More work on the beam.

November 29, 2007May 14, 2016

We are starting to come to terms with the problems in our business and I took some time to get some work done on the beam today. The rear edge of the forebeam has the front edges of the trampolines attached to it. There are a number of methods of attaching the tramps, my favoured method is to glass a 20mm internal diameter conduit to the beam and insert a 6mm stainless steel rod inside, cut scallops in the conduit about every 200mm and then lace the trampoline to the ss rod.

The 2 halves of the beam glue together in such a way as to leave a groove along the back that is exactly the right size to house the conduit. So today I cut the conduit to size and glued them into the beam, holding the conduit in place temporarily with screws. When gluing plastic you have to key it otherwise the glue cannot get a grip on the smooth plastic. Before the glue had fully gone off but after it had started to set, I coved a smooth transition from the beam to the edge of the conduit top and bottom, and filled the rest of the gap at the back of the beam where there is no conduit so that glass would go around the edge smoothly.

So once this is dry, tomorrow, I will sand it smooth and glass it. I need to put 2 layers of glass (one uni along the beam, on double bias) over the entire beam and will go all the way around in one piece overlapping at the back so that the conduit gets extra layers over it. I also have to run some uni around the beam at the u bolts for about a meter either side and again this will go over the conduit. Then once that is set, I will fair the beam using the notched trowel method of fairing. Some people have asked why I did not use a notched trowel when I bogged the round strip planked panel and I will to final fair it. But when glass is wet a thin layer of bog is a good idea just to fill the grain of the cloth. You have to sand glass before bogging if you don’t apply it to wet glass anyway so you are going to sand it one way or the other so I prefer to sand bog than resin close to glass. When there are a number of layers of glass it is not so critical but if you only have one layer of glass as in the strip planked panel, I would rather not risk sanding through it.

There has been more work done on Nine Lives, it is almost at lock up stage. There is still a bit of glassing work to do, and then of course a lot of fairing.

We have been sailing in the mid week twilight racing on Dennis’s mono every Wednesday night. We are slowly learning how to sail. Jo has added some more on this on her page here.