Adding the bottom skin

Well things are continuing to progress nicely!

I added 3 coats of epoxy to the portion of the stringers located up by the bow during the week in order to get it ready for the attachment of the hull skin. I also trimmed off portions of the center rail that where adjacent to the bow transom to insure that it would not interfere with the side panels. As you can see I re-covered the whole area in blue tape to prevent any issues with epoxy.

Yesterday I took the day off to go sailing with a friend of mine on his boat so today it was time to get the first part of the hull skinning process going. The skin for the hull consist of4 pieces - 2 bottom pieces and two side pieces. Due to the twist between going from forward to aft, you have to slowly work you way backwards from the bow of the boat and start tying it together with zip ties. I read a couple of other blogs where people complained about the pre-drilled holes being two small to use the bigger zip ties and having to use wire etc to tie everything together. I took a more practical approach and grabbed my drill and just made the hole slightly bigger so I could get the bigger zip ties through them - especially at the bow area. Once I passed the bow I went ahead and drilled every third hole.

Cathy was a saint and spent some quality time in the garage helping me glue the bottom skins to the hull. It was very helpful to have her help thread the zip ties through the holes! Her help was also immensely appreciated while I was initially lining up the bottom skins. Definitely a two person job.

Interestingly enough I read on another persons Paper Jet blog that the bottom skins overlapped the transom by about 1/4 inch - I had the exact same thing happen to me although I would imagine it was closer to 4mm which interesting enough is the same thickness as the bow transom... I wonder if this is a coincidence? All of the bulkheads lined up perfectly with the 400mm stations as specified on the plans... Good news is that this is something that can be easily fixed with a hand plane.

I'm going to let this set up overnight and then hopefully if time allows I'll attach the side skins either tomorrow or in the next coupe of days. I must admit, the black zip ties give the whole thing a bit of a Frankenstein look!

The big day of flipping the hull is coming soon!