Help Fairing Keel

Posted by Matt Croce on Apr 22, 2005

OK, I just got back from a business trip (got to Kayak the river Wye in Wales on a weekend. Not bad, despite some really horrendous rental gear -- the Brits don't replace their gear annually like most rental companies here).

Anyway, I'm trying to fix a mistake on my CH16. Being new to this, I made sure the keel was very straight, but didn't notice two fairly large humps produced by a flat spot in the middle of the keel, and tabbed the seams.

I've taken the advice I got from an earlier post, and have used a small bonsai saw to cut the seam apart, and it is working well to fair the keel, only producing about a 1/8" gap along the keel line that will easily fill with epoxy when I finish the fillets.

BUT...there is still a hump where the aft bulkhead sits. (See picture) Since the bulkhead is tabbed in, I'm not able to spread the keel here as easily as on the rest of the boat. Any suggestions? I've thought of just cutting the bulkhead down the middle, spreading it a bit, and filling / glassing the resulting seam in the bulkhead. I'd like to avoid that, but I can't figure a way to easily cut the bulkhead loose to spread the keel a bit.

Any input would be great.

And if it is in the "too hard" category to fix this, how much/what effect would this hump have other than to annoy the crap out of me everytime I see it??

Thanks Matt

http://members.cox.net/mattcroce/129-2964_IMG.JPG

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