More Z joins as 5 years comes around

I have been very happy and productive now I am full time. Though the output does not show it, there has been a lot of research and purchasing so that I have the hardware required to do the next stages.

As Bob’s designs are very flexible from the deck up there is a lot of planning and in our case, design to go through.

I have also shifted gear to having a few different building tasks going at once, this week I have been working with:

• the blocking and fitting of the bow cleats which go together with the blind fitting of that piece of deck,
• the making of bulkheads for the main anchor handling, and
• the panel cutting and panel schedule for the deck, very important not to waste valuable duflex.

With the schedule in mind, I have started by making use of any significant 16mm offcuts to make up larger areas for panels. After working out the forward areas I measured and matched a number of offcuts. The best way to join these and minimise the fairing required is to make my own Z joins. All this reminded me that it is almost 5 years since the duflex kit was delivered.

Following is a Z join between two offcuts which I prepared using a router in a laminate cutter. This tool has enough power to cut the duflex but can be easily managed with one hand. The cut is done with three passes; the removal of one laminate and the balsa from the other laminate, then shaping the proud laminate and rebating the balsa, then finally shaping the cut away laminate.

The edges are then sanded, cleaned, wet out with resin, then a mixture of resin and glue powder, presented and screwed between two plywood strips (joining when one doesn’t have a Z press).