Work Resumed

Before I had a break for some holidays I did some reinforcing to the hull in preperation for the hull to be blacked while I was away.

In general the welding and construction on the part of the shell done by the original builder was very good.  I did however have reservations about 4 of the joints on the vertical freeboard.

I am sure these were throughly V ground before welding so good penetration should have been a given, however as the external welds were ground so smooth so as to be virtually invisible and the inside only had a single pass I thought these could be areas just right for cracking or splitting is we took a knock.

Before

A you see the the weld is very thin, and while its true the welds on the rubbing strakes outside would stop it pulling apart, this only applied to the front 2.  The lower weld on the otherhand is much hevier and on the outside it has not been ground off so I was happy with these welds.

To strengthen these welds up I have over-plated them with 50 x 5 strips after grinding down the bit of weld inside first.

This is a rear one. See no rubbing strakes

After

I'm much happier now.