Not much done today but I did manage to finish about 3/4 of the remaining tabs on the outboard side of the hull. I only have a few along the keel to do (which I couldn’t reach from the scaffold and I am still a little bit wonky on my knee to be perched up a ladder), about half an hour or so should see it done. I also took some time today to mark the first Duflex piece I need to fill bulkhead 3. I have also measured for the gap in the keel but have yet to mark out an offcut for making the fill piece.

The method I use to make these plugs is to measure out the length of the gap at small intervals, say 50mm over the 1 meter gap. Then you measure the size of the gap at each interval and transfer those measurements to your offcut, then join the dots to create the shape of the plug and cut it out. The pic below left is the panel marked at 50mm intervals then the middle pic is the plug with the gap width at each interval marked and the dots joined. Whilst this method is easier when one face is level or straight (and you choose an offcut with a straight edge) it still works with any shape.

This method is also used for the longer piece needed to fill the keel gap, except I use larger intervals, say 50cm over the 6.5 meter length of the gap. With the keel filler I cut the plug in a v shape so that it is more like a wedge (the right width on the front face but narrower on rear face, to do this I angle the jigsaw blade) and easier to get a tighter fit.

Another small tip, to help identify the remarkably similar looking filler and glue powders easily I have written the words “fill” on one bag and “glue” on the other because I can never remember which of 411 or 403 is the glue and which is the filling powder and I got sick of running up the stairs to check my website on which is which!

I think I may start on the filling tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday.