I worked on Rhapsody today for the first time since the 1st week in December. The temperature hit 60 degrees so it was perfect weather to do some core bonding. However...it's supposed to snow tomorrow. I never took pictures of the fiberglass plates bonded to the transom, so started with that. The picture below shows the backstay chainplate backing and swim ladder backing bonded to the transom. I predrilled the holes and used throw away hardware to hold the sandwich compressed while the bonding material set. I used a two part vinyl ester resin called "
Core Bond" for the bonding, except for the rudder mounts I used thickened epoxy. The problem is I now have the fasteners on the rudder mounts frozen in place and need to drill out the bolts. I was able to unscrew the fasteners where I used the Core Bond. The Core Bond is very easy to work with because it is already the consistency of peanut butter, and only requires the mixing with hardner.
Back in December I had bonded all the fiberglass plates and bonded balsa core between the fiberglass places used for the backing on the rudder gudgeons. The next two pictures show views of the center transom area where the bonding was done. I'll end up sanding, filling the bond voids at the joint seems and fair it before applying the inside fiberglass biaxial cloth.
Today I spent making the jigsaw puzzle pieces so I could fit them together and continue the core bonding work. It was a little tedious because of hanging in the cockpit lockers to make paper templates, cut the balsa core pieces, and trim them to fit. I ended up completing about half the transom on Sunday afternoon. Hopefully the weather next weekend will support finishing the rest of the transom bonding. Below are pictures after the bonding work today.
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