Seats fitted

The seats are all fitted to the boat. The glue is cured on the supports, the vertical supports have been cut to fit (they will be glued next session) and the seats are in place. The side-arms for BH2 and 4 are cut and ready to be glued. The knees are cut and almost finished. Inwale spacers are cut, the inwales need to be scarfed and theyll be ready too. Things are moving.

Heres a great example why you want to diagram out the dimensions of the front seat per the plans, and then trace something to what youve actually got in the boat before you cut:


Unless youre a very gifted woodworker, of which there are many out there (this is an AMATEUR BLOG, remember?) tracing will be beneficial. The dark black lines are per the plans for the GIS. What you see is what my front seat ended up being to fit in the bow. A little wider up front, very close in the middle, and then wide again in the rear. Ive got a few ideas how this came about, but Im glad I didnt just cut and then try to fit it only to find huge gaps both in the boat and in my wallet as I shelled out 60 bucks for another sheet of ply. This is not a big deal in the end, its truly a slight variation of shape up front, and so it goes.

Heres a few exposures of my beautiful craft as she comes together. Looking good!

Screwing around with the timer on my camera

Im in the process of gluing the forward seat into place. This will seal the forward water-tight compartment. I have epoxy-sealed the compartment, now I just need to glue the seat down. In a final fitting session, I cut open the hole for the mast and the inspection port. However, I noticed that I needed to push down on the starboard side in order to make contact with the seat cleat. I thought I had everything pretty level but apparently not. Its not much, but to be sure I took pictures from inside the compartment with the seat in place, using the automatic timer on my computer. These were taken before I epoxy sealed the ply.

The bow, notice the faint shadow smudge on the starboard side:


More pronounced in the aft section of the tank:


Nice fit on the port side:


Anyway, neat idea to see what was going on in there. Its not perfect, but close enough. I also slightly angled the seat cleats up from the BHs to the stem in order to facilitate draining so water didnt pool up front, so that may have skewed some things a small amount.

No glue yet, just still fitting and getting ready.

My gunwales scarf themselves

Thats how I roll. I dont have to scarf my gunwales, theyll do it themselves!

Check my mad scarfing skills:




So I decided to officially scarf my gunwales today, since Im using temporary cheapo cedar to hold the shape of the hull. Last week I milled two .75"x4s (approx) into .75"x2s. Very close to the metric shape called for in the plans, actually, a little thinner and a smaller, but close enough. So I take one gunwale and just for kicks gently bend it around the starboard stern and CRACK!!! it breaks in two. Im a tad perplexed, I didnt even it get it close to boat. So I grab the other gunwale from the 2nd stock, and it bends fine, as does its mate. Now I suspect the wood itself. I pick up the mate from the broken gunwale and ever so gently press it against the floor... CRACK! it splits in two with hardly any pressure what-so-ever on my end. I am dissapointed and perplexed. Its very fine Douglas fir with a nice even tight pattern, but now it would take multiple scarfs to get it to work.

Otherwise, I removed the screws from the bottom, ended up breaking the heads off of three of them, leaving the shafts in the wood (dammit). I also sat her down on the floor to see how she balanced and to enjoy that beautiful rocker. Shes pretty.