Clamp on Clamp off - it's the Clamper

A couple of weekends worth of work to show in this post.  The boat is really starting to look complete.  It is possible we will be cutting it in half in next weekend.

So the first weekend was spent - you guessed it - sanding and sanding and sanding:

 

  

So why all the sanding now?  The "furniture" will be in the way later - which we started to put in place.

Forward Bulkhead:

 

Center Seat:

 

Aft bulkhead:

  

We let them setup overnight, and then flipped the boat over, for some more sanding (lucky for you not shown here).  Time for the beach runners, and the skeg:

 

These are epoxied and screwed into place.  So total fasteners used (not counting the bolts for the take apart) are 14 wood screws, all used now, everything else is epoxy.

 

The next Saturday started with a frantic search for just the right penny. 

 

Carefully notched, and installed permanently under the mast step:

 

Time to install the rub rails, here come the clamps, one milk crate full of spring clamps plus all available c-clamps.  This is layer number one:

 

Hard to tell the difference, but here it is with the second layer applied, after the first had setup:

 

Careful observers will note that the forward seat is also installed.  This was done in between the the rub-rail layers.  Here is another modification.  Most PMDs that we have seen with the take-apart option have an access port on the top of seat (can't be installed in the bulkhead for obvious reasons), offset to the starboard side near the bulkhead.  Although no conclusive reason for this was given - it seems that it is a strength issue, and having it braced between the side of the boat, the bulkhead, and the mast support logically gives it more strength.  Nobody could say if that strength was required, but so be it.  The problem as I see it is that it would be near impossible to reach anything that fell to the other side of the boats, especially if it lodged on the wrong side of the mast support.  Also it does not meet our sense of symmetry. So we decided to install a strengthening spar across the seat forward of the access port, and put the port as close to the mast support as possible.  Here how that looked:

 

While we were at it we installed a similar spar across the transom seat, to support the troublesome knee that so many have had trouble with:

 

One final modification was completed.  As mentioned before on this page, there are some issues with mast strength, and possible bending that occur in higher winds, I have some ideas on this that I will get to later.  However one of the side effects of the mast bend problem is that the base of the mast tears out of the mast step, causing damage to the mast step, the seat, etc.  We want none of that!  So I doubled up the mast step where the mast plugs in with solid mahogany, routed out a hole 1/4" larger (radius) than the mast and filled it with thickened epoxy.  After curing routed out a hole just slightly larger than the mast.  Now the mast will be seated in a very strong solid epoxy socket - hopefully there will be no problems with this in the future.  Here is a pic after a coat of epoxy over the whole thing:

 

That's it for now (already Friday).  Heading back down for more fun tonight - look for updates next week.