This fiasco is brought to you by the letters 'C' and 'S', and the dawning realisation that if you make boats out of balsa wood, held together with a cellulose glue, then it isn't a brilliant idea to squirt lots of cellulose solvent into them....
Keeping balsa wood away from water, both inside and out, is necessary, otherwise the balsa will absorb water, and expand. So sealing eezebilts is necessary. I always used to pour some sanding sealer in and let it wash around, but this will not penetrate watertight compartments.
So I had this brilliant idea....
So can you see what I'm planning yet...?
Yes, we are joining the medical fraternity. 10cc of lidocaine, please, nurse...
And that's the last one.
Now we just leave it overnight to dry.
I assumed that the sanding sealer solvent would just evaporate through the balsa. It doesn't seem to.
Instead, it goes through the balsa glue joints. So in the morning.....
This isn't going to hurt a bit...
Whoops, sorry...
Hello World!
I quickly try to keep the deck on, but the whole front of the boat is floppy and flexible. Eventually I have to strip much of the front to get air in and let the whole thing dry.
It's now been two days, and the boat is slowly drying out. The whole road smells of sanding sealer - visitors remark on it. And I am temporarily halted in my build...
I think I'll go and build a Terrier while I'm waiting....
