| day |
notes |
hours |
| 6 |
Finish clearing odds & ends off trestle table in north end of garage. Move all blue foam except rudder, and all other materials, off layup table and onto trestle table. Collect up all offcuts of 15mm copper pipe from underneath bench and elsewhere and start to think about design of curing tent frame and how it will attach to layup table. |
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| 7 |
Martin Carolan sends me an e-mail to say my barrel of acetone is now in stock! Clearly he has forgotten I'd said I didn't think I needed a whole barrel, so reply repeating the story so far, but I'll probably use it anyway, and asking how much it will be. |
|
| 9 |
Martin replies by e-mail saying the barrel holds 25 litres and is about £1.30/litre. |
|
| 10 |
Martin's invoice for 28 litres of acetone arrives in the post. Contact Marine Ware, Southampton, about peel ply and ask for a copy of their mail-order catalogue. Choose some pieces of mahogany (ex silence cabinet loudspeaker brackets) to use as brackets for the curing-tent frame. Cut and sand to shape, drill for fixing holes, but find I don't have a 15mm drill to make good-fitting holes for the copper pipe. Best bet seems to be a set of Forstner bits from Machine Mart, but it's getting a bit late to go there by the time I work this out. Open up one of the fan heaters and modify the wiring so the fan stays on independent of the thermostat, for better stirring of the air in the curing tent. |
|
| 11 |
Marine Ware catalogue arrives - it appears to be an SP Systems catalogue. Don't know if they are the retail arm of SP or if the catalogue is just overprinted with their name as distributor. Looking for drill bit to make 15mm holes in the brackets for the curing tent frame, see a hex shank forstner bit at Tewkesbury Saw Co for £8+. Decide to get a set from Machine Mart instead as they cost very little more, but when I get there they have no stock of either the regular or TiN-coated metric sets shown in their catalogue. Finally find an el-cheapo set in Bell Tools for £7.99. Go on to Passage Farm and pick up drum of acetone and pay Martin for it. |
|
| 12 |
Drill the mahogany brackets for the 15mm copper pipe curing-tent frame. Screw them to the sides of the layup table. Assemble 2 end frames from lots of pipe offcuts, 2 elbows, 4 tees & 10 straight joiners. Drape polyethylene sheet over them and secure with duct tape. Check temperature; far end 30C, middle 26C, next to the fan, 25C, with fan thermostat set to about 5. Check frame & tent can be removed & replaced single-handed; some care will be needed to avoid dragging it through fresh resin when setting up for real. |
|
| 17 |
Order 25m peel-ply 1m wide from Marineware, also 100 mixing cups and 100 mixing sticks. The mixing cups are heavier gauge than those from Europa, but do have a slight trough around the edge of the bottom; care will be needed to ensure thorough mixing in that area. |
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| 18 |
Marineware order arrives |
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| 19 |
Decide to use one of the broomshafts, that were too short for the glass-cloth cupboard, to hold the peel-ply. Design and make brackets out of mahogany to fit on long side of layup table. Fit flap of polyethylene sheet under a small lath of wood to keep it clean. |
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