The end… There were some big gaps where nothing got done… The final substantial thing that got done was fibre glassing the sides to the bottom as this had been flexing open and just painting over it was not going to cut it.
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Bulkhead in. Yeah... This was supposed to be my winter project but procrastination, spending way too much time worrying about how to do it rather than doing it, doing one or two things around the house and kicking of LTS for the season meant it isn't done yet. But this is a milestone. Today I put in the new bulkhead. It has screws into the uprights at the side, into the centercase and in through the bottom. This last one was one of the major procrastination worry points. Originally, the screws would have just gone through the stringers in the bottom into the bulkhead, before the ply was put on the bottom of the boat so I wasn't supper happy about putting holes in the ply... But it didn't really feel as though it was going to be held well enough so I drilled the holes. That basically concludes the bits that need more than some filler and paint! This bit was from a while back but didn't get blogged. The centre case pretty much came apart in my hands. I knew the top of ...
The delaminated bulkhead. Not sure why I ever thought that squishing glue into the delaminated bit at the top was going to solve this. Every place where a hole had been put through the bulkhead, there was delamination. This is where the hiking straps went through,... This is the drain hole. It is like this on both sides of the boat and forward and aft on the bulk head. I tried just chipping these bits away so I could fill them but found the delamination extended a long way in every direction from the holes. So it was back to plan A - replace the bulkhead completely. I'm pretty sure this is a bad idea. When the boat was built, this was probably one of the first bits, with everything then attached to it. I was a little concerned that the boat might change shape when I took it out so screwed a couple of bits of wood across the boat just in case but it doesn't look like anything has moved. Getting it out should have been a problem. I was figuring that this was going to be my excuse...
More bits from a while ago. The additional bit attached by the thwart Additional screws in the side into the net bit. (Yup, one of my screws missed. This matches one of the original screws that had missed everything previously. Lesson learned here is that making a pilot hole from the inside would have been better than trying to position the screws by sight). All this made me worried about what was under the sticker on starboard side. But actually, it was pretty good. Just hadn't been filled evenly enough to hide the screw holes or painted. Nothing broken though! I also decided to chip away the epoxy from the front of the thwart as it had cracked and would probably let water get into the wood.
Day 4 Took off the clamps on the smaller bit of delaminated bulkhead. Looks like the glue got right to the ends of the splitting so happy with that to proceed with the main bit next time... Screwed and glued forward bulkhead to thwart. Outside view and inside view. While visiting Mitre10 and Bunnings in search of stainless screws*, I picked up a colour card which I thought was promising. It wasn't. As a testament to how bad I am with matching colours, I didn't even realise that the inside and outside or Rookie were two different colours... * Having checked some web sites this today, I did the screw buying bit wrong. 14 x 6gauge, 18mm countersunk stainless screws from Bunnings $6.95. At Burnsco, they are $0.20 each, or $2.80. Kinda expected it to be the other way around from previous experience.
Day 3 Worked on the least delaminated bit of the bulkhead. I figure that I'd do this one first. If it looks OK then I can do the same with the worse issue. I've masked everything up to protect as much Rookie's greenness as possible. Looked like glue was coming out right to the end of the split so I think this is going to be OK. I'll know better after I've removed the clamps and cleaned of the excess epoxy... While doing the top of the bulkhead, I've noticed that there is some de-lamination around the holes the hiking straps are mounted through... might just have to grind a layer of ply away there and fill it. Also made up a bit of wood to go against the front bulkhead to hold the side where it is broken. The bit of wood was once part of my house so is probably even older than Rookie. Have to admit it took me 3 tries to make a piece that fit well...