The Boat is Down!

Finally, after hanging out on the garage ceiling since mid November, the hull is down on the garage floor! It's about time! Now it's time to get this project going in full swing and finished before the summer sailing season begins (Which right now is looking like it might be a little bit of a tight schedule!)

First step is to install the gunwales!

The gunwales consist of two parts that are laminated to the side of the hull. An inner piece made of cedar, and an outer piece made of poplar. I decided do the laminating process one at a time versus epoxying both pieces at the same time. I figure it will be a lot easier to deal with one piece at a time versus two sliding together against each other and the hull.

Prior to my surgery I had ripped the cedar to both thickness and width. I used a compass to trace the wing shape onto the cedar and cut it out with my scroll saw. It wasn't a perfect fit, but close enough since there will be a piece of poplar covering it up. This evening I got the starboard side glued up. Will do the port side tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will also start making a bunch of sawdust and plane the poplar boards to the correct thickness and cut them down to size.