Daggerboard fairing begins

I had to think about how to position the wrapped core and keep it properly centered in the foam block. I was struggling with this and then suddenly it occurred to me that I could re-use the scrap piece of foam that I had cut off to taper the core cut out to the correct thickness. This was a scrap piece and I had to recover it from the garbage heap.. My thought was that the piece could be used as a spacer to locate the laminated core in the centre of the foam block. There would be no need to create any new spacer or other method.

You can see how much foam is actually cut off one side the core to reduce the core thickness, below. Remember that the daggerboard sections get thinner the farther you go down, and this is just one side.



Below you can see the core correctly located within the 2 inch thick foam block.

I used some polyurethane glue to lock the core into place and proceeded to machine the 4" wide rebate down the length of the core insert. I ended up using my Dremel tool with a router bit to cut the rebate. I used the inserted core as a guide to determine the correct depth of the rebate. I have since asked Santa for the proper tool.

Then the fairing begins. From the coarse we go to the fine. The initial fairing actually goes very quick. You can see above the templates of sections A-F lying on the work table. They are invaluable. With my experience of shaping the float bow caps I expect the fine touches to be interesting.