My 11 year old son Matt, and I attached the bottom last night. I'll tell you what we did if you promise to never do it! We fitted the rough cut bottom with a 1" overlap, and secured it with screws in the ribs and ends. Then we penciled lines where the sides met the bottom on the inside and around the ribs, removed the bottom and laid it on the floor. We mixed up 200ml of epoxy, and applied it (too heavily) to the ribs and stem/stern with a brush. We also applied it (too heavily) to the floor where the ribs would be. Then we picked up the floor, placed it on the bottom, and screwed it back in. We filled a 10 ml syringe w/epoxy and put a bead of it on the outside of the pencil line where the sides meet the bottom. Sounds ok right? Well when we got to the center rib, I noticed that the sides no longer were along the pencil line. Uh oh! "We gotta move fast Matt, this stuff only lasts a while!" "We can't mess up now, and create an international pirogue incident!".
Quickly removed the screws, realigned the bottom, and screwed it back in, and piled every water bottle, cat litter tub, tool box, concrete block we could find on top. Then we sat back and sadly noted all that epoxy running down from the ribs, and that one end of the boat had no epoxy under the sides at all. "Don't worry Dad" says Matt, and like a good little caver he dives under the boat with paper towels in hand, crawls in on top of the ping pong/work table and starts wiping down the ribs and sides. What a kid!
I removed the weight this morning, flipped it over, and started scraping the still soft epoxy from the ribs and sides. It will be fine. Just lots of sanding, and I still need to attach the bottom to the sides.
Ya don't get that kind of excitement in banking folks. What fun!
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s283 ... -07005.jpg
Quickly removed the screws, realigned the bottom, and screwed it back in, and piled every water bottle, cat litter tub, tool box, concrete block we could find on top. Then we sat back and sadly noted all that epoxy running down from the ribs, and that one end of the boat had no epoxy under the sides at all. "Don't worry Dad" says Matt, and like a good little caver he dives under the boat with paper towels in hand, crawls in on top of the ping pong/work table and starts wiping down the ribs and sides. What a kid!
I removed the weight this morning, flipped it over, and started scraping the still soft epoxy from the ribs and sides. It will be fine. Just lots of sanding, and I still need to attach the bottom to the sides.
Ya don't get that kind of excitement in banking folks. What fun!
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s283 ... -07005.jpg