Getting the airboxes done... sorta :)

Okay!  With the torrential rains we've been getting lately out of the way, I got the port airbox painted out with Thompson's, and did the underside of the front deck.   After an hour or three to allow it to dry, I applied more of the Tightbond III glue to the surfaces to be joined.  I've been applying the glue to both surfaces of each join.  This takes more glue, but one of the woodworking magazines that I read had  a very interesting article on glue-up (in furniture, but close enough) that measured the strength of bonds made by various techniques, and what happened to the glue.  It turned out that when they only hit one surface (vice both) with the glue, that one side absorbed a lot of the moisture and starved the untreated surface of glue.  Anyhow, even if it's wrong, I feel better hitting both surfaces of each join.  Thus far, I've gone through about 1.5 bottles of TBIII (the bigger cylindrical size, not the 'Elmers'-shaped bottle).  And here we are:

The Bullduck sits majestically on the back porch, both airbox tops and the forward deck securely fastened, with the glue drying.  The 1/4-turn hatch is just fitted, not glued and screwed, yet.  I want to get the fiberglassing and painting done before that happens...

From the stern, you can see one of the supports for the front deck.  It's a piece of poplar that I had sitting around the shop.  It will also be part of the mast mounting system.  (If that sounds silly, I was in the Navy, and everything has to be 'the such-and-such system', or a part of one :)

I know I'm overbuilding the fwd deck supports.  I don't intend to walk up there, but someday, I'll probably have need to, and I want it strong enough for that moment :)

View from the bow; first, great credit goes to man's best friend, sitting on the port airbox.  The power sander.  Much love for this tool right now :)
On the stern transom, you can see the piece of 3/4" thick oak I put there to back up the 3/8" ply that makes up the stern, where the rudder will mount.  Submarine thing: Everything that CAN be rediculously overbuilt, SHOULD be so. 





Much sanding remains to be done before I can glass the airboxes and forward deck with a clean conscience, but that's okay.  The effort helps me spiritually to take ownership in a way that paying someone for a boat would not.  However silly it may seem, while the Bullduck has not even been afloat yet, I feel no shame in bragging to the nurses at work about the work I've done on my sailboat :)