Interior Work & Plank 3

September 8, 2019

I've had the luxury of 3-day weekends because I've been taking Fridays off as vacation days for the last few months. Unfortunately my vacation time is running out so I've cut Friday's down to half-day vacations. I also have a few musical gigs, upcoming family events and a delivery of firewood to deal with which will cut into the boatbuilding time, but progress still continues...

I cut out and fit the seat risers during the few available hours I had today.

Grabbed a few more minutes and added these screws at the base of the centerboard trunk as specified in the plans.

The next project was gluing in the seat risers. I wedged a few braces in to secure the bottom edge and clamped along the top edges. I used Titebond 3 for this step and will add epoxy fillets along the bottom seams and up the corners.

I just spent a whole day doing some unglamorous and un-photogenic filleting throughout the interior including the seam between side planks 1 & 2, and along the base of the centerboard trunk.

September 15, 2019

I still have to tape the inside joint between side planks 1 & 2 but decided to begin laying out plank 3. Once again I clamped a rough oversized version in place, then used the top of the previous plank to determine the bottom line and the angled sides of the station forms to determine the top line.

After marking up the plank I removed it, took it outside and used a batten to smooth out the lines.

Interruption: Just got the call that our firewood is being delivered in a couple hours. I guess I'll have to switch gears and tackle the joint taping now (I was going to do it at the end of the day after the planking).

The taping is completed – off to deal with the firewood.

The firewood takes about a day to move uphill from the drop off point to the stacking location and if I don't do it now, there will be parking issues. So another day of boatbuilding lost. (I put these notes in for those following the blog in real time to help clarify my rate of progress.)

Between sessions of moving firewood I did one more fitting to finalize the lines, then cut the port and starboard planks.

Here they are stacked and planed together to get two identical planks.

I managed to cut the gains in front, plane the bevels and clamp plank 3 in place. That may be all for this week. Now back to my other wood project...

September 22, 2019

The firewood job is finished - here's one of the stacks.

Now back to boat building.

Today's half-day was spent finishing up the bevel planing and installing strake 3 on the port side.

Can't say enough about those wooden clamps. I made twenty and used all of them. They're so quick and easy to use.

Next day: plank 3 – starboard side installed. (And no, I didn't just flip the previous photo.)

There's not much I can do while the epoxy is curing.

It's now the following day and just for the record, here are a few clear photos of the current status of the boat.

I've removed all the tools, clamps and miscellaneous wood that seems to accumulate in the boat's interior.

I haven't kept a record of exact hours worked, but I started about 6 months ago...

...and I've worked almost every weekend plus a few odd evenings.

After taking those previous photos I installed a few more seat braces...

...and finished up this week by filleting the joint between planks 2 & 3,

The next major job will be installing the seat tops but that may require another sheet of plywood and another trip to Boston.