iceboating.net Minnesota Ice Sailing Association

Previous entries: Day-1, Day-2, Day-3.

Today I glued up the final sideboard crack. However, while inspecting the glue-joint on the underside of the grab-rails, I noticed a crack in the epoxy across the bottom skin right at the forward mast-step bulkhead:

That was a bit worrisome, so I sanded off all the epoxy and inspected it carefully. There does seem to be a faint crack in the plywood, so I'll reinforce it with some glass "just to be sure". I suspect the crack wasn't from the crash, but just the result of a stress-riser where the front part of the boat flexes due to forestay tension.

The final vacuum infusion went very well. It was a long crack (maybe three feet), so I used a generous amount of batting and laid some thick polypropylene rope under the plastic to help distribute the vacuum over the entire length of the crack(s). I masked the large crack near the knee so I could get glue into the narrower ends of the crack. That worked very well. After pulling enough glue through the thin ends of the crack, I uncovered the center section and sucked glue through there. I used some thickened epoxy, too. In order to make sure I didn't just pull the glue completely though the crack, I turned off the vacuum, loaded a bead of glue along the entire length, and then turned the vacuum on for a few seconds to pull the last bit of glue into the crack itself. I then left things sit for a few minutes to allow gravity to work, too. Then I pulled off all the plastic and batting, and clamped the sideboard together with some bar clamps, and used some spring clamps to clamp the grab-rail to the sideboards:

Four more hours today. Total = 16...