The Gleda Project

I was up at the barn early this morning and it was noticeably chilly, I’ve had to put the epoxy warmer back on because it was thicker and harder to mix than it has been for months. I’ve been using a 50:50 mix of fast and slow hardener for the epoxy but I can see [...]

A busy business day meant I was only able to do a couple of hours today but I pushed on and got all the remaining strengtheners cut and glued onto the portside cabin top. I also got the polystyrene cut ready to glue tomorrow. I had another good look at the starboard cabin roof position [...]

Well the starboard cabin top came off the mould relatively OK with the exception of one temporary screw that I’d left in place causing me to wonder why it wasn’t budging! But that aside it came away cleanly and after a bit of tidying up round the edges I’m really pleased with the result. My [...]

As planned I cracked on today and got the last sheet of 4mm glued to the starboard cabin top. This involved sanding back the polystyrene and excess glue (lovely messy job), and then applying plenty of epoxy glue mix before positioning the 4mm plywood sheet and weighting it. I also cut away the first sheet [...]

Just a flying visit to the barn today to remove all the concrete blocks and take out the temporary retaining screws before the epoxy set too hard. All set to sand back and get the last sheet of ply glued on tomorrow Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook share via Reddit Share [...]

I’ve had a really good day today and made some great progress with the starboard cabin top. I cut and fixed all the longitudinal strengtheners, cut and fixed all the polystyrene and weighted everything down. This means I just have to glue the last sheet 0f 4mm plywood in place and I’ll have the first [...]

I finished off the mould construction today and then, after more careful studying of the plans, set too getting the first transverse strengtheners glued in place. The plan study was necessary because I want to ensure that I have solid timber forming the sides of the main companionway openings and also for the hatch fixings. [...]

Today I’ve been working on the mould that will be used to manufacture the curved cabin tops. These tops are made up in similar fashion to the cabin roof/deck sections i.e. A layer of 4mm ply, 25mm of polystyrene and another layer of 4mm ply, all bonded together with plenty of epoxy. The mould needs [...]

I’m very pleased to say that my business venture is beginning to gain some momentum but as a consequence build time is being squeezed yet again. I’ve learned not to get too stressed though as I now consider my business activities to be as much a part of the project as the actual building. This [...]

I was in the mood for building today, things always go so much easier when you’re in the right frame of mind don’t they? Anyway the first job was to gently prise off the second large cabin roof section and then spend some time with the grinding disc knocking off excess blobs of epoxy and [...]