I had some help today from Jo and her wealth of boatbuilding experience. She doesn’t actually have any but from the quality of her work you would swear that she does. We filled the chamfer panel gap together and it is a good thing I had her help because it is a 2 person job. Well actually the whole boat is a 2 person job, but I am not complaining….. whilst one of us (mostly Jo) trowelled the glue into the small gap on the outside of the hull the other smoothed it along the join from the inside of the hull. The glue is actually under the clear tape that we put up to stop the glue from just dropping to the floor.

There is quite a big gap from the edge of each panel on the inside of the hull (around 20mm) so in effect the clear tape is creating a triangular shape with the tape forming 1 of 3 sides of the triangle, the edge of each panel the other 2 sides, and filling from the top. Being such a big gap means that quite a lot of filler is needed to fill it and it gets quite hot as it sets.

In some places where the panels meet quite tightly on the outside I filled the gap from the inside. This required a thicker mix of filler to stop it running out, and in some places I placed some clear tape, removed some, filled and then replaced the tape to keep the glue in place.

So that is now 3 of 7 joins filled. It seems that 3 hours per hull join is the time it takes and I am getting about 3 – 4 hours work in each day. So later this week I should have them all done although the join of the keel to the bilge panels should fill a bit faster and I could get them both done in a day, the gap down the middle of the keel panels will take a lot longer, because I am going to try to fill that with a strip of Duflex first and it will need to be cut and glued in place. I am not certain how I am going to do this yet, as I don’t have scaffolding to get me up that high, and I am not sure it the structure is strong enough for me to be climbing onto. I will have to give it some thought.