Liam and Oliver cut and sanded some mahogany 1×2 strips into mooring cleats.  They did a nice job of measuring in lengths in millimeters and sanding all the cleats clamped together.  Liam and Scott lined up and drilled the first one before bed time.

Later, Scott finished the sanding the cleats and put a final epoxy coat on the bottoms of the beams.

Enzo and Liam beaming

Despite unseen rainwater in the hulls, we teamed up on a gorgeous sunny day to move the hulls out onto the sidewalk and street to align and mark the beams.  It went smoothly and was good fun, particularly walking the “balance beams” over the planters and hoisting of the crab claw rig from Thomas’ ulua.

Scott quickly cut 1×2 fir and Thomas helped line up, level, and mark the locations of beam pads and sockets, as well as the beam edges.  Things were a little loose until we hammered the wedges in hard to hold the cedar 1x2s that ensured the hulls were parallel.  Unfortunately, we missed a few key markings and accidentally placed the sockets on the outboard deck, rather than the inboard where they belong!

Beams only need trim and outer epoxy coat

Oliver, Liam, Marcus (0.5 hr each); Russ, Kevin, and Thomas (3 hours each); Scott (9.5 hr) | Photos

The boyz, Marcus, and I sanded the upper side of the bottom planks lightly and gave them a second coat of epoxy, hoping it would get tacky by the time we were ready to glue them to the beam webs.  Oliver was eager to drill some holes for the lashing pads, but we ran out of time — or maybe the urge to head out into the night to spy on the parents was too great…

I was hand-sawing the top planks flush with the ends of the webs when Russ arrived.  He gave a comforting opinion that the beam fillets seemed unlikely to offer much more strength if enlarged to the 1.25 radius ones called for in the plans.

Then Thomas and Kevin showed up and dove into the beam assembly while Russ took charge of aligning and drilling the holes for the lashing pads.  It worked well to put the epoxy/filler on the top of the web and compression struts and then lower a plank down on it.  Though we had to correct a lateral bow in one plank, it wasn’t too hard.  Once clamped on, the whole works was flipped onto each side successively to allow easy filleting access.  I think we all agreed with Thomas that a tongue depressor is a better fillet maker than a gloved finger.  The alcohol polishing again worked wonderfully, but MAN there are a lot of inside corners in each beam… It took a long time to get all the surfaces cleaned up and the fillets neat.

Not healthy to eat

Top planks glued to crossbeam webs

Liam, Cora, Elliot, Marcus, Oliver (0.25 hrs each), Thomas (3.5 hr), Kevin (3 hr), Scott (6 hr) | Photos

Cora and Liam and I started off by sanding the lashing pads and dolphin striker mount so they’ll be all ready for gluing to the hulls.  Oliver, Elliot, and Marcus stopped by and helped sand the pads, knock the nodes down on the bamboo poles, and belt sand the compression struts flush with the crossbeam web edges.

Thomas biked over with his 4″ belt sander and used 40 grit to very quickly smooth flush the top and bottoms of the 3 webs.  I made some progress with the 3″ and 50 grit, but it was a lot slower.  Rather than mark the center line and stitch and glue, we pooled our big clamps and easily bent the mahogany planks to the tops of the webs.  I had added a coat of epoxy to the top plank undersides (2nd coat) and the bottom plank’s second side (single coat on both sides now).  We positioned the webs and marked with indelible pen, then removed the web and used the ziploc-pastry bag method to lay down a bead of epoxy (80/20 micro-ballon/wood-flour fillet).

Two of three guys

We did all three at once and would have been screwed if we didn’t have 6 hands to form the fillets from the epoxy that squeezed out upon clamping.  A few more clamps would have been helpful, but we got away with 3-6 per beam.  As it was, the epoxy gelled pretty quickly and we used a lot of alcohol to keep working it. Thank the Gods that we won’t have to sand all those fillets in the close confines between struts!

Overall, the beams are looking great.  They are starting to exude both beauty and strength.  The fillets are probably too small (Wharram called for 1 1/4″ radius ones), so I’ll add material in next 24 hrs…