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.

SUCCESS!

One of my big problems from the dry-no-screw-fit the other day was that I could not suck in the chine logs around BH1 and BH2 enough to easily screw the drywall screws through the ply to hold everything in place. I wrastled and wrastled with it and then the screws pulled out and I almost threw my drill through a window.

Today I put the boat back together for another dry-no-screw-fit again and hemmed and hawed over it with my sister-in-laws husband for an hour or so. We came up with many ideas, like driving eye screws into the chine log and getting a turnbuckle to pull the chines together. Another idea was to join two clamps together underneath the boat and use a block to keep them from sliding forward along the hull... but how to defeat gravity from dragging the clamps down? BEHOLD MY GENIUS:







The above sequence is from starboard to port.

There is definitely a beautiful curve to the bow now that I got it sucked in, the boat looks sublime!


Take note that the boat is resting on three different sized objects so not everything lines up great right now. ALSO my notches in my BHs are too big, except for BH1. Thank goodness for the filling power of epoxy! Its not going to be the neatest boat in the world, but it will work, by Jove!

SO now Im going to mark where things go, and then precoat the panels with epoxy, and varnish the BHs so I can just drop everything in place and not have to sand upside down, etc.

Bottom surprise! and limber holes and gaps filled

Today I overturned my bottom after gluing it last night. I was all very nice and neat and did my best and I was welcomed to see the fair bottom of my speed-demon boat with THIS:


HELLO DRAG. A giant glue mess that I will have to sand smooth. Which, if I estimate correctly, will take forever and a half. I shoulda woulda coulda put packaging tape around the seam, but my side panel job came out so neat (probably because I didnt put glue between the panels) that I didnt think I would see this. Also, note the glaring holes from my finishing nails that I used to pin the buttstraps in place. SOB, I went right through the ply. This is very embarrasing, I havent gone through the ply anywhere where I didnt want to, this is the first time, and I have no idea how I did it. Again, I didnt do it on the side panels, so why now?

In other news, I planed down the new shims that will fill the gap between the bottom and the BHs, and cut/chiselled some limber holes. They look nice and neat from this angle because the ply is on the other side, which is all chipped up. I shoulda woulda coulda dammit scored the ply to get nice smooth cuts first, before going after it with my chisel.


Notice the stringy thing coming out of the limber hole... thats some fabric coming out from IN BETWEEN the layers of the ply! OOOooooooooh, mystery!

You may also notice the cloudy color, that because Ive sanded the layer of epoxy there in preparation for bottom being glued on. Ive decided to put in mini fillets along the BHs and the bottom for practice and to re-enforce the double seam, one between the bottom and the spacer, and the on between the spacer and the bottom of the BH frame.