10 Apr 08

I went down to Hunt's this morning and got the 2 box channels that Caroline and I glued together last night. Combining them into pairs made them really rigid, which is satisfying. I cut 2 6"X6" holes in the S-panel on either side of the tunnel to give access to the chamber between the S-panel and the firewall. Aaron showed up and began working on an animation of the chassis and all its parts. He also helped me glue 1 final layer onto the rear cross-section cap that we started yesterday. This time was significantly easier, because we only had to put the cap in the bag, instead of the entire cross-section. Ben worked on the ramp to the new building, and Zac worked on cleaning up the body molds. I started working on mounting the box channels and glued some brackets onto the driver's side. I had to cut and fit the brackets for the passenger side because they were still in raw laminate form. Once I got the height right on both sides, along with making sure they were parallel, I drilled locating holes on the brackets on the passenger side and glued the brackets down. I got a game plan on how to glue the rear wheel wells on, and Caroline and I went to eat at IHOP, which is right next to the Home Depot, where I got some bolts. We came back out to the shop, and Caroline started fitting some bird's eye maple to the plywood pieces that cap the box channel. I worked on cutting some 2X4s to allow us to glue the wheel wells on. I helped Caroline get her parts in a vac bag, and she came over to help me spread some glue. We got the bolts run through the 2X4's, which were essentially clamp blocks, and, in conjunction with some rivets, pipe clamps, and tapped holes, got the passenger rear wheel well glued on. Now that the system is down, I should be able to get the other one on tomorrow morning with no sweat. We finished at about 11:30pm and will sleep well tonight.