and to answer the other question....

mostly I get the stringer cuts in the foams fairly accurate, but I'll happily admit occasionally I over do the cut ever so slightly....
In which case I use good old cable ties to 'lift' the stringers to the desired height, the big plus here is that the resin doesn't stick to the plastic zip-tie so when its removal time the plastic comes away very easily

front hull stringers set and the holding plates removed

Mains got the glue-in treatment last night..... and I'm now out of resin




that happens when your teenage son decides to make his own fibreglass front spoiler for his car
&
what happened to .... dad, can I use some cloth and resin please

mutter mutter mutter mutter

one thing I've learnt the hard way......

this edge that looks like a serrated knife edge....

certainly cuts /scratches / pierces / rips, anything that's even remotely related to skin to absolute shreds....

Not only am I out of resin, I'm out of band-aids too
& I've lost count of the number of splinters I've dug out after each nights work.....
mental note to self -> cut the nasty edges off BEFORE doing any other work

Phill checks the strength of the new setup....

now before I get PM's saying he was standing on the foams blah blah blah, remember one important thing.... he had to get up there and that required putting on foot on the deck first and placing all his weight on that foot while the other came 'on-board'....
and this simple standing weight test is without any ply deck and its with ugly soled work boots....


note the clearance under to boots on the gunwales



results....

hell yeah its strong

the last drops of resin were mixed and I had just enough to lay the rears....



the foredecks and mains are ready for the ply, just have to wait for the resin to arrive.....

new resin has arrived and its game on...

First up:
changed the resin hardener type from super slow to slow hardener, the super slow would certainly suit mid summer temperatures but wasn't working for us in the cooler winter temps, it was just killing work times as we stood around waiting for a cure to happen.....
4~5 days before I could work on a section again is time I and Phil don't have so either the temperature had to suddenly increase to the mid to high twenties or we needed a faster hardener....... hence the change


The foredecks were laid on Thursday night and normally I wouldn't be able to 'touch' them for a couple of days but as luck has it...

We have had a "warm spell" where the skies have been clear and we've had temps nudging the 20's, so she spent Friday being sun cooked. This allowed me to rip the staples and forcing plates off of the deck far earlier....

I was that happy with the setting I decided to grab the jigsaw and rough out the deck...

and one thing led to another and before Phil arrived I had the decks fine shaping done

So.... Its earlyish on a Friday night and the foredecks and rear decks are done, Phil arrives and after an inspection of the recent works we put on our rubber gloves and the mains are fitted




poor Phil didn't expect the harder to fit mains, after all its only 4mm ply and we've just done 3mm.... how much harder can 4mm be over 3mm... well for starters is 1/4 as much thicker again, its being curved over the widest part of the hull, yeah its a major fight in comparision.
After deck number 1 was down and done we both needed a well earned break before doing the other main deck....

it was a late night for sure


nb:
the finished rear deck is just in shot, fine shaping is done and the hatch hole cut and cleaned


The sun is being lazy this morning but as soon as (or if) it shows the boat will do some basking, it wont take much as the resin has already cured well and is just the slightest bit tacky to the touch this morning....

On a happier and completely non related note, my new wetsuit arrived during the week

Saturday, nice and warm, resin cured and is ready for Sundays work....

Early sunday morning and the hold-down boards are gone, hatch hole is cut as is the centreboard slot



At this point I have an urgent job to do prior to my trip to Tassie so Scorpian is pushed out to sunbathe for ~4 more hours while I prep the statesman for its ~10,000K run....
swap out std suspension on the front and rear, change oil and filters, install bash plate, fit safety lights and hook up UHF radio etc etc ....
lunch time and we've got the boat back in the shed

first job after lunch..... rip the staples out .... one at a time

cut away the excess ply....
shape to a clean edge against the hull....
sand the edges nice and smooooooth ....
&
lightly sand the decks







looking sexy

Scorpian will have painted decks and not varnished like Twice Shy has..... so a coat of high-build primer is applied to all the decks

I haven't laid on a huge coat of primer, basically its enough to keep the weather and dust off of the ply for the time being, this coat will need another sand and another coat of primer to get a slick finish for the paint

and that about finishes my part of the rebuild, Phil will take her home shortly and I'm sure enjoy the many hours of sanding the actual hulls that are about to happen..... and the season starts the 12th of October I think....


We certainly did a few things differently to what I've done previously and from what I can tell so far its has certainly added a significant amount of strength in the required areas and yet we did this whilst cutting out a very large amount of dead weight throughout the boat.
Both Phil and I have had some learning curves to overcome and many lengthy discussions were had on how to achieve the end result that we are both very happy with but only time will tell the whole story.
As for doing this process again I have to say yeah, it works and works well, perhaps a better choice in the sizes of some of the materials would be an advantage over what we had on hand to play with but largely the process went almost as we had planned it and even with a few surprises as to what and how much we could manipulate things to do what we were chasing.

The pneumatic air stapler was an advantage over my old manual stapler in its ease of use, the down side was it tended to over-drive the staples in a tad far, even with a low air pressure setting it either failed to work due to the low pressure or it went a tad to harder than I would have liked it to have, as to how you can regulate the pressure to that perfect point is going to take some time and practise..... I'll certainly be adding a pneumatic stapler to the tool box in the not to distant future



Its up to Phil & Al now, I'm sure they will either add new pics as the work goes ahead or they may send me the pics and I'll add then for your viewing pleasure....

as for me...... look out Tassie

Phill's sent me a couple of "update pics"...

Scorpian had a layer of unknown 'paint' along the keel area, tough as nails and obviously put there as a wear surface for dragging around on the beach....

removal would have been one tough job (glad it wasn't me )

hull paint removal

now THAT is sexy

looks like Phill has been doing the hard yards, the end result should be spectacular

I put a basic 'weather proof' coat of primer over the new decks for the trip back to Phill's place, with Scorp now safe inside the shed the primer gets removed