Stn 8 bulkhead glued and filleted in place.

I'm using glass bubbles to make a runny mix for applying to the edges of the pieces. I've just ordered some size 4 hog bristle artist's brushes for this job, as the ones I have are too large.

Then, as glass bubbles alone make a mix that is inclined to slump, I add a little colloidal silica to the remainder of the resin/glass bubble mix, which makes a stiff enough filleting mix that can still be sanded easily enough. Both fillers will make a smoother mix than the red-brown stuff, which is intended principally for fillets on hardwood work that is to be clear finished.

The resin I'm using is Supersap bio epoxy, This doesn't make an amine blush when cured, and is easy to work with. It has to be mixed 5:2 by weight, so I'm using a cheap jeweller's digital scale for this - each mix is only 5 or 10 gms of resin, and this is the only way to be accurate enough. Also, 50ml syringes to get the resin and hardener out of the bottles, 2oz pots of the kind you get small quantities of sauces in with a takeaway meal, and disposable ice cream spoons as filleting tools.

Inner faces of bilgeboard cases, stn 4 bulkheads and berth flats, glued, wedged, cable tied and filleted in place.

I find that three of those cable ties on each side could be done away with, if I were to put the tabs and holes for wedges in those positions. The wedges are much easier to put in place, and more accurate, so I've changed the drawings of stn 4 bulkhead, bilgeboard cases, berth flats and berth fronts accordingly.

I made a mistake yesterday, when I glued the berth front to the deck stringer. I woke in the small hours, worrying whether the stn 6 bulkhead could be added after this, and had to come downstairs to the dining room aka boatbuilding shed to check. It couldn't. Luckily, the glue hadn't fully cured, and I could part the joints with a chisel.

So, this berth front to deck stringer joint needs to be clamped/bolted/screwed/pegged while the berth front to stn 3 joint is glued, to ensure correct positioning, then slackened off while stn 6 is lifted into place, then glued and tightened.

With this practical experience of the assembly, I can now add extra holes for wedges to the stn 6 bulkhead - I wasn't sure before. This, after all, is the principle reason for building this model: to see what works and what doesn't.

David wrote:
I have recently being looking at how RM yachts in France assemble their large plywood hulled yachts, as a way of learning something more about plywood/epoxy composite boat-building. They manage very long sheets of plywood, admittedly in a factory situation, but there is a lot that can be learned from the experts. Slow hardener in winter? 

• rebates along the edges of the hull panels to let the glass in flush with the surface. I don't know how to do that easily.
• joins in the hull panels that may be either scarphs or puzzle joints, I can't see which, with glass tape on the inside.
• Little wooden tabs screwed across the chines, to hold the two panels in the right position while epoxy is worked into the gap.
• Ledges on the bulkheads and temporary MDF moulds to rest the topsides on while they are being fixed. I'm doing shelves with similar extensions at the sheer line, and with the addition of wedges to hold the topsides close into the bulkheads.
• Hull panels made up of five pieces, so the SibLim 7m with three pieces should be feasible (though RM probably have some sophisticated handling equipment and/or enough manpower for these large panels).