Skin on Frame Shearwater build, Day 4, 3 hrs
After cleaning up the inner stems with a power planer and squaring the front face, I put a strip of packing tape on the front curve to prevent adhesion and then cut up some beautiful lightweight mahogany (who knows what this actually is?) and laminated it to the inner stems to create the outer stems. For this lamination, I used a quarter inch thick backing strip of high density polyethylene. I also also did an experiment comparing the smooth HDPE to the textured HDPE. The textured polyethylene is definitely superior for this task.
We had a major crisis in the beginning when the epoxy pump separated mid pump and 1/2 of it fell into the can, but after a few minutes of cursing, I managed to get things sorted out, and hopefully my ratios are reasonably enough for a good cure.
This completes all the major laminations so I’m looking forward to switching gears and moving forward with creating the keel assembly. So far, I’m very happy with the non-thickened epoxy lamination method that I learned from Nomad Boatbuilding, whose Instagram account is definitely worth checking out!
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