Annie,
if you just rename your photos in your pc (or whatever you have) before you upload them, you can control the position of the photos in the album: A 2-digit prefix plus space  (01 to 50) will sort it out. Another method, when you are to start a new album, is to just use the camera’s own picture number (file name), and then add any comments or dates after the original name, before uploading. That keeps them sorted, both in your own pc folders and on your WA member albums.

Clear as mud, right?
Arne.

PS: Anyway, I see a boat there! Are you to finish her, paint and all (minus ballast), before turning her upright?

Eric,

I agree about adjusting the vacuum by adjusting the leak: Most vacuum cleaners use the sucked in air for cooling the electric motor. If you block the air  inlet completely, you may burn the motor.

Arne

And yes, Cricri is a great little plane! 

Arne Kverneland wrote:

Annie,
this only shows how little such armchair advices are worth.  I did expect you to have flocoated your panels in advance, as you have described. What I meant to ask was if you added thickened epoxy at the «weld line» to both the panel and the boat. I guess now that you only apply it on one surface.

Ah, I'm with you now.  In fact, I coat the scarph ("weld") with neat resin on the piece that I'm about to put on the boat.  It's not really too much of a problem because it is just at one end of the piece of wood and is partly soaked in by the time I have put glue on the hull. 

As for sanding to make the glue stick better, I thought I read somewhere that the most important was to wipe off the waxy surface after flocoating.  When making my multilayer mast step for Ingeborg, I flocoated the pieces. Then a quick wiping off with a wet rag (water with household ammonia in it) appeared to remove the wax smartly. At least it felt like it worked. I still gave the surfaces a quick sanding before assembly.

You are right about the waxy film - "amine bloom" as the experts call it.  Normally that is all that is required.  However, I flocoated the plywood well in advance and the epoxy is cured, so requires sanding.  However, I also sand it before putting the panel in place because it's a lot easier to do it flat on the table than inside the boat when I come to paint it further down the track!

Then it dawned to me that you may want to assemble the whole panel on the floor first, before lifting it onto the boat, and that, no doubt takes some additional hands.

David did suggest assembling the whole panel, first, but believe me, one at a time is more than enough.  Even using very slow hardener, it can be a bit of a race to get it all cleaned up before it starts setting up.  No doubt in a couple of months I'll be complaining because I can't get the glue to go off!

Annie,
this only shows how little such armchair advices are worth.  I did expect you to have flocoated your panels in advance, as you have described. What I meant to ask was if you added thickened epoxy at the «weld line» to both the panel and the boat. I guess now that you only apply it on one surface.

As for sanding to make the glue stick better, I thought I read somewhere that the most important was to wipe off the waxy surface after flocoating.  When making my multilayer mast step for Ingeborg, I flocoated the pieces. Then a quick wiping off with a wet rag (water with household ammonia in it) appeared to remove the wax smartly. At least it felt like it worked. I still gave the surfaces a quick sanding before assembly.

Then it dawned to me that you may want to assemble the whole panel on the floor first, before lifting it onto the boat, and that, no doubt takes some additional hands.

Good luck!
Arne

(Eric, those “10cm  of  wine pressure” should still give 100kg force per square meter  -  we are wading around in a thick atmosphere (10 tons/sqm !)...)

Second point first; in fact I precoat the plywood (did I not say so?) in advance, putting a 'flocoat' of thick resin all over it and then sanding it smooth before cutting it.  This makes it a lot easier to handle but provides a perfect surface for the WEST epoxy to stick to.  If you don't coat both pieces of wood, you are asking for trouble in the form of glue starvation, especially with okoume (gaboon) plywood, which tends to soak up a lot of epoxy.  I had thought of using a few extra dowels to hold the panel up until I could shuffle it into place, but I really don't think I can lift the whole panel up so high on my own without getting glue all over myself from the chines, if nothing else.  Once in place over the dowels, I'm home and dry in that respect.  I'm still working out the best method of holding down the scarfs.  At present I can clamp a piece of 4x3 along the edge, which works wonderfully well, but will be impossible on these bilge panels.

The bilge panels, in fact, are pretty large - the photos must be misleading!  I have thought about making a pattern from MDF strips hot-glued together, so that I can cut them down and make them smaller.  Below are some completely indecipherable thumbprints showing the two layouts that David suggested for the plywood: (hopefully, clicking here will take you to the larger diagrams in my album.  They 'bleed' over the edge it I copy and paste the full-size ones.)

David, you are suggesting using the first arrangement, but I'm considering the second.  I just might be able to manage that on my own.  Bertrand has had to go back to France, the Icebreakers have gone to the Barrier, Marcus can't go near wet epoxy and Rob is playing with Blondie in the Bay.  If he is back, I'll rope him in to help, but otherwise will have to use my ingenuity to get these sheets into place.  I need to fit four more topside panels; the bow; bilge stringers and framing at the bilge board cases yet, so there's no panic.  I have plenty of time to ponder these details while filling and scraping screw holes!