Wales – port side inner wale attached

I added ∠10º bevel to the inner wales using my table saw and dry fitted them with clamps. And the joint survived.

Dry fitted with lamps to test if the joints could handle the stress, and they did!

To attach the wale, I used epoxy with silica colloidal fillers to have the best bonding strength. However, since it is not easy to sand silica based glue/fillet I used masking tape right below the gunnels to manage any dribbles.

Fiber glass butt joint sanded for epoxy glue to bond easily; also added masking tape to help clean up possible dribbles

My original plan was to finish two inner wales, both port and starboard sides, however, I  ended up using most of the clamps just for the port side gunnel. About 20 clamps were used with about 20 stainless steel screws in-between each clamp. I applied the glue to the side panel not to the wale to make things easy (my personal view). I also spent at least 40 minutes cleaning up any excess glue as much as possible at the top and bottom of the wale with a paint scraper, again, to minimize any future effort of sanding.

Starboard side inner wale was temporarily attached with a few clamps. While the epoxy is curing at the port side, I wanted to make sure the hull balance is maintained by having similar amount of tension at both sides of the boat.

Starboard side gunwale is temporarily clamped to provided balanced tension to the hull while the port side epoxy is curing

I’ll work on the starboard side inner wale a couple of days later when the epoxy is OK to let go of the clamps.