I took my time this weekend and didn’t get too much done despite spending about 4 hours each day. I have made legs for standing the bulkheads out of the pine and mdf used to clamp the panels during gluing but they are not sturdy enough on their own so I have screwed 2 together in a T joint which gives them enough rigidity to stand, and used parts of the pallets that the sheets were delivered on as the feet that will span the strongback. I have more time than money so I salvage any materials I can and re use rather than buy more purpose ready material. It took a while to make these legs (they are just screwed together so I can take them apart and re use them for any other purpose that might arise) but it is far cheaper than buying timber I didnt already have nor would need again. They are probably over built but that’s ok.
I will need enough height to get inside the hull to fillet so the legs are all exactly the same size and the DWL will all be at exactly 2 meters above the strongback. With the legs all the same length it is just a matter of screwing the legs in place on each bulkhead with the tops level with the DWL mark and the centre lines aligned from the bulkhead to the legs. When ready to stand the legs will meet with the centre lines marked with a stringline on the strongback which in turn will mean that the tops of the bulkheads (bottom of the hull) will line up with the stringlines set at 2 meters. You can see in the picture that there are 3 stringlines in place at 2 meters, one for centre and one to line up each side of the bulkheads. There will also be stringlines at WL1200 so that in all there are 6 stringlines to align the bulkheads, 2 centre lines top and bottom, 1 each side of hull at DWL and 1 each side of hull at WL1200, all of the bulkheads have these marks. I have clamped levels to the stringline stands to ensure it is all level. The big panel in the background of the picture of the level is part of the bridgedeck.
