Bottom Plates Joined

June 02, 2013

Bottom Plates Joined - Day 6 & 7

Wow, what a weekend! Burnt & cut fingers, tired & sore. I stuffed up a bit with the MIG, to much heat, too quick, wrong gun angle, I burnt through a small corner on frame #7 while I was trying to tack which I will now have to patch and repair. Other than that I am extremely pleased that the bow/ bottoms are now closed and met perfectly together, symmetrical! Next challenge is to get the chines to fit up nicely, since all the pulling with the winches has happened and welding of tags, locally the bottoms in some spots are too far in. This will require some work to get all aligned again but I am up for it. The biggest problem was trying to get frame #7 tacked properly, there were small gaps in the fit-up between bottoms panels and the frame in some spots, I had no option but to tack it in, there was no way to close the gap but I am sure it will be OK and I will try to fill and 'weld the gap'. I am happy to see that my welds are strong enough to hold at least 1.8 tonnes of pulling pressure, the pulling tags held up perfectly under the load. My 30 buck come-a-long winches have a capacity of 1.8 tonnes and I am pretty sure they were almost at their max given that I couldn't pull the winches any further with both arms. The welds on the tags are one-sided only but still strong.

Making lots of tags for welding and pulling of the plates

1.8T Come-a-long winch & tags

Tags bent over with the pulling pressure but held perfectly.

Block of wood to keep keels from folding over each other.

View of keel joint - Symmetrical aligned and on time, three words I like to hear.

More winches, got these from Bunnings. 2T capacity but not too much pressure was required to bring the bow plates together.

Clamping, let your clamping imagination run wild, so many options! Pulling the bottoms together finally. Notice the notches in the wood to help keep the clamp from slipping.