The Keel

I decided to take a day off work for a little three day weekend. I've been working a lot lately, and I'm starting to think I won't get my boat done in time to use it before winter hits. So I convinced Claire to let me move it back into the basement. With the extra room I was able to put 15-20 hours into it since Saturday. I'm proceeding very slowly with the work now, and it's gotten very painstaking. The good news is that I've started to form the keel of the hull on the stern. I'm only a few strips from the keel on the bow, which is taller so the boat can cut through waves an keep water off the deck.

Here it is before I started work on Saturday. I pulled it off the supports for the trek around to the back of the house, a tricky job in it's own right..

It looks so cool already. I finished the angle section of atlantic white cedar and switched back to the red spanish cedar. This is an upside down view from the stern to show off the color contrast:

And for good measure, the bow, which is all spanish cedar. The clamp on the bow is for the latest finger joint, which needed a bit more coaxing and glue drying tonight.

The cedar is really starting to deal with some pretty severe curves, so it's really challenging to measure, cut and fit everything, and then even more challenging to glue, clamp and staple. A 14 foot bead of glue into a 1/4 inch cove is starting to be more challenging now that my strips are starting to lay horizontally. I haven't quite figured that one out just yet.. Any suggestions?

Of course, "measuring" a curving piece of wood is just not going to happen. This work is so painstaking because every piece is specially fit into place, often sanded for a perfect joint. Even then, I'm going to need some filler or cheater pieces before I cover it with fiberglass. Here is one of my scarf joints.

I needed more of these around the shear line, since the curve of the boat meant my 14 foot strips weren't long enough to make the trip from bow to stern unbroken. I've found that I can now use a single piece for the length now, but curving a piece into place along the length of the boat is tricky work too. This clamp on the stern is due to the hard angle putting stress on seam.

These are the stern finger joints. It looks pretty rough, but it'll eventually get trimmed down and capped with a stem piece. I haven't decided what type of wood to use for my stem piece, probably the spanish cedar?