The keel is made of two laminations; as I mentioned in a previous post, my timber is just a bit too short. So the first lamination was scarfed just forward of the transom. So last night I manufactured the forward half of the second lamination. Today I just had to put the taper on and drill the holes for the screws. The keel is fastened with 3" #14 screws. I don't have one of those bits that drills the right size hole for the thread and shank. Those screws have a big head, it's about 12mm in diameter. I don't have drill bits larger than 10mm so it was out with the auger bits again, and again I had to sharpen it, but it works great and so I was able to recess all my screws to allow for fairing.
Next problem was to drill the bolt holes that fasten the forward end of the keel to the stem. These holes are about 130mm deep and the stem is only about 35mm wide so if I didn't go down straight it would be a big problem.
So I got my laser level out and projected a line up the drill bit to keep it square side to side. Then I clamped a square to the stem as a reference for the fore - aft squareness. It worked pretty well, came out the bottom about 4mm off centre which is good enough.
Then came glueing, this is the biggest gluing job I have done yet area wise. I did some estimates on how much glue I would need but decided that my math was wrong and so mixed up about half of what my maths said, well my maths was over, but it was closer than my "guess".
Second problem was I figured since I was laminating that a fairly runny mix of glue would be ideal. WRONG, as soon as I poured the glue on the keel it tried to dribble off the end.
Anyway got the glue sorted and bolted things at the stem, which proceeded without issue. Then I clamped the rest of the keel down prior to putting the screws in. This is we're things started going pear shaped again, my battery drill doesn't seem to be charging, it was on all week but gave up half was through the first screw, so out with a ratchet and 1/4" socket, wound all the screws in that way.
Then cleaned up all the dribbling glue, thickened it up and did some gap filling.
In the afternoon I turned my attention to the second part of the second keel lamination, cut to length, thicknesses, planed the edges and routed the scarf. I couldn't go any further as I need to remove the clamps on the front section of the keel to line up the back section to position the screw holes etc.
So, turned my attention to adding bracing to the front to secure frames 6,7 & 8. Didn't get finished but it's well on the way.
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