Tech Tip Tuesday

This post will be a little anti-climactic based on last week's post. Now that we've cut the second panel, we bevel it in the same way that we did the first panel. We do this very slowly, however, to make sure that the panels mate closely all along the length of the joint. At this point, we don't want to take off too much material. There will be a point where the panels touch, but they aren't sitting down on the forms. As you push down on the panels, they spring back. This means that you still have material to remove. When the panels fit tightly, and don't spring back, you're ready to glue the panels.


Glue all three joints - panel to hull at both turns of the bilge and along the keel. You need to work quickly, but don't rush. Sometimes you need to push up on the panels from underneath to make sure that the joints are all flush. This is important. You don't want mis-matches. This is the point where my earlier post about inner tubes comes into play. We use inner tube as clamps to hold the panels in place. The blocks that you see under the tubes are used to put more pressure where we want it to close up small gaps between the panel. The ability to customize where you put pressure is very nice. The one thing you want to be careful of is to locate your inner tubes at the stations so as not to crush the hull.

Now, all you need to do is to be patient and let the glue cure.