Day: January 7, 2011

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Not Square

Bah. The rig’s floor’s are plumb and square, why not the loft?! I need to ‘shave’ a wedge off one of the flooring pieces to get everything to fit in. Gah! Needless to say, I didn’t get the floor in today. I intend to spend the next couple of days focused on that project.

Before I screw anything down, I also need to add a bit of reinforcements along the sides and some bigger brackets  underneath; the pieces spanning the gap are a bit too springy for my liking. But there was one ray of sunshine in that corner of the rig today: it now smells like pine shavings instead of rotten, sodden wood. It’ll all happen in due time…

Two Measly Little Degrees
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Two Measly Little Degrees

That was the temp today, two, and that was also the number of degrees that was separating me from the minimum temp at which Eternabond can be applied.

I decided to go ahead with the corner that’s leaking, but not touch anything else.

First, I removed the original material that hadn’t bonded. It pulled right off and a river of water came pouring out! Not good! Once I got all the badly applied Eternabond off, I blasted it with the hair dryer for several minutes, then scrubbed with acetone.

This time, I decided to apply the Eternabond in small patches. One of the problems with my original application is that I was going over all the ribbing and didn’t get a good bond around it. My method this time was to peel half of the Eternabond backing, blast the rig with the hair dryer, blast the Eternabond until the putty backing was almost melted, apply the exposed piece, and rub it with a smooth stone while keeping the hair dryer on it. I then peeled off the other half of the backing and pulled the tape taut around the ribbing before again using the stone and hair dryer to get a good bond.

The results are ugly, but I’m confident that this time I got the leak.

What I’m not confident about is how my rig looks now: t-a-c-k-y. 🙁

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