Still here and pluggin' away.

Sorry for not keeping up but I've been studying other peoples builds and criticizing my own then fighting discouragement to keep going. So here's what has been going on, last time I allowed myself to get side tracked by the building frame when I wasn't ready for it. So at this time I had acquired a couple sheets of exterior 3/4" ply to use for the building frame risers, and yes I am aware that it should not take two full sheets of plywood to make the risers but they were offered at no cost and the man helped me load them into my old pickup. Old attitudes from the railroad keep coming back to haunt me, "if it's for free, it's for me", hard to turn down free wood. So admitting to myself that I really shouldn't put the risers on the frame rails just yet, I decided that I'll just layout the 3/4" ply on the frame and enjoy an outdoor work area. And what more appropriate job for a 4'x16' table than to create the scarf joint for the bottom panel. But before I got into that mess, knowing that I don't need all that heavy ply, I thought that I would take this opportunity to make a router jig for shaping the centerboard.

A foil shaped router jig for centerboard.

I had made a tracing of the foil shape off the plan sheet and just laid it on a corner of the 3/4" sheet and marked through with an awl to commit the pattern to the wood. Then just "connect the dots" and cut it out and trim. Then just trace the freshly cut and trimmed shape onto the ply and repeat then the  next thing you know you've got a jig!

Jig in place, just make sure you get it facing the right direction.

So anyway back at the alternative work area, I remembered what I had originally started to do and dragged out the two 3/8" ply sheets for the bottom panel and laid them out on the building frame/work table. Lined them up and marked out 3" on both sheets and adjusted the over lap and set an upper guide and clamped it all down. Then started first with my belt sander then my old jack plane and then back to the sander this time with a new belt.

Scarfing station for bottom panel. Still a good way to go.

 Meanwhile back in the garage, I had started eyeing the epoxy stuff and wondering when it would be time to start that. I know what Russell Brown and Geoff Kerr had said about making sure you have everything ready before you start, so on and so forth. Well I went ahead and jumped in without being ready and boy did I learn that lesson.

Looks good so far, but wait a minute,

What the heck is going on here?

Looks like slip sliding away!

It seems that when I lined it up and tightened down the clamp the panels, or rather the top panel slipped off to one side. Note to self, make sure both panels are securely located before adding clamps. That's not so bad, it gets worse.

Guess I need to work on my scarfing skills some more.

This is the under side of the same joint. I just marked off on either side of the defective joint and cut it out. It didn't look too bad from the top but after seeing the underneath, it was just a slap in my face over the shoddy workmanship I was willing to try to get by with. Shame on me. I don't understand why I seem to be in such a hurry to get anything done. This isn't a weekend project and I know it up front.

Dad's old saw.

By the way here is a shot of the circular saw my dad used to use when I was about 11 or 12, I'll be 68 this august. It is all aluminum, the only plastic is the baklight knob on the body for a guide handle. Honestly a seriously heavy saw.

Other experiments I tried the other day was gluing the center board stack of boards and the stem and its doublers. They both seem to have come out ok.

The clamp side of the centerboard against the plastic sheeting.

The top side of the board.

In the clamps, 5 of then to be exact.

Closeup of the lifting portion. Still needs some work yet.

Also the stem and doublers.

Yes that is a piece of light gauge railroad track. (about 20 or so pounds, approx. 5inches long)

Undocumented before but with a slight curve in the leading edge portion of the stem, now after gluing miraculously no longer curved except where specified.

Now gone is the right hand curve in the forward stem portion

The bottom portion of the stem still straight as before.

The epoxy I'm using is RAKA from DuckworksBBS.com. I originally bought the deluxe package for building Jim Michalaks Piccup Pram but later decided to go ahead with the Navigator after all it is the boat that started all this for me. The kit contains 2 gals resin, 1 gal hardener, two rolls of 6oz fiberglass tape 4" wide, two yards of 6oz cloth, 5lbs wood flourand a few oz's of fumed silica. I chose to get the hardener half and half, fast and slow, not knowing how the Florida heat will affect cure times.

Still wrapped in the plastic bags they were shipped in the protect against leaks.

I also ordered three pumps, one for resin (full shot) and two for the hardener (half shot), one each so not to contaminate between slow and fast. Being as how it is a 2:1 ratio mixing.

Learn to mix epoxy carefully.

This is what an epoxy splash on your cotton t-shirt that doesn't "appear" to be fully mixed looks like after being washed and it comes out of the dryer. At first I thought is was a little lizard. (We have tons these of little lizards all over the place here. Harmless just not very people friendly).

Until next time, a wiser and much humbler,

Geoff