Day 39

Wow!!! We actually managed such a large piece of plate with our little hoist, some clamps, grinding teeth, and a badly sprained ankle! (Mine) The piece of plate is 24 feet long, so handled like a wet noodle, much more flexible than we thought...and heavy. It wasn't so much a matter of lifting it into place as it was trying to stop the ends from flopping back and forth. First it was moved into place and jacked up to a suitable hieght. ( Pic above ) The old plate clamp we had aquired did its job in its strange way of gripping hard on the plate using the downward force of the plate pulling on the teeth. Although I still think my teeth were clamped together even harder! I just can't trust something that can hold that kind of weight, without leaving so much as a scratch or nick... anyway... The Bottom would be left oversize below the sheer-line so we will have the option of fairing whatever type of bulwarks we decide apon in the future. Instead of pulling it in, making a mark, letting it down, then cutting, we decided to just cut along using the radius plates edge as a guide. Using a torch this way probably wouldn't work, and the designer recommended against it as it would result in an unfair hull. With a Pasma cutter on the other hand it's not a problem! There was a bit of a mess created at one point where the radius plate somehow grew a bulge over the last while. We of course didn't notice as we were eager to work with the plate, and it resulted in some ( I'd rather not mention it! ) more desperate measures! As you can see in the pics below, all came out well in the end!
Plate cut using bottom of radius plate as template	Grinding the edges for good fit all along join	Plate tacked into place at top but left hanging
Tomorrow we will check the other side for any problems before we start with the plate. I'm still amazed we could get away with serving up such a long piece. This was done to reduce the vertical welds that would be visible above the water line. It really looks good! As for my sprained ankle: I should have been wearing my workboots!