My Trailer Redo - Day 89 - Some Bracing Progress

 
Another day with a lot of time spent and not much to show for it. Anyway, here's what I accomplished.

For starters I glued the sections of the two braces that are cut from 3/4 inch plywood that are mated to make a brace 1.5 inches wide. I used Liquid Nails Heavy Duty for this. There is nothing on the tube about how long this should set up. Can you believe that? I figured a couple of hours. Looked it up on line. Overnight. Hmmm. Should have made myself do this little task yesterday, so they'd be ready today. But I didn't.



So, anyway, I glued and clamped/weighted them, and added a couple of screws through the set for extra security. They will be ready for the next work day.



Meanwhile, I'm doing little batches of fiberglassing. I thought it would be easy to fiberglass the braces in. It's easy enough, but you can't do it fast. Here's why. You can't make the bends around the braces without the wet glass and resin pulling away from the side you just did. So, I first did just the tab that is fastened to the wall and one side of the wood brace. This is the single width one beside the door that will have a wall attached to it.

I let that dry, and managed to use up the rest of that batch of resin with patching the few remaining holes. I try to leave the little jobs to use up the end of a batch of resin, because it's only usable for about ten minutes, and I hate to waste it. You can keep a disposable brush soft enough in acetone for about three batches with cure time between, but then that has to be chucked. So every day that I fiberglass it costs a dollar for a brush. I know that's not much, but they add up.


After the first side dried hard enough that it couldn't move- about an hour- I bent the glass over the wood and glassed down the next surface. That wouldn't stay in place at all. So, I covered it with wax paper, which won't stick to wet resin, and clamped a chunk of wood in place to hold it down.



Then I had to wait again. Final accomplishment? I got the lower half of the brace by the door fiberglassed in, started the upper half, and got two of the four little holes sealed up. They can have a couple more coats with the next batches of resin.



I'm thinking these braces are going to turn out to be the absolutely hardest part of the entire project. I sure hope so. This is a pain in the patootie. Not much progress, but at least it is progress.

In other news: I wrote in the morning, and hope to write my monthly newspaper column yet tonight.

	See Bracing and Frustrations
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