Round pads

If there's a simple way to cut perfectly circular shapes from thick plywood with a handheld jigsaw, I don't know it. The Seaclipper 20 pads are made of 2 cm thick plywood, and cutting through it with a noisy jigsaw, with wood dust flying all around, is very uncomfortable. So, the result is kind of miserable, the resulting shape being a polygon which only approximates a circumference... Now, those pads will be clearly visible on the boat since they'll be glued on the deck of the floats. So I decided to improve their looks, and went to my friend Franco's shop: he builds astronomical telescopes so his tolerances are way tighter than ours!

Anyway, after a treatment with his router, here's how they look like now...

Ready to glue the deck

Just one hour today, to remove screws and clamps, grind epoxy runs, and draw the two 40 cm pads ready to be cut from 2 laminated layers of 1 cm plywood. I had to heat up several screws with the soldering iron to extract them.

Here's the first ama with the deck on, ready for glue. The 12 mm steel studs are clearly visible

And here is the 2 cm thick plywood sandwich with the two circular pads ready to be cut

The morning after (Oct. 13th) I had one spare hour so I camr to the shop to cut the two pads. The laminations looks perfect

And here is the ama with the pads on (not yet glued)

Total work time to date: 180 hours

Getting ready to glue the decks

Three hours today, mostly working with resin. We double coated the inner side of the decks, and glued the butt blocks to the deck panels. We also laminated two layers of 10mm plywood from which we'll cut the two 40 cm dia circular pads. We left the glue line uncoated all around the deck panels.

Total work time to date: 179 hours

Gluing the studs in the first ama

This is a pretty delicate operation. The 12 mm steel studs are glued to the bulkheads through 15 mm holes drilled in the hefty cleats. Such holes are filled with slightly thickened resin.  Those studs will link the amas (floats) to the aka (crossbeams) Here's how we arranged the things to keep the studs steady while the glue sets...

and here's a more panoramic view showing both studs

The resin will hopefully cure overnight...

Total work time to date: 176 hours

Decking the first ama (2)

Five hours of work today, and we're still not done. We cut two of the large 3/4" (20 mm) plywood disks (pads) that will be glued to the decks to strengthen the aka fastening. Those are pretty big: for each ama hull there's a 53 cm dia pad and a 40 cm dia one. We discovered that one plywood panel is apparently not enough to cut all 20 mm pieces, so the two smaller pads will be cut from a two glued layers of 10 mm plywood.
Here we are in the middle of our jigsaw puzzle game

and here is the first of the two large pads. The center hole has a diameter of 1" (25 mm) and will be filled with thickened resin to make a high strength bond of the steel stud to the hull.

We then cut the two 20 mm thick butt blocks for the deck. Here's the forward one.

We spent more time then expected to measure, cut the bevels, and finish the blocks to fit between the beveled stringers.

The day after (Sunday 5th) I was out of town but Cinzia worked two more hours to complete some tids and bits, so it looks like we're ready to close the hull and glue everything.

Total work time to date: 174 hours

Decking the first ama (1)

A couple of days ago we spent one hour fairing the deck stringers for the 1st ama. This evening we scribed and cut the deck panels from 12 mm plywood.

Here we are at the beginning of the scribing. Some care must be taken to properly align everything, but not a big deal.

This pic shows the first panel already cut, and the second being scribed.

Total work time to date: 167 hours