Building and assembling backbones and bulkheads

Wow!

Assembling the backbones, building bulkheads and putting the first hull together was amazingly painless and fast.

The backbone was lofted directly onto the floor

of the shop, and built directly onto its lofting lines -- twice, since it made the most sense to build both backbones at the same time.

The bulkheads were cut out at the same time -- both sets, including their sticks and panels. We laid them flat on the floor, and glued up as many as we had floor space for at a time.

The whole process, for both hulls, took approximately seven working days of varying lengths. There were the usual first-days-of-project confusions and whatnot to fix in that time, too, plus building the epoxy station and various other tasks for the ongoing good of the project.

Total time for the two sets -- approximately 60 hours, plus another twenty hours or so building the beam troughs on to the bulkheads.

Below, one of the butt blocks holding the backbone together.