Let’s start actually building a boat on April Fool’s Day, shall we?

Encouraged by overnight experiments with the original epoxy, I glued up the sheer clamps. It’s tough to pour so little epoxy. I wanted 10 grams of resin and 5 grams of hardener, but though I was pouring slowly, I still got 16 and 8 respectively. That was at least twice the amount needed for these small surfaces. I painted them with the goop, waited ten minutes or so, and then put them together.

Boy, oh boy, do I notice tiny misalignments once epoxy is involved! What looked like a perfect, casual dry lay-up worried me for fifteen minutes shimming this and weighting that and adjusting the clamps on that other thing. Look. It’ll be fine. 11:20 AM, 63°F, clamps set, step away. I’ll recheck alignment in an hour while the epoxy remains workable, and then just let it all be. The left-over epoxy in the cup will serve as a witness sample: if it’s solid later today or tonight, I can be sure the epoxy in the scarfs is, too.

I moved parts I won’t be working with immediately out of the way. I literally cleared the decks. Left on the table are the plans for reference, the sheer clamps to cure, and the side panels which will get attention next.

Tomorrow

will be all about the side panels. While waiting and watching for the sheer clamps to cure, I did some prep work for the next two days. I laid out all six of the side panels and arranged them with the bow and stern ends where they belong and flipped so that the scarfs are properly oriented. I attached a string to the end of the work table to serve as a (literal) benchmark, a datum, to insure that the edges of the side panels are aligned and straight (the string will be more useful for aligning the bottom panels). I laid out some heavy bits I can use to “clamp” the scarfs in these two sets of panels. Here are some weighty things I’ve thought of, some which I have set out for the purpose:

• brass & iron scraps from the machine-shop end of the basement
• old car / motorcycle / telescope (anyway 12v lead-acid) batteries
• aluminum plate (not so useful in itself, but good to distribute weight)
• left over ceramic tile
• A 65 pound border collie and/or, three 8-10 pound cats, none of whom would stay in place for the full cure, and who aren’t allowed in the basement anyway.
• About 90 lbs of plumber’s lead that survived the purge
• toolboxes full of tools (and other stuff)
• cat litter (unused, sealed, thank you; we have lots)
• telescope counterweights*
• the huge berg of Pyrex glass that adorns the porch*
• mid-sized rocks from our stone walls**
• 18-24-inch logs Jeffrey cut from that tree that once blocked the driveway**
• that big section of the maple tree from 203 Dogwood Lane*
• A pitcher containing roughly $140 worth of pennies.*
• old typewriters (a couple of scrapped Selectrics and an old Underwood)
• self-referentially enough, two gallon jugs of epoxy resin
• the heavy brass plate I want to use that is always in my way, but now that I want it, is nowhere to be found. Of course.
  
  * Leave those right where they are, thanks.
  ** Really, that would be a mess.

I plan to build a Dagwood sandwich around each scarf. On the bottom will be something flat and firm. Then plastic film, then one epoxy-filled joint of one side panel, another sheet of plastic film, the corresponding epoxy-filled joint of the other side panel, a sheet of plastic film, something flat, and then something heavy. Do that for each scarf in the layout. There will be two sandwiches. And photos.

While the side panels cure, I’ll clear the table saw to make more PVC clamps for attaching the sheer clamps to the side panels. If I take CLC’s suggestion to do them one on top of the other and use one clamp every six inches, I’ll only need forty. Geez.

April 2. Sheer clamps are solid. Bluff called. Onward to Day 2.