D5 Boat model made from cereal box

     I thought hard about how I was going to get the very thin edges of my cereal box model to go together. My first impulse was to scotch tape the whole thing. This seemed rinky dink to me, so my next thought was to glue the pieces with Elmer's glue. After a while it occurred to me that holding the exceedingly small edges of cardboard together with my bare and thick hands would be difficult.
     This is when my best idea hit me. In fact, I am sure I was in the shower. I would tape the outside of my nanometer joints, and glue the inside. My only concern was that the absorbent cereal box material would discolor or swell, when the glue was applied. I remembered reading "Instant Boatbuilding with Dynamite Payson"; and he was concerned about the strength of a butt joint between two boards with only fiberglass and resin to hold them. He was accustomed to scarfing the joint. So he did a test. He put his two boards together at an angle and joined them with fiberglass. He placed the point of his pieces upwards, then ran over them with his car. Fun experiment, that inspired me to try my own.

     I grabbed another cereal box. Honey Nut Cheerios. This time I used my carefully cut cardboard from the Kix box to trace the pieces onto the new box. I cut out a few pieces to try my methods.

Kix box template for D5

     I started with; the transom, a bottom panel, the side panel, and bow of the D5. For the transom I placed scotch tape the length of the seam on the outside. For the bottom and side panel edge, I used pieces every 3-4 cm.

Scotch taping the joint on my D5 model, before gluing

     On the inside edges I squeezed out a bead of Elmer's glue. Smoothing it out with the nozzle as I went.

Elmer's holds my D5 together.

     Better than expected. The glue dried clear and the little blobby areas shrunk away. It made for a very nice and surprisingly strong joint.

Barely noticeable joint of Elmer's, backed by Scotch tape on a model of Bateau's D5

     Now that I have half of the hull, I am trying to imagine putting in the frame pieces. I'll go back to the plans and try to construct it in my mind. Using Scotch tape means I have to put pieces together when they are fairly flat and bend or fold them into position. Hard to do when a single frame piece is touching  four separate components, all at different angles. I'll think of something.

     My experimental boat looks decent, so far. I may keep the original cardboard pieces for templates, since they were very easy to trace around. I could make a model a day, using the templates for lofting the design.

     More soon.