Filling stem gap w a fillet

Yesterday I glued the boat together and was stymied at the end with a gap that had appeared between the sides of the ply and the stem. See picture in previous post. My wife came in and suggested using an icing pipe thing-a-ma-jig, much like many people use ziploc bags. Ive used ziploc bags in the past and found them somewhat cumbersome to use, but most importantly, I really wanted to get epoxy deep into the crevasse to maximize bonding.

So she jigged up a icing pipe and lined it with packing tape so we could re-use it, and then, using the patient steady hand of a culinary expert, she filled in the voids around the stem and made a nice fillet. Damn! What a woman!


In other news, I crawled underneath the stem to cut away some epoxy and saw this:


When I was dry-fitting the boat last week for the first time I heard some ***crack***ing noises, and since I didnt see anything, I figured it was some epoxy somewhere settling or what-have-you. NOPE it was the chine logs right where they abut the stem. Youll notice the taper I put in to give them some room to fit together, and youll also notice where the wood actually separated from itself. The glued face stayed firm to the plywood, which makes me feel like my gluing jobs are satisfactory. Im bummed the wood split, but again, this whole area will be filled with epoxy and all will be good with the world again.

Filling gaps b w BHs and gluing bottom

Today was spent filling in the gaps around the BHs. The first gaps to be filled were the ones in the notches between the chinelog and the BHs... the intrepid reader will remember I cut them too deep laterally. My wonderful wife who proved very adept at filling gaps around the stem went right to work on these notches, filling them with epoxy and shaping them with ply wrapped with packaging tape.


Once that was set, we glued on cedar spacers to fill the gaps between the bottom frame of the BHs and the bottom of the boat, which appeared because my notches in the BHs were too shallow, despite careful measuring. I didnt fool with cutting down the spacers before placing them, I glued them in place and Ill plane them down to match. I wanted to make sure to do the repair correctly rather than eyeball a piece that would look like it fit.



Finally, I glued together the two halves of the bottom. Very self explanatory. Shooting for gluing the bottom on Tuesday.

Chinelogs

The epoxy on the chinelogs took well, the scarf is a success as far as Im concerned. Once I sanded down the excess epoxy the joint looks clean and tight, Im happy with the result. Today I placed the chinelogs in position onto the sides of the boat. I did things a little opposite because Im by myself and I was trying to make the operation go smoothly and precisely. I placed the bow piece 5cm back as dictated by the plans, with 1cm overhang the bottom edge, and screwed it in place. I placed a total of 6 position screws that are not designed to provide the clamping power, I used clamps instead. I get the feeling that the plans call for screws to be pushed through from the outside of the hull, but I felt Id have more control over the chinelogs if I did everything facing them. I was careful to place the screws in hidden locations, behind BHs, in watertight tanks, etc. I have pretty much 1cm throughout the length of the side, with a few locations with 1mm variations, of which Im ok with. A pre-coat of epoxy, then thickened epoxy application, clamps, clean up (difficult), and viola:


All I have left to do now is put together that stem and I can do a dry-fit.