Vintage rides

How often do you overestimate yourself in plans? With life experience you suppose to get better in planning... I have an opposite situation here...
My original plan was simple: wait for several warm, sunny days in a row; laminate stringers and bulkheads; bed them in the hull; laminate them in the hull. Bam-boom-beem: done in three days! Sounds easy, doesn't it?
Wednesday morning I rode my bike to the cottage, organized my workplace, brought everything what I need for work from the house. 9:30 - first mix of resin in the cup... By ten I realized, that I need to organize the process better: I needed to cut all the fiberglass and staple it to the plywood first. By 16 I ran out of staples and good luck: clouds got darker and darker and by the time I finished cleaning the work area and covering the boat the rain started. Thunder storm followed... No work done until Thursday morning...

In the middle of the process:


Not even half done...


I was mixing the resin with less then 1% hardener: day was so hot, that it was curing too fast!


Thursday morning. Should I mention, that I was already behind the schedule? Big time! Anyway I had same thing going all over again: laminating, laminating, laminating... Went to the hardware shop to buy staples... And back to laminating, laminating, laminating... Luck was with me all day, so I finished with Dalai Lama thing and trimmed all the parts. Can't say that I am 100% satisfied with a result: I could make it even nicer:) Next time;)

Friday morning. Rain in forecast... Scratched my head, then beard: decided to bed all the structure elements before I go home. First challenge: how to take off the top half of the boat? 2x4 under nose section, rear part rests on support, then nose goes on support as well... Easy to write it down;)
After that I sanded the hull, vacuumed it, installed stringers, temporary screwed a couple bulkheads: prepared all the holes for screws, double checked that boat sits straight on the trailer - ready to go. Loaded the gun with PL Premium; started the process...

Was done in less then an hour. Put some weight on the frame to keep it loaded, cleaned the work area and went home by 13...


So, I failed my plan: fiberglassing the frame...
Next time I need to reinforce all the plywood to the hull, drill the drainage holes, prepare the floor... I will need to refill my supplies: running out of thinner and resin. Need to check how many fiberglass left as well...
So, what I learned from that experience, that we are not getting any faster with age:)
Now it's time to taste the homemade beer:)