27 Jul 08

Caroline and I glued the sides on the inner layer of the roof scoop this morning. She set the bag and pieces up while I trimmed the cut lines on the side veneer on the body shell. I trimmed the piece of veneer for the roof, lining up the center V with the centerline of the roof. We found the weave to be discolored on the 2nd side panel that we put on last night, which was really gutting. This means that we will have to sand the existing veneer down, weave 112 more inches, and start the process over again. It will cost us about a day of 5 people's work. On the bright side, we feel pretty sure that the condition is caused by the stain not being totally, 100% dry on the part at the time of the glue-up, so maybe we can avoid it on the last few pieces that we have to glue to the body. Zac and Ben wove until they ran out of fill at about lunchtime, and I got the roof scoop sanded, refit, and glued to the roof of the shell. After lunch, I worked on the rear quarter panels. I had to sand and prepare the surfaces, tape the cutlines, and trim the veneer piece. It took me about a half hour to figure out how to get both pieces out of the last piece of weave that we had available, but it worked out well. Caroline came out to help me glue them both on at about 6:30pm, and we finished at around 9:00pm and went inside to eat. Both glue-ups went beautifully. After dinner and the finale of Caroline's show, the Next Food Network Star, we went back outside to glue a Splinter logo on the front of the car. Literally minutes before we started the glue-up, a thunder and lightning downpour commenced. Since the shell is out under the lean-to, the mist from the rain was blowing inside all over the place. We waited for about 20min, but after no let up in the rain, I turned out the lights. As if the switch had control over more than just the lights, the rain stopped as quickly as it had started, so we turned the lights back on and got down to business. Caroline used a pencil eraser to spread the glue on the back of the logo, which was held together with a piece of masking tape. We then taped it down to the shell in the appropriate place and vacuumed it right to the surface. Everything looked good, and we called it a night at about 12:30am.