Like the still before the storm, you always worry when things are going well because you're waiting for the big screw-up or things to go wrong. Well, that happened when I was applying the stain. I noticed a crack in the side plywood near the transom. This is 1/4" plywood that has to curve pretty severely to follow the transom. When applying this plywood it took a lot of clamping and some strap clamps to bring it into position. Here is a picture of the clamping required to bring the sides into form at the transom.
Apparently, there was a weakness in the plywood on the other side to the one pictured. There is about a 6" crack located about a foot forward of the transom and 6" down from the chine. Here is a picture of the crack:
The crack is noticeable as a ridge on the outside and a crease on the inside. The smoothness of the curved plywood is broken by this crack. I was more concerned about the loss of strength than by the cosmetics. I needed to patch and reinforce this to restore strength. The question is: how to do it?
I decided to attack it from both sides. On the inside I will epoxy two sheets of 5.2mm plywood I had laying around. This plywood bends easier in one direction so I will align it so it follows the curve and press it into position using this clamping block I constructed.
This matches the curve on the inside of the hull. I also have some clamps that can be used as spreaders that I used against the building form to force the plywood into position while being epoxied.
This is a shot from inside the hull showing the clamps pressing the block and plywood into position.
On the outside, I wanted to get epoxy into the crack and into the inner layer which I believe is also cracked. To do this, I drilled a few small holes into the crack and used a syringe to inject epoxy into the crack. I then used another clamping form that matched the outside contour and a clampling jig to apply pressure from the outside.
This clamping jig is anchored to the floor and a heavy duty strap clamp anchored to the sheer is pulling in on the 2x4s and applying pressure to the clamping form. I'm hoping I can apply enough pressure to eliminate the ridge while the epoxy cures. We'll see tomorrow.

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