SUDDENLY . . . . A boat!!!

I manged to get a good day's work in on the boat.

It started with lofting the lines for the side panels. Cutting them out and fairing them. It's pretty much exactly like what I did yesterday with the bottom panels. So no photos are needed!

The next step was to lace the bottoms together. They went together quite nicely. Below is a shot of the panels loosely stitched together. The side panels are lying flat to the left.

I'm using 20 gauge copper to stitch the panels although the plans say 18. I'm finding the smaller wire to be quite adequate for holding the panels and a little easier on the hands.  I simply make the short piece of wire loosely into staple shape, slip them through the holes in the panel and give them a few twists to tighten them up.

Once I stitched up the bottom panels, it was time to put on the sides. Kudos to he designer's very accurate lofting numbers as the whole thing went together without a hitch!!

Below, I have the stem stitched and ready to continue on with attaching the side and bottom panels.

Here's close up of the stem. In this picture are the great instructions provided by the designer Duane Strosaker, a kayaker from California,

I continued on with stitching the sides and had them done in a few hours. The hardest part was bending over!!

It's amazing how quickly a stitch and glue boat can take shape. And once the wood has been cut and small holes drilled, you simply need a pair of pliers and some copper wire.

The plans take into account the possibility that the sides and bottom may not mate perfectly. The bottom panels are deliberately made longer so that they can be trimmed as required. Thank gawd for that. I made a slight error when cutting the angle of my stern. I fretted for a few minutes until I realized how easily the bottom panels can be trimmed to size.

Here's the "Before"

And, after 10 minutes of trimming and re-stitching, here's the "After"

I figured that stitching the bottom to the sides and re-fitting the stern was a true milestone and gave up for the night. I'll finish this post with a few shots of the boat as it now looks! The sheer make look a little wavy right not but that's because there are no stations in place. These will be added temporarily to hold the hull in proper shape while glassing. They are then removed. But that will be another day and another blog entry.