2478Hrs- Sometimes It’s Hard When You’re Alone

I had a tough day today, it started OK with me all fired up to put the engine wells together then, just before I went out, I saw an e-mail from Olivier Roux with a link to some excellent photos of the engine wells he’s built for his own Tiki 38. His workmanship is superb as you can see in the photo below and puts my own to shame but what annoyed me was that I could clearly see on his blog photos that the triangular side panels were in fact made up of one layer of ply not the two that I’d decided yesterday they should be despite what it said on the plans.

So not only had I wasted time and ply yesterday but then when I tried to dry fit all the parts together at the barn I discovered I’d now created a problem that meant the things just didn’t fit together properly.

It’s times like this when I really wish I had a work buddy, someone on the spot with whom I could confer when I am puzzled by something, someone to double check what I’m doing and to give a different angle to things.

I confess I got a tad annoyed with myself and was on the point of scrapping the whole lot and starting again fearing that these wells might be turning into another debacle similar to the one I had trying to get the tumblehomes fitted way back when.

After I’d cooled down I studied Oliviers photos again and decided I might as well try and salvage the situation as I figured I’d got nothing to lose, and after some frustrations I managed it. I’m not proud of the results but once again good old epoxy has saved the day and although the wells may not be pretty, they’re the right dimensions and they’re sure as heck strong, in fact given the doubled up sides they’re probably a bit stronger than the ones on the plans.

In the light of a new day after some planing sanding and filling they will be just fine and I can tick another job off my long long list.

I wasn’t going to post any pictures of my efforts due to embarrassment but as this is a warts and all blog here they are. If you want to see how it should be done then check out Oliviers blog HERE. Olivier your boat is going to be beautiful!