Adding Stringers

I spent the weekend putting three coats of epoxy on the front half of the bottom panels. Interesting enough there was a small section of the epoxy coat that did not harden - must have had a minor mixing issue towards the bottom of the cup! A rag and some acetone took care of cleaning up the area. I'll put an extra coat on it once I have the hull laced up. I must admit that I am still learning the ins and outs of epoxy!

I went ahead and clamped some straight edges to both the rear transom and all the bulkheads to take out some of the twist/warp that some of the plywood bulkheads had. This should assure that everything is straight prior to installing the stringers. As you can see all those clamps come in really handy!I cleaned up the scarf joints on the stringers, and also the stringer slots on each bulkhead in order to make sure that they would sit flush and glued the stringers in place.

The stringers have a considerable twist once they meet up with the backbone at the bow of the boat, therefore, I decided no to glue them at this moment and to let this set up for a couple of days and then on Thursday go back at it and glue the stringers to the bow of the boat. It should give the epoxy enough time to set up and take the strain of the twisting.

Last but not least I glued the Bow doubler to the Bow piece.

Looks like tomorrow and Thursday will have little to no progress as I wait for everything to set up good!

On another note - The plans that I ordered from Eric Henseval in France for an Aviateur 5.70m came in! I am glad that I am building this boat ahead of the Aviateur since Dudley's instructions are very comprehensive, and the Aviateur's plans assume you know your way around boat building!