Sign the guest book and let everyone know where you are.
I know it’s been a few days since the last post but there just hasn’t been much going on and we are busy making up the time we took off for Memorial Day. The other slow down is due to my own error. In my haste to get the project going I put off ordering fiberglass tape and epoxy. The plans call for 12 oz. 45/45 biaxial tape and I don’t have a local source so it would have to be ordered. I was to get this done within the first week of the project but let it slip my mind and we ran out of the little amount on hand while splicing the panels together last week. That was the time you’d think I would go ahead and get some ordered right? Wrong, I put it off until Wednesday morning. Luckily I knew that I could get what I needed from our friends at Bateau’s Boat Builder Central Store and they would ship it out the same day via DHL as long as they have the item in stock They had everything in stock and a delivery is due Friday. I also ordered some of their Marinepoxy brand epoxy to give it a try. At a cost of around $50.00 per gallon when purchased in quantity it will save us $25.00 or more per gallon for the project and the plans call for 12 gallons. That’s $300.00 in savings, so I hope we like this stuff. I’ll let you know as soon as we get a chance to try it this weekend. I have a little bit of MAS epoxy left that I will use to spot weld the panels tonight while waiting for the materials to arrive and we can jump straight into taping Saturday morning.
The panel set up went so well I don’t have much to say about it. We did come up with the little jig pictured below to help hold the topside panel in place while we got the next ones in place. It is simply a 1” x 1” about 16” long fastened to a piece of masonite about 3” x 6”. We clamped these to the frames level with the deck and simply set the panel on it while lining up the next. I used maybe 4 screws to hold the panel to the frames but found that with the little jigs it was not necessary and they actually made it harder to stitch the panels so we removed them. After the bottom panel was in place and holding the other two up we unclamped them and moved them to the other side to complete it.
Here I must confess one error on my part. When I set the frames on the strong back I took great pains to set the angle of frame C. This is the frame with the companionway cut out. When I put the hull chine panel in place things just didn’t line up right. I scratched my head a while and thought, well they said there was room for some gaps and things may need adjusting after all the panels are on. Then in a flash of light I looked at the plans and saw my error. The top of the boat is of coarse upside down at this point and I simply angled the frame aft instead of forward. It would have made an interesting entry to say the least. Not wanting to take the two panels off Stephanie helped me realign the thing and low and behold everything fit like a glove. She didn’t even make fun of me!
If you have been following the forum at Beteau there is another SB 18 project starting up in St. Louis Missouri. Marcelo has his frames cut out and is ready to start building. We wish him the best of luck and look forward to seeing his boat on the water.
I also got an entry in the guest book from Larry A. expressing an interest in coming by to take a look at the project. Everyone is welcome to contact us and see first hand what its all about. I would prefer that most of you show up during the sanding process!
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