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	Chebacco Construction Page 2
Date	Work Completed	Time Estimate	Photos
9/18 - 10/3/03	Hurricane Isabel put a hold on construction for awhile. Ten days without power and then the clean up slowed us up some. One tree down, no real damage, but this was a close call for the van.
10/4/03	Glued up bottom and side joints using the method described by Payson - lay down a layer of waxed paper, the ply, then apply epoxy and a 4 inch wide strip of glass. Top that more waxed paper and work out the air bubbles. I added a couple of temporary blocks to keep things from shifting around. The screws only go into the bottom layer of ply, not into the floor below. This system worked well. On the bottom, make sure the center lines match up on all pieces. On the sides, I made a minor mis-cut and the top and bottom edges did not line up perfectly. I chose to line up the deck edge, figuring the chine edge would be easy to fix when the bilge panels are mounted. Alert - make sure to keep the sides with the centerlines and bulkhead locations marked up in this step. I know I checked twice, but somehow got the aft side sections swapped. No big deal as the shapes are the same, but the location mark for Bulkhead 6 ended up on the outside of the boat.	2 hours
10/5/03	Flipped and glassed the other side of the bottom and side joints. Began building the strongback. Note the lovely slope I get to contend with from here on out :(.	4 hours
10/6/03	Finished the strongback layout. Alert - When you do this, take extra efforts to make sure the strongback is level and square. My building techniques were not up to snuff on this step. I managed to get the strongback level, but it is not square. Note how far off the true center line is from the measured center of the forward brace. Sigh. If you wind up in this situation, remember the technique of measuring across two diagonals - if the diagonal measurements are equal then the four corners are square. I drove a nail into each side of the strongback at the transom, then measured the diagonals to each station, frame, and bulkhead, and finally the forward centerline. This way, all the important markings are square to each other even if the strongback itself is off. It would not be a bad idea to take these measurements as a double check even if your strong back is nominally square. Today also saw the final sanding of the prefinished bulkheads and the start of mounting the bulkheads on the strongback. It is critical to to line up the centerlines, the location markings, and to check the plumb of each bulkhead. The height of the transom and bulkhead 4 are shown on the plans. All the other bulkheads need to be fit using a batten and measuring up from the station lines. Check your plumb when measuring! Today I also rough cut the stem using a circular saw and belt sander to refine the shape.	8 hours
10/7/03	Finished mounting bulkheads today, making many finicky adjustments with the batten. Lifted the bottom onto the bulkheads. Made more finicky adjustments to get the center lines and station heights adjusted.	7 hours
10/8/03	Fitted the sides onto the bulkheads. Using U-shaped supports made from plywood (as suggested by someone on the Chebacco board) made this job relatively easy. I used three on each side, at bulkhead 6, 4, and mold 2. Make them a little oversized and you can use wedges to hold the side in place during adjustments. Alert - Make sure you make the U-supports wide enough to be able to place the temporary screws out of the way of the fiberglass tape and epoxy when you make the permanent joint! In addition to the supports, I clamped the sides at the transom and placed temporary screws into the stem. Other than the !@#$ finicky adjustments to get the bottom and chine heights just right, this was not a hard process. I was worried that fitting the stem would be a problem, but it really was not. Three screws through the bottom and two on each side held everything together. I'll add that once all the adjustments to bulkhead and mold heights were made, all the measurements came to within an eighth inch of the plans, so it is worth persevering. If I had to do it over again, I think I might skip some of the batten adjustments and go straight to fitting the sides and bottom once the transom and bulkhead 4 were in place. I found that just by aligning the deck side of the sides with the bulkheads took care of 95% of the alignment; the rest was solved by small adjustments at the stem. I also began gluing up the bulkheads and frames to the bottom and sides today.	8 hours
10/9/03	Removed the U-supports and finished the glue up and filets today. This took a little longer than expected, but was not too hard. Don't rush this step - take the time to smooth things out as much as possible to avoid the need for extensive sanding later. I also set up a rain shelter as it is supposed to rain in the next day or so.	8 hours



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