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For Saturday and Sunday we spend fixing Explorer after colliding chuck of ice while operating on pack ice last Friday. |
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| Temperature was just below freezing point and working under the craft was very slow even though we had it lifted and blocked up. Sun was shining on both days and on Sunday the gusty wind was gone too. Not ideal conditions for repair work, but best we could imagine under these circumstances. | |||
| We welded a patch or 1/3 of the partition skirt back on and after that dismantled skirt from bow for easy access to put fiberglass patches on the hull. | |||
| Working was quite difficult and fiberglassing was quite messy, not to mention rather cold first practically bathing in polyester resin up to elbows for half an hour or so and then to wipe your hands clean with acetone rag. Usually after using the acetone rag i had to rush indoors to warm my hands. Luckily we had a possibility to go in and warm quite close to hoverport. | |||
| I didn't initially put in HDPE landing blocks to front of the hull when i build my Explorer, i have them at back though, but i think they have to be put in to protect partition skirt to be sliced between ice and landing skids. Just have to reinforce the hull somehow to have solid mounting base for these blocks. | |||
| We finished the fiberglassing and got the resin cured, but we didn't put skirt back on as we ran out of time. Maybe today afternoon we will finish the assembling and hopefully Explorer will be back on business next weekend, after the skirt trim has been checked and the prop assembled back on. | |||