| Toby, my apprentice for nearly three years, gets to grips with the 'hot gun technique' for coating with epoxy. He has taken his protective gloves off for some reason tho' I'm pretty keen to make sure everybody wears them whenever handling epoxy. He is just about to spread the glue on the Formica lining for one of the centreboard case sides, lying just across the bench from where he stands. Some gentle warming will speed up the process and you end up with a thinner, more even coat. The same process for the ply, which sucks the warmed epoxy in very deeply. Then you need to brush a bit more over the ply to ensure there are no starved patches, and you will get a really good, full strength joint. The Formica is a brilliant no-maintenance smooth covering for the otherwise impossible to protect inside of the case. The centreboard gets lined too, just the flat part that stays inside the case when it's down - the rest, of course, is faired off to an aerofoil section. Now, here is the real magic! Because of the Formica and the fact that the slot in the plank is nearly three inches above the beach when the boat grounds and so grit & stones are unlikely to be forced up the case, you can reduce the clearance between the board & sides to less than a millimetre - most English cases have half to three quarters of an inch. RESULT: when the centreboard is down, the part of the board in the case is properly supported by the case sides. That means the board doesn't bend the pivot pin, so the hole for the pin through the case and keel can be a 'light drive fit' i.e. you can wriggle it out by pulling with a Mole wrench on one end. Lo and Behold, there can be NO LEAKS round the hole! And the case is MAINTENANCE FREE - apart perhaps from withdrawing the board once a year for a check. |
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