ShamblingBunyip

I've tried to add them another way. Hope you can see them now. Its a fresh water crocodile.

Looks great! I was at this stage Monday afternoon, 3 days of drying paint later and I'm itching to put my boat into the Pacific. See your launch photos soon

Took the pirogue out waiting for the varnish to dry. Saw this guy on the bank.

Stitched up.

Double corded stich going in.

skinned and varnished. Skin was tight after stitching and ironing but seems to have relaxed a little after varnishing.

Wow, what a beauty.

I know some one has asked about this before but I can't seem to find the post. What caulk do Australians use for these boats. I'm planning on painting my skin with spar varnish but all the clear caulk options I can find seem to only take water based paints.

Frame oiled

Frames are marine ply the stringers are Queensland Maple. Start oiling this arvo.

Here is a FROG

Lashing nearly completed. Just the bow to go.

Sure enough frame 8'2" was 15mm wider on one side than the other. After cutting a new one the gunnels were still about 6mm out but I'll live with that. So far this means errors in lofting have meant I've had to re-cut 3 frames and I re-did the first one I cut as it split when I was removing the centre. 50% messed up; maybe I should have bought the full sized plans. Oh well. Every thing is sanded the gunnels are trimmed and I've ordered my fabric, sinew and foot rests. I'm pretty excited to get this finished.

How far back from the bow should I be trimming gunwales and stringers?

So I've gone back, re-measured every frame, checked my frames are symmetrical and checked the keel is straight. Put the stringers on, the stringers are fine. They line up with each other nicely. So I think to myself maybe one of these gunwales just bends differently to the other so I swap them over: no change. Still the starboard side is longer than the port. I think I'm just going to have to trim them to fit and hope for the best. Is half an inch difference in the gunwales going to make my boat lean or go in circles? I've got to say the plywood pirogue I made last year (my first attempt at a boat) is much less symmetrical than this and it paddles pretty well.

Thanks for the quick reply. I started with them long and then cut the down to the bow piece so that they were the same length as eachother and just about as long as the bow. I figure that their still a bit long but I'm worried that its not symmetrical. I haven't cut any holes in the bow piece yet.

I started building this curlew in 2 months back, lofted the frames out of Jeff's book and now I'm assembling everything on the strong back. The ends of my gunwales don't line up exactly. They are about 1.5cm out. Have I done something wrong? What should I do about it?

With the lack of shrinkage does this fabric have to be sown more like the nylon? Which is going to be easier for someone who has never sown a skin on before?