Murray

Thanks for the kind comments guys, and Dave for the tip on clamps - sometimes you feel as though you are getting somewhere - then you get confused again. Ah well - always tomorrow...

cheers Ken

Coamings cut roughly and steamed into place; 2 pieces of Jarrah cut into 3mm strips. I'll epoxy them together with filler from the sawdust; it's pretty fine so should work. But the next real step is the rub rails at the bottom of the top strake. I've cut the strips out but still not sure how to hold them in place while the epoxy goes off. Brad pins will stop them sliding up or down, but will not hold them close the plank. While I ponder that I'll carry on with getting the deck trimmings ready to glue on. So rubrails, then decks, coamings, and gunwales, followed by deck trim. Then the wood is basically all in place. Sanding and painting the interior, varnishing the timbers and - well - getting close!

I've been meaning to show the stem since I fixed some time back. I cut a batten the width of the finished stem, drilled many small holes along the centreline, then wrapped it in plastic. Then I marked out the centre line of the stem of the boat, and the bits that would extend past the batten and sanded those back. Then after nailing with little pins, the batten bent to the shape of a straight stem. Backfilling with epoxy and fillings between the batten and the hull was relatively simple. Removing the batten and the stem looked like the photo below. A bit of cleaning up and now it looks like the second photo. haven't been able to work on the boat for some weeks but now the sails are here, and the trailer ready to collect, I better get back to it...

Carlins sorted, a little shaping left to do on the transom top to blend all the differing angles in, next on the list was Gunwales. I had thought I'd scarf two bits of Jarrah together, and have a single piece I'd bend to the inhales. Jarrah is so short grained though, it wasn't long until I heard the unmistakable sound of a single piece of wood becoming two bits of wood again. So I resorted to laminating strips together. Makes a glue-up and positioning of 12 pieces (???) against the boat a lot more complicated, and the 3mm bite the tablesaw blade takes meant I was not sure I'd have enough wood to get it done. I did, but that was all that was left over. Oh - a man can clearly never have enough clamps... I've taken the gunwales off to sand clean, hope to complete that tomorrow, then the decks can go on.... Still a long list but we are getting there.

As Dave ( @Hirilonde ) says, the plans call for it to go through the hull, after thinking on it, I thought why not?

Time to stop procrastinating.... Carlin in.

But necessary. I found a piece of rubber tube in the garage, no idea where it came from but after wrapping cloth and resin around it, it makes a good fibreglass tube to drain the mast step outside the hull. It was a good little project that has allowed me to avoid doing the carlins. I can't quite see how to get these things set up - with 15 degrees of 'backrest' - when you pull them against the hull, they twist and rise up at the ends. what else can I do next to avoid this...

This really feels wrong....

I’ll use that quote - very apt!

The resin on the transom yielded to the gentle persuasion of 80 grit, but it was astonishingly hard. Still it sanded off and now with some stain in place it will probably look OK when varnished. I guess also with the white paint going over onto the edge of the planks, a rudder and other things going on to distract the eye from small blemishes, it will look fine. Suddenly I am at the point where the list of tasks is becoming manageable; Carlin supports tomorrow, then carlins can go in, hatch covers, decks, then sanding for a few weeks... Then tipped over for final coats of hull paint, gunwales, rubbing strips, a rebuild of the rudder stock, oh then.... actually still quite a list...

...Nah - still just a boy! I should have asked at the time I saw the post, but I think it was in reference to sitting on the sidedeck, and needing some foot strap arrangement to prevent falling over the side?

You are so right; one look at my stem issues prove that point. You mentioned somewhere Dave, that you put footsteps in - where did you locate them?

That's interesting. In the plans he specifies screwing the mast steps as well as gluing. Maybe the screws add sheering strength. I wonder maybe differing coefficients of expansion between the screws and the epoxy could see a joint working over time?

Thanks for this comment Graham @Designer- that was the pathway to solve the problem.