The Form Frames

I used MDF fot the form frames. They are much easier to work with than plywood IMO. I ran into some problems though because I was not paying attention. I bought a few 3/4" 4x8 MDF at Home Depot (of course) and had them cut to the size (41"x23ish). Little did I know that the HD saw machine was totally out of calibration. They are nice clean edges though. Somthing hard to get from a jigsaw done at home. So back at home I proceeded to trace them with carbon paper (use multiple 8x11 sheets) on the MDF, form-frame pattern on top and tracing paper on top of that and using a pencil to transfer the pattern. Of course the edges have to be lined with the form-frame and the pattern first and clips to hold them in place.

Using a jigsaw I cut out the patterns. Yes, I'll be using battens so that batten thickness needs to be taken into consideration. All cut and ready for mounting on the strongback.

The Strong Back was level. I proceeded to mount the form frames and that's when I saw the problem. The out-of-calibration HD saw has cut some of the form frames about 1/16th to 1/8th off of each other. Some were short and some were taller. By then I had mounted all of the form-frames and I was ready to break it all up and start again. I reached out to Ian and he said it should be fine. I couldn't deal with it. I took them down took it back to HD for recut but they wouldn't do anything less than 6". So came back and mounted them again. Only this time I used shims to hold them level and them screwed them into 2x4 cross pieces. It's kind of level now.

Building The Strong Back

Now that the garage space is cleared up (sort of), it's time to do the Home Depot runs for lumber. All lumber laid out and ready for assembly.I'm usng 2x6 for the frames and 2x4 for the cross sections.

And movng along:

And moving along some more:

And finally there:

The top of the Strong Back is raised as recommended by Ian to save me from back aches later.

To space required to build the hull in my estimate would need to be about 38-40 feet long, at least 14 feet wide and 10' high at least. The F-32AX is 32' (close to) long and 9'6" wide. I do not have that kind of space in my garage and have to put up a shelter in the backyard which in my county requires a permit. Anything that's not taken down in the night is not a temporary structure they say. So until I figure what to do about that I'll be building the floats in my garage for which the strongback needs to be a minimum 27'3" and the float length would be 28'10". This fits in my garage diagonally corner to corner. The strongback is 28' with a few inches to spare on both sides so I should be good. Except I'll have to do the monkey business to get from one side to the other once the form frames are setup. I have a plan for that.