See all the photos for this diary entry.

I got a solid 5 hours in on Sunday and managed to almost complete styro-foaming-in the drivers side. I didn't have time to slap any gypsum on it. But the shape really holds up well to the computer designed one and I am pleased. You will notice that the foam blocking is solid for the mid-section of the side of the car.

I decided to skip building any more ribs for the sides of the car. It was simply too mentaly painful a process to attach and align them properly. A royal PITA fer-sher! I wrote previously that the front and the back of the car went together pretty well using the ribs and foam billet method. I have no regrets about using the rib method when there is a central spine to reference the ribs off of.

The sides of the car are another issue completely. The lack of reference points on the ribs meant that each rib had to be placed in reference to the prior rib. A slight missalignment of one rib would mean that all ribs afterwards would be in the wrong place. This was not good and it led to several hours of staring... and measuring... and eventually cursing when I realized that one of the first of the side ribs was off by 3/4" and therefore the whole side of the car would be off by that much and that eventually it wouldn't line-up with the rear.

My solution was to scrap the ribs entirely for the mid-section. I simply cut large panels of 2" thick styrofoam and carved them to shape with a sharp knife and the hotwire. I used the liquid nails (which works GREAT BTW) and a bunch of finishing nails shoved into the foam to hold everything in place.

Once the side was layed in and roughly blocked out with the styrofoam I then used some long, thin flexible strips of wood and nailed them temporarily to the structure following the main lines of the shape. These strips create smooth flowing curves along the entire side of the car and help me evaluate where the shape of the car doesn't look right. They also show low and high spots in the shape. That will aid me in applying the filler material to the right places.