The Great 3M Debacle! Well, almost.

This story begins about twenty three and a half hours after I glued the top plank onto my board. The glue up went very smoothly, as planned (everyone should do a dry run before doing something this involved and important). I very patiently waited the day through to take off the 100 clamps that were holding the board together (you truly can never have too many clamps).

Once all of the clamps were off I stood back and admired all of the hard work I had put in and all of the patience I had given to the board. I picked the board up, I tucked it under the arm dreaming of the first time I will take it out, I ran my hands over its surfaces (WAIT A MINUTE! What is this)?

The keel section at the nose with the most camber is not adhered to the deck! 

What happened?

Most importantly, WHAT DO I DO?

I did the only thing I knew to do. Put the clamps back on as quickly as possible. It was too late to call Grain that day, so I waited and tried to not think about it until the next day. After having a fitful night I got in touch with Mike at Grain and his tone put me at ease. We discussed what exactly happened and found out that if you have to buy a second tube of 3M 5200 you have to make sure you get the fast cure and not the 7 day cure version if you want to take the clamps off after 24 hrs. Otherwise, You have to wait a full week. That was O.K. because I had other things to do, but when you get on a role and you are at this stage of the build you don't want to have wait a week for anything.

Well, I don't know if you can tell or not from the picture, but everything worked out. This really taught me a lot. I learned that you should always read directions no matter how much of a hurry you are in. Follow the directions. Never assume anything is good until you check it for yourself (if I would have walked away from the board with out really looking it over I would have missed the issue and come back after the weekend to horrific disappointment). And finally, I learned, and I have been learning throughout this entire project, that if you slowdown and take it one step at a time and not get ahead of yourself everything will turn out fine.