As I focus more on the large editing job I have on the go, I'm getting a bit strapped for time and so the updates are less frequent but work on the boat continues.
I have glassed everything on the exterior of the boat, and filled the weave with a wood flour mix. It won't be sanded down much at all; a scuff at most so the strength of the wood flour mix is more important than the shapeability at this stage.
Today I laminated the stem, and ripped the spray rails and keel. Here's the stem gluing up:
The clamps are just snugged, not cranked way down. Just enough to get epoxy all around the edges. Next: ripping the trim bits.
Ripping long sections of wood accurately is really simple if you have a table saw...which I don't.
I drew a line down the centre of this Douglas Fir 1x3 and cut it with my Hitachi worm drive, which, again, I love.
It's not actually that hard to rip stuff by hand if you're careful. I used up most of my carefulness on not stepping into the whirling macerator of death next to my shins but I still managed to cut a decent line on the keel, which is pretty good since I decided to crank up my productivity by drinking a tall can of vodka-infused energy drink.
That'll make a nice keel. I think I'll probably glue a strip of UHMW or HDPE to it or something because it'll get grounded out at my island place all the time.
The other thing I did was clean up a couple of spots where the curvature of the bottom was extreme enough that it formed a couple of minor depressions. They weren't severe but the lighting in there hit them at a shallow angle so I was always looking at them and it bugged me, but more importantly I lay a straight edge parallel to the keel and slid it down the side, looking to see if the water would take a goofy path going over those spots and there was about a 1/4" dip. I laid down about an eighth of an inch of peanut butter, then some scrap 4 or 6 ounce weave overtop and saturated the glass. I'll probably have to do one more layer of peanut butter and I might cover that in a bit more weave as well, but then I should have smoothed the transitions right out.
Mostly fixed:
The only other picture I have for you today is this: I put the stem in place and took a picture and rotated it so I could get a better sense of the lines. I think that'll do pretty well.
