Sweet Success

Thursday, Feb. 4: Yesterday and today were both shortened by other
obligaitons, but they were the most satisfying of the whole project so far.

Yesterday the rebuilt side panels went back on the molds and were secured in place. Most of the work time was spent making a brace to hold the stem at the correct 20-degree angle, plumb, aligned with the boat's centerline, and at the right position fore and aft.

Today I finished positioning the stem, and after checking it again and again I pulled the sides together at the bow to see how much modification had to be made to the stem to make it fit so that the sides pull in just enough to keep their curve continuous right to the bow, without straining to lie flat on the stem. It turned out the stem bevel angle was nearly correct at the lower (sheer) end, but the angle at the chine had to be narrowed quite a bit. Yes, that's right: the sides come in at different angles at the top and bottom of the stem, even though the sides are flat and the stem is straight. But after all that worrying and measuring, the electric plane made short work of trimming the excess angle and fitting the stem to the sides.

Once I was satisfied with the fit I put a couple of screws on each side panel, securing it to the stem. Then I checked again that the bow was centered, at the right angle of rake, at the right height, and at the right distance forward. Eureka! Everything checked as closely as could be measured. In the picture on the left you can see the finished bow, as well as the butt joint in the starboard side where it was cut off the first time around. By the way, the butt joints there, and the ones amidships which joined the two original 8' panels, curve just as fairly as if they were one continuous piece of plywood.

Finally today, I slipped the starboard chine stringer into place between the side panel and the molds, and found that with the reconfigured bow, the chine piece which was cut 1/2" short before, is now long enough, and may even fit in just right without further cutting, except for slight re-beveling where it meets the stem at the bow. All in all, a day when everything went right.

I went ahead and put the rest of the screws into the stem, and I would also have liked to glue up the sides to the stem with epoxy today, but I ran out of time.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is windy, with rain late in the day. If I have enough work time, I'll glue up the stem and sides, and see if I can get the chines screwed and glued. Then I can finally start to think about the next steps, trimming the sides and chines so they are flat across and follow fair curves, in preparation for putting on the bottom.