Day 5 - Attaching the skirt panels

(Originally posted on July 11th, 2013)

Although I worked on Rainier for a good four hours after work tonight, I felt like I got very little accomplished.  The first thing I did was account for the panel angles by beveling the top and bottom plywood skirt panels using the skilsaw.  I set it to 18° for panel 1, 15° for panel 2, and 10° for panels 3, 4, 5, and 6.  These were rough averages accounting for the space between each facet and their relative position between the top and bottom of the skirt.

That turned out pretty good, so I set about to gluing and countersinking the wood screws into the panels, replacing the temporary brad nails.  Now, I don't know if it's just me, but I feel really nervous about two things:

1. To get the screw head inset enough into the pretty-thin HDF so that putty can cover it requires a pretty deep countersink.  I feel that there's a wafer-thin amount of HDF material between the screw head and the plywood.
2. Because there's only 11mm of plywood to screw into, the screw is right at the tip-top and very bottom of each HDF panel. It seems to me that the panel could just pop right off if enough trauma were to occur to it.

To that end, I've also applied a generous bead of all-purpose construction adhesive to the plywood bases before applying the panels.  I hope that's enough to hold it until I reinforce the whole gubbins with fiberglass later.

Tragedy struck yet again when one of my panel 4's fell off a table onto the concrete floor, chipping away a corner of it.  Good think I have plenty of spare HDF, but man, very depressing to have to cut another one to replace it.

So, I got panel 6 and one of the panel 4's onto the frame, but that's all I could do before it got too late to cut out the replacement piece.  I was hoping to get all the panels on.  Which reminds me, the one panel 4 that did make it on overhangs on both the left and right side by a couple millimeters.  I guess it's good to be over than under, but I don't trust that I have a steady enough sanding hand to trim it down so that panels 3 and 5 will fit nicely.  What to do?

And finally, Rainier won't fit back into my house now.  Rather than leave him outside, I popped open my hatchback of my Scion tC, spread some newspaper out, and put him in the back to cure.

Frustrated, but hopeful.  Also, there was an early Christmas prezzie on my stoop when I got home!  My Moflash lenses!