Re: West River 18

Posted by Dennis Rioux on Jan 10, 2005

Paul,

As others said, you should trim the bulkheads to eliminate the gaps -- I had to do that with the foreward ring bulkhead. There were some discussions a year ago or so about how people took the ring bulkheads out after glassing because they did not like how they obstructed the interior spaces (I think those archives have since been removed). I had already filleted mine into place and I did not want to chisel them out, but I did make the openings substantially bigger before putting the deck on which you can see in the photo.

As for the bulge, I think I know what you mean because mine had the same problem and LeeG is correct in saying it would be better if the sheer clamps extended *all* the way to ends of the sheer panels. What happened in my case in the stern at least is that the sheer clamps end at a point where there is still quite a bit of curvature happening. The sheer clamps want to spring back toward straight and push out at the ends whereas it is pretty easy to pull the plywood together which results in a non-fair bulge right there. I didn't really notice this until I had glassed the hull, but I think if you put a screw sticking up out of the top of each sheer clamp, bend the sheer line to how you want it to look and then tie the screws together to hold its shape while you glass it, it should hold its shape when all is said and done. My bow did not have this problem. Hope this helps.

Dennis

In Response to: West River 18 by Paul Buelterman on Jan 9, 2005

Replies:

• Re: West River 18 by LeeG on Jan 11, 2005