2004 – Page 6 – The Scrumble Project

Finally we are back to boat building as distinct from shed building with fabric and string. Now that all the prepared panels have dried out, I will describe the following:

Fitting of the bilge panels.
Tabbing – the temporary connection of the panels prior to taping.

60mm plasterboard screw and “Keel tab” which is rough cut 4mm hardwood ply.

Screws to the number one frame have to go from the out side and because we are torturing the panels significantly from this frame forward, two big screws (75mm plasterboard) are required with two more to go below these to hold each panel in place.

Screw each panel to the frame with 4mm MDF washer to protect the Duflex, located so both joining tapes can avoid them.

….close that gap ( mainly caused by the keel sagging between each frame) so just push up on the keel and a little offside push on the bilge panel (to twist from fore to aft) and…….

Drive in the screw with the tab on and…..

“Voila” – no more gaps.

…and this is how – drive the 60mm plasterboard screw with tab through the bilge panel only just low enough to go through into the keel panel, the screw can go in at a slightly downward angle to allow plenty of glass laminate (of the bilge) around the screw and take advantage of the 16mm thick keel. To get the screw to start through aim at 90 degrees to the bilge, once the screw is just through the glass twist its head upwards to acheive the slightly down angle described above.

While I am demonstrating things – this is a 4mm MDF double tab used to hold all the other panels together.

Screwed through the panels, both sides of the join, angle both screws away from each other to pull the panels together.

Don’t worry, we hated screwing through the Duflex, but a little bit of liquid resin and silica will fix the hole when the hull is inverted. Grind off these points so the tape can go straight over, see three images down – screws in the number one frame.

This is used on concave joins as well, such as the bridgedeck to chamfer panels.

Lower bilge panel all tabbed up, ready for taping.

Ground off screws from the number one frame. Note the screw through the keel which was the first we put in. This is a good time to remove it as it will soon be under the tape so it could make life difficult when removing the frame.