The big glue day - Part 1

The big day of gluing is finally here. The temperature is up and no rain in the forecast means it's time to get busy on our gluing ordeal. With any luck we can get all the rounds of gluing in one after the other in one drawn out process and then be done with it.

First the hulls need to come back out of the basement one more time and get set up at working height.

The aft stems were never stitched and so I attempted to do that while also pulling the panels into alignment. There is so much tension in the hull panels from the twisting that I couldn't get the stitches to hold so I went with screws instead which worked out much easier and pulled the hull panels in tight with the stem. This photo is after the gluing surfaces got a coat of raw epoxy to soak down into the nooks and crannies so that is where the small drips are coming from.

Now is also the time to check that everything is straight and level. With hardly any adjusting the hulls were perfectly lined up.

The gaps along the keel and stem are epoxied with a milled fiberglass and silica mix. These batches were mixed pretty loose so that they can settle into the gaps and make sure there are no voids.

More of the first glue round along the keel ...

Now we wait until this layer sets up and then the big fillets along the keel and bulkheads will follow. After the fillets dry if there is any daylight left we will epoxy in the fiberglass tape over the keel fillet.

To be continued ...