Building a Dinghy: Part 2 | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Launch Day | Completion |
Fiddling with the skeg shape. It's a simple chore to make a cardboard template to fill the area under the sticks. Another slight modification to the original plans-I'm going to laminate the skeg to 1-1/2 inch thick, narrow the keel to match, and run the keel outside the skeg piece. This strikes me as stronger than an applied skeg,
Outside sheathed with 9 ounce cloth on front 3/4 of bottom, 6 ounce everywhere else. (the 9 ounce was left over from something else)
Bottom-side sheathing. 9 ounce on the left, 6 ounce on the right. About 1 inch of feathered overlap.
It's winter, and even with the wall-mount heater going full tilt, the temperature stays in the fifties. I get longer open times with the epoxy, which is a good thing working alone, but it takes about three days to set hard enough to sand without gumming up a disk in the first few seconds.
Inside is sheathed with 9 ounce on the bottom, 6 ounce on sides and transoms. I'm discovering that spring clamps help a lot with this-at least until the fabric is about half wetted-out.
When sheathing, gravity is your friend. Something this small can be rolled into just about any position that lets you work down. Note to self-next time, sheath inside and out before adding any bulkheads.
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Launch Day | Completion |
All images and text Copyright Dale Austin, 1962-2008