I spoke to soon, the temperature was about 10 degrees cooler today, perfect for gluing the planks to each other, as luck would have it work came in and I didn’t have much time to work on the boat today. I only had about 1 spare hour so I used it to core out the balsa on the dingy, on both the hatch surrounds and the lids. I used a router blade like a saw blade parallel to the table that cuts a slot into the balsa at varying depths and then a chisel can be pushed easily through the slot to remove the rest of the balsa in the slot. I did this along the exposed edges where I cut the hatches out and on the hatch lids so that no raw balsa is exposed, otherwise water will eventually rot it. Ironically not salt water, it cannot rot timber, but rain water.
With the balsa removed tomorrow I will fill the troughs with a glue/filler mix which once set can be sanded square with the sharp edges sanded off. I will then attach the lids again with hinges and latches. I may waterproof the side hatches (make them dry hatches) but I wont bother on the anchor locker as it will have water in it on the rope and chain so in it I will glue a drain. I will also glue a drain into the stern below the outboard plate with a bung, and give it a coat of 2 pack primer ready for the paint.
Time Spent: 66.00 Hours
Total build time so far: 1154.00 Hours
Total Elapsed Time: 2 Years 1 Month 4 weeks.
