Frame Glued to Panel

Today I glued the internal frame to the bottom panel. Before I began the gluing, I had to prepare the keel and frames. After gluing the keel together, I noticed that the keel was not perfectly straight. I was concerned that it would not adhere to the panel in a true fashion. To ensure that it would be glued true, I cut several small pieces of the marine plywood that the frames and keel were cut from and lined them along the center of the board. I temporarily glued them there with Elmer's glue. I did this in about eight locations along the center of the panel and it kept the keel quite straight. These stays can be seen in the top three images.

The frames, or ribs, fit quite loosely on the keel. After fitting the frames on the keel, I found that whenever I lifted the keel, several frames would fall out. Furthermore, the first frame (closest to the nose of the board) did not fit at all. I gingerly sanded the slots on the frame and keel so they would fit better. While I was doing this, the nose of the keel snapped off right where the slot for the first frame is located. Ouch! I glued it with Titebond III, clamped it, and said a few prayers. After two days, I removed the clamps and it appeared that my prayers were answered. I still had to sand the slot on both the frame and keel to make sufficient room for the two to fit properly. I pushed my luck and the nose snapped again while sanding. This time I said #@%$ ! I glued it again and said some more prayers. Finally learning from my previous mistake, I sanded only the frame and then glued it to the keel. I didn't glue any of the other frames.

Everything seemed to be in order to glue the keel and frames to the panel. I sought the assistance of my beautiful and patient partner, Vanessa, and our lovely daughter, Malia. I smeared the 3M 5200 marine adhesive all over the keel and frames, while Vanessa looked on ready to help me place the gluey mess on the panel. Meanwhile, Malia snapped about fifty pictures of the process. She took all photos for this entry while rollerblading around us to get the best action shots.

Once we laid the keel and frames to the panel, we started locking down the stays on the rocker table. This took a bit of time. We started from the center and worked our way out to the nose and tail. We proceeded slowly as we began to crank down the stays. We tightened both the top and bottom stays. We tightened the bottom stays because that was the only way we could get the outside of the frames to make contact with the panel. Once all the stays were tightened, I applied more 5200 and "filleted" it along both sides of the keel and each of the frames. I think it looks like it should but I won't know if I/we did it correctly until I release the stays and everything remains in place. I'm going to let the 5200 set for the week.

One observation I would like to share is this process is very messy. I had 5200 on everything and probably went through a roll of paper towel trying to keep the ubiquitous white stuff from getting the best of me.

A quick update, I bought 3M 5200 marine adhesive to adhere the keel and frame to the panel. Make sure you get the fast drying 5200. It's been three days since I glued everything and it's still tacky. I might be waiting more than a week for this stuff to cure.