I had a number of small jobs completed today. I glassed the outside of the second dagger case half and another coat of resin on the inside of the case. I also glued in the keelsons in the starboard hull (which meant I had to remove the deck panel but it is sufficiently set to retain its shape now) and I started to glue in the sheave blocks in the first daggerboard.

First up I took the second dagger off the axles and sat it on the drums (and removed them) and started to sand the bog. Whilst is was hard enough to sand, it clogged the paper fast meaning it needed another day to be set enough to properly sand, and I don’t need much of an excuse to not sand! So using the dagger as a table I removed the dagger case from the jig and sat it over the dagger to glass the outside. I sanded it to clean off excess glue that had squeezed out of the joins and coved the sheave panel.

Once I had that done I cut the glass to shape (I had a piece about 300mm short so I used it and another piece overlapping, which will end up at the top of the case) ready to wet out. I folded back the cloth from the forward half of the case and brushed the case with resin, the hoop pine will absorb a bit of it, then I placed the glass back over the wet case and brushed resin on the glass which was absorbing resin from below. Once it was wet I detail rollered it into the cove then folded the other dry glass at the back half to the front and repeated the process. Once the entire glass was wet and the glass pushed into the coves with the detail roller I left it to set.

Sam had arrived so we removed the starboard inside bow panel and set about gluing in the keelsons, which starts with the vacuum cleaner and a rag to clean out all of the dust from months of sitting open. I also need a hammer and chisel to remove glue dobs here and there. The we cut the keelson parts to size and Sam mixed up a batch of glue and I glued the first one in, making a glue cove with my finger. Then once I was satisfied it was well glued to the keel I climbed out (all the time thinking these jobs would be much easier done when just the 2 keel panels were on the upturned hull) and did the next one. A bit easier to do the second as the space was a bit wider but funnily enough harder to climb out of. I always seem to exaggerate the difficulty of a task until it is done at which time I realise what a moaner I can be!

Sam had to go, so I had him help me get the dagger case back onto the jig so that I would not scrape the wet glass against it and then to help me stand the second dagger up and lay the first dagger on the drums so I could get started on the sheave box fitting. I resin coated the inside of the case so that when it comes off the jig it is at the same stage as the first half and all I need to do to them before closing them is to copper epoxy the bottom half and paint the top half of each before closing them up.

I have the cedar block positions marked on the daggers as you cannot see them anymore since bogging. I measured the sheave case to the middle of the cedar block and marked out the outside dimensions. The I drilled a hole through the dagger inside this space. This is psychologically counter intuitive. I imagine I will have similar doubts although magnified when I have to cut the dagger case holes in the hulls. Once you have a hole drilled in the dagger large enough to get a jigsaw blade through you can cut the rest of the sheave box hole out.

Cut the slot a little oversize as you will back fill the gaps with glue anyway, but if like me you cut it undersize you will just have to enlarge the hole with a file until you have it big enough to get the case in so you are only creating more work for yourself. And note that the combination of all that glass and cedar makes it heavy going for the jigsaw and I had a bit of smoke coming off the job! Also be sure you get the slot parallel to the leading edge and not the trailing edge, it sounds obvious enough. I don’t have the stainless screws (I will get some tomorrow) to glue and screw the half sheaves into the cases and I will need them in before I can make the slot the correct shape, I will need a rat tail file to cut a groove in the slot side to accommodate the screw heads before gluing them in.

So with a few more of my not all that keen on doing jobs being crossed off my list I decided on a light day and took off at 3pm with 6 hours enough for today.