Earlier today I tacked down the bulkheads into their correct positions with some thickened epoxy. By this afternoon that small bit of epoxy was cured enough to firmly hold the bulkheads in place while I piped in more thickened epoxy around the edges.
I used a trick from pastry chefs and put the thickened epoxy into a zip-lock bag and then cut one of the corners off. It worked pretty well! Got most of the stern bulkhead in and then the bag blew out. The second bag blew out half way through the stern bulkhead. But it's still easier than trying to scrape it in with a Popsicle stick.
I then ran over the bead with a tongue depressor to round it over. Cleaned up the bits that squeezed out the sides and it looks pretty good!
Yes, I install the bulkheads with the boat on its side. It makes it MUCH easier to get into the hull and reach the seams.
Here's the stern bulkhead.
Below is the bow bulkhead as seen from the front.
Then when cured I do the back sides that are harder to reach. First I ran a bead of thickened epoxy using the zip-lock bag trick and the laid in tabs of fiberglass tape. I didn't run tape all around the back sides but instead used several tabs of tape. Probaby 60% of the backside perimeter was taped altogether. The manual suggests that you tape all of it on both front and back, but this should be sufficient. Use your own judgement.
Bulkheads finished! Now onto finishing the hatch spacers and lips and the coaming upper strips. Then seat hip braces. Finally I'll spend a lot of time working the coaming with epoxy filler and paint.
The last steps will be to install the deck hardware and then varnishing. Still about a month to go but we're getting closer every day!!
Aloha!
I used a trick from pastry chefs and put the thickened epoxy into a zip-lock bag and then cut one of the corners off. It worked pretty well! Got most of the stern bulkhead in and then the bag blew out. The second bag blew out half way through the stern bulkhead. But it's still easier than trying to scrape it in with a Popsicle stick.
I then ran over the bead with a tongue depressor to round it over. Cleaned up the bits that squeezed out the sides and it looks pretty good!
Yes, I install the bulkheads with the boat on its side. It makes it MUCH easier to get into the hull and reach the seams.
Here's the stern bulkhead.
Below is the bow bulkhead as seen from the front.
Then when cured I do the back sides that are harder to reach. First I ran a bead of thickened epoxy using the zip-lock bag trick and the laid in tabs of fiberglass tape. I didn't run tape all around the back sides but instead used several tabs of tape. Probaby 60% of the backside perimeter was taped altogether. The manual suggests that you tape all of it on both front and back, but this should be sufficient. Use your own judgement.
Bulkheads finished! Now onto finishing the hatch spacers and lips and the coaming upper strips. Then seat hip braces. Finally I'll spend a lot of time working the coaming with epoxy filler and paint.
The last steps will be to install the deck hardware and then varnishing. Still about a month to go but we're getting closer every day!!
Aloha!
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