Back from a long day of work at the warehouse today (Thursday). We got to work laying up the rest of the side panels so they could cure during the day and then Chris and Mike went in search of some foam to use for the ama construction. Meanwhile, Matt and I started work on the gunwales and chines scarfing and gluing long hardwood boards together that will make up the stringers.
Here are the gunwales and chines curing under compression. The joints overlap at a shallow angle similar to the scarf joints used in the side panels to maximize the glued surface area and balance the normal and shear loads in the joint.
Trimming the excess fiberglass from the edges of the ama panels. These joints are strong!
With Mike and Chris back with the foam, we started working on cutting strips to laminate to the plywood panels to make up the structure of the amas that will later be shaped to the final ama shape and then fiberglassed. We used expanding polyurethane glue to laminate the foam to the plywood, it for the application.
While the amas were drying we got to work assembling the bulkhead structure. Each plywood bulkhead has a hardwood perimeter around it that aids in attaching the sides, bottom and deck. Here is the number 2 bulkhead with the hardwood glued in place. The end of day two we managed to finish all of the bulkheads, all of the chines and gunwales and all of the side panels. A very long day but very rewarding.
