An our here and and hour there

I started by screwing strips of ply around the Centerboard case onto a logn 3/4" board. Then I cut out most of the slot with a jig saw, and tidied up the rest with a router and a bearing guide bit. A little work with a chisel to sort the corners and it's a perfect match. I should be able to use this template to cut the slot in the keel.

Easier than trying to screw separate strips of ply to the keel itself.

You can see the start of the CB case here with the template.
Cutting the actual slot in the keel is a big step as this is a 12 foot long board, carefully cut and planed. A mistake there would be painful.

Incidently, I have found that a large nail punch helps so much in avoiding the hammer marks. 8-)

It seems ok....

The CB case seems to have glued up ok.

I tidied it up today, added a few bronze ring nails for good measure. An oversized nail set allows you to smack these down flush without leaving hammer marks all over the place.

There was a hole to be drilled through the Oak at the forward end of the case the would have been whole lot easier to drill before I put it all together. The main problem was not drilling the hole, but cleaning up the break out from the drill bit. Since the line to raise the Centerboard is deadended through this hole, a little rounding of the sharp edges was required.

It's amazing where you can fit a dremmel.

Next step is the keel. I need to clamp it in place, and tidy up the CB bed logs to fit. Then I have to cut the slot for the CB through the keel.

That's one of those jobs that if you mess it up, there really is nothing else to do but start again with a new peice of wood. An a clear 4" x 1 1/8" x 12' is an expensive peice to mess up - never mind the time it took to cut and plane it.

Again, wish me luck.

Epoxy - A batch gone off

I started to glue up the Centerboard case today. I sanded the Oak and precoated it with epoxy.

Then I mixed up a batch of epoxy and filler, but while I was working on one side of the CB case, the remaining epoxy and filler was just getting warmed up.

When I went back to the mixing cup, it was hot, really hot, and had a big solid lump in the middle.

By now I had a half glued up CB case, and no epoxy ready. I mixed up a second smaller batch as quickly as I could, but still making sure I stirred it enough. So now I have to wait until tomorrow evening until I can see if it glued up OK.

Wish me luck.