S45 Construction - fore and aft views of the hull beside the building board.

From: "Daniel Denson"
To: "Dave Mainwaring"
Subject: star45 photos
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2007 20:01:39 -0600

Hi, Dave
Here are some pictures I took yesterday of my glassed hull plus some commentary:

Pictures #1 & #2 are fore and aft views of the hull beside the building board. I used hardwood plywood with MDF cleats biscuit joined at the edges to keep it flat. Afterward, the whole thing was run over a jointer to make it perfectly flat.

Unfortunately, I wasn't quite as careful gluing on the balsa spacing strips. Although a straightedge was used, the balsa bent away from the straightedge a fraction around form #8. This could have been avoided if the spacing strips were plywood (or I was not a klutz).

Another goof was waiting too long to put on the stringers. After 4 days on the board in Houston humidity, the forms all warped noticeably. Even the transom was crooked. I actually had to use the stringers to align the frames! Don't do this.