Saturday, 20 October 2018

3 sheets to the wind

Plastic sheets that is. And there is 4 of them in total to do.

Today I went and started to cut and shape the plastic sheet that will be glued to the 2 main bulkheads. As usual with most jobs on a boat it took way longer than I thought. Admittedly, the fact that the workbench and jigsaw are about 60 yards from the boat and I have to carry the sheet across to cut it and then go back to the boat, climb a ladder and offer the sheet back up. Now and again the wind would catch it as I was climbing down the ladder, which almost threw me off balance a couple of times. It took me about 2 hours to cut this shape out:



You can see the shape and although it doesn't look that complex, I had to make constant measurements and cuts to get it to fit properly. What made the job harder is the sheet is a rather thin 1.5mm thick. I wanted it thin so it could bend over the irregular surfaces such as the fiberglass tabbing around the edges of the bulkhead, but because it flexes so easily, I couldn't hold it flush against all of the bulkhead at once. Anyway here is a shot of the first panel against the bulkhead, ready to glue in place:





































In case you hadn't realised, the blue surface is just a protective film I will peel off when I have glued it to the bulkhead. I have some screws to file flush before I can do that.

Later, when I went to fit the second panel, I discovered there are still a couple of screws still in the bulkhead and I didn't have any molegrips to hand, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. Talk about a drawn out job!

More tomorrow.....

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