304 hours to date.
August 5 7 hour: Weld tbar in hull panel and workout 1/8" overhead butt sequence. Bottom .030 20v 6.5 feed with steel backup bar. Light backchip then top pass .030 18v 5.0 feed. Leave bead on in interior and exterior.
August 6 8 hour: Finish stringer tack up to side panel and hoist into place and start tackup to hull.
August 7 5 hour: Tack out topside to main beam. Tack to top of main beam. Level up port hull to WL. Pull more plates for aft inner topsides.
August 8 10 hour: Cut out aft inner topsides. Buttweld port hull inner topside first pass. Put on toerail at bow and start flip over. Flipping much tricker as middle is cut out and clamp point is near CG of panel.
August 9 11 hour: Cut out stringers for both inner topsides and most of outer topside. Assemble stringers to port hull inner topside. This time I set the plate on a bunch of 24' tbar on the ground, works nicely.
August 10 11 hour: Put inner panel into position and tack up fully. Instead of the usual 2x2 cutouts for tbar, on the top stringer at the mainbeam juncture I cut through the 'T' so that it is a slot cutout in the frame only. This will be fully welded out in this high stress area.
Nice view showing port hull mostly up and lower part of stb.
Stitch weld of 1/8" topside to toerail. Note back weld to prevent crater crack at end
of weld ( pass was from right to left ) and good arc cleaning action alongside bead.
August 11 10 hour: Finish tack of topsides except for forward 5 feet. First pass butt on stb inner topside. Put toerail on inner topside. There is about 1 inch of twist in stb hull so will chock up before starting on frames. Will work towards decking hulls before moving onto other components in the bridge deck. Once the decks are on wont have to worry about welding in a twist.
August 12 1 hour: Move stb outer topside to assembly area.
August 16 9 hour: First pass on butt in stb topside. Tack toerail and turn panel over. This one was nicer than port with no serious distortion. Used longer segments and worked from centre out to edges.
August 17 10 hour: Back weld butt and start welding on stringers.
August 18 1.5 hour: More tack up of stringers.
August 19 1.5 hour: Finish tacking stringer to panel and weld out knuckle butts on stb hull. 1/8" overhead with steel backup bar. .030 20v 6.5 feed on first pass overhead. Light grindout and .030 18v 5.0 feed on cover pass.
August 24 4 hour: RAIN. Cut out deck groove in toe rail. Notch frame 4 for stringers. Test bending 2" tbar for decks using press and guage. Press every 4" for 20 ' radius.
August 30 6 hour: More rain this year than average and its just August. Pull stb outer topside into position and tack front end.
August 31 9 hour: Back pass on inner topside and put most of Tbar stringer on. Fully welded mid section where there are only 2 stringers.
Copyright © 1997 Tony Bigras.