weekend. I originally thought that I could mix up the epoxy, and then do all the gluing and drilling myself. As it turned out, there were far too many screw holes, which meant it took a long time to fasten the rear panels. By the time I was done my epoxy batch had hardened and was unusable. Then, not learning from my mistake, I tried to do the same thing while fastening the front panels but figured I could move a little faster. By doing this I didn't take my time to make sure all the screws were fitting properly in their corresponding holes, and at some point the screws and holes got off by about a half inch, which meant when I was doing the front, the panel didn't line up. Also my epoxy hardened in the process. I broke my number one rule which is to always take my time and ask for help when needed. Well, the lesson has been relearned and I will proceed with caution this upcoming weekend.

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