[Marc]

Evening folks! Progress has been made… Woop! The main deck beam is in. First the glass under the mast step was tidied up and the gap filled with 10mm G10 then a few sheets of normal fabric with epoxy, the beam was then slathered in finest thickened epoxy and stuck to the hull, all day I’ve been using a extending prop thingy designed for drywall and it chose the moment I was hoisting the beam for final bonding to break, managed to catch the beam without getting covered in resin which was a result and ended up using the old kick it till it wedges in approach with the prop. The beam will be clad in iroko so you won’t see the scruffy plywood so I didn’t really pay much attention to keeping it tidy.
Next up… Deciding where the posts are going, this is a compromise between a small doorway and how far up the hull they sit, the load needs to be carried down to the keel so there will be a bit of trial and error to get something functional and looks good. The posts probably won’t be fitted until I’ve finished with the major parts of the bow as it seems daft to restrict access at this stage.

Attachments:

1. 

   Beam-bonded-in-place.jpg
   

2. 

   Coat-of-epoxy-soaking-in-to-the-beam.jpg
   

3. 

   Proping-Up.jpg
   

4. 

   Small-amount-of-thickened-epoxy-to-help-the-first-layer-of-glass-stick.jpg
   

5. 

   Sticking-the-G10-to-the-underside-of-the-step.jpg