However what took the most time this afternoon was the prep work. When gluing the foam together some cuts weren't quite straight and so the sides didn't all quite line up. Sometimes there was not quite enough space. To smooth it off well enough for gluing we used a belt sander. Here's the timelapse. Unfortunately it cut off before we did any of the gluing. Hopefully we'll get a bigger battery for future attempts. Here's the timelapse.
Technical note: We mostly used 120 grit paper which went through the foam quickly. When there was some large wood overhangs (~ 0.5") we upped it to 80 grit to go a little faster. Also the foam coming off in chunks actually clogged the suction mechanism in the sander, but once cleared the suction of the sander plus the shop vac was quite effective.
Jumping to the end you can see the sides held on by the pipe clamps.
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| Completed application of two sides |
As you can see we're using four Pony pipe clamps to hold the plywood to the sides of the craft. The trick we used was to first paint the epoxy on. Then hold the plywood in place with masking tape. (Both for ease of placement and to control the seeping epoxy.
Then there's a layer of cardboard and then solid wood planks on the outside. The goal is that the elasticity of the compressed cardboard will distribute the loading across the plywood and let it conform to the imperfect surface while we crank tight on the wood outside.
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| Close up of pipe clamp, with cardboard and outer layer of wood. |
The other risk of this design is that none of it comes off due to epoxy everywhere, but we'll find out another day...
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| The final results from the back, showing our fancy saw horses. |
Thanks again to Michael for all the help. While I was sanding he also did some fixup work on the edge where the plywood had not been clamped down well enough and was delaminating from the foam.
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| Fixup work for plywood delaminating. |
