With the seams now glued and cured overnight, I flipped the boat upright on the sawhorses and, for ease of inside access, tipped it onto the second hull chine, clamping it in place temporarily.  This allowed me to easily reach the insides of the seams so I could remove masking tape and then cut the stitching wires from inside.  When I’d done all I could easily reach from the port side, I tipped the hull to starboard and repeated the process.

Next I flipped the boat back upside down, and pulled out all the wires from the outside.  This posed no issues, though in two or three locations the wire broke off before pulling completely free, so I marked these spots with tape so I could remember to pull what remained of the wire from inside when I flipped the boat back over.

Now I turned the boat upright again, and positioned it so the sawhorses were in line with the after and mast step bulkheads (which is how they’d been spaced from the onset).  My next task was to install the inner stem, a small machined plywood piece that I’d sheathed in fiberglass earlier, when I was working on the hull panels.  I test-fit the piece–it required no modifications to fit as it should–then installed it in a bed of thickened epoxy all around, ensuring I used enough for plenty of squeezeout.  I secured the piece with one screw through the stem from outside; the nail driven into the aft side of the stem allowed me to hold and maneuver the small part for installation.   I filleted around the part with the excess epoxy, and formed a healthy filled through the point of the stem beneath to clean up and fill this area.  The hull panels forward of the gunwale and this inner stem piece would later be cut away, and the remains shaped, to form the actual stem of the finished boat.

At the transom, my next step was to install the top layer of the two-part inwale, a structural member that would stiffen and reinforce the transom and aft end of the hull.  To hold and align the part during installation, I installed some small blocks with hot glue then, after pulling the piece into the transom corners and aligning it as needed, nailed into the top edge of the hull through the outer part of these blocks.

To secure the part, I injected unthickened epoxy around the edges from above, then followed with some thickened epoxy.  Because the edges of the inwale were square, and the hull and transom slightly angled, this left a small open gap at top to accept this epoxy.    At the same time, I epoxied the inside seams where the transom met the hull, doing my best to avoid the wires.

The center portion of the aftermost bulkhead would later be cut out, but for proper alignment before gluing now I clamped a piece of scrap across the top edge to straighten the bulkhead.  Then, I glued the bulkhead to the hull from the forward side, where the seam was most open, following the same two-step epoxy injection process as with the hull and other parts of the boat.  I also glued the mast step bulkhead.    The main bulkhead amidships would be temporarily removed later in the process, when it was to be paired with a twin so that the boat could be made in to the two nesting parts later.

While I awaited the epoxy to cure on these new installations, there was nothing more I could do directly on the hull, so I turned to some pre-assemblies for some of the other parts of the boat, specifically the daggerboard trunk, the aft seat/air tank parts, and the foredeck.  I collected all these pieces and others I knew I’d need soon from my parts shelf, leaving a pleasingly small number of pieces behind.  This must be progress.

The two side panels that formed the daggerboard trunk, and the four pieces that formed the pair of aft seat assemblies, all required minor preparations (light sanding, and removal of the little nubs left from machining out of larger panels), then fiberglass sheathing on one side, and epoxy-coating on the other.  As needed, I cut pieces of 4 oz. fiberglass for these parts, and set up the work table so I could epoxy both sides of these panels at once, driving nails in to the bench and cutting off the heads so I could place the epoxy-coated sides of the panels down and work on the fiberglass sides to install the layer of lightweight cloth.  To provide a quicker cure so that I might apply the second, fill coat of epoxy before the end of the day, I used my “house” 105 resin and fast 205 hardener for this task, which I knew would cure more quickly than the 207 hardener included with the kit.  Were the interior of this boat to be clear-finished instead of painted, I would have had to use the clear 207 hardener instead.

While waiting for the resin to set up sufficiently, I worked next on the foredeck, which came in two halves that needed to be conjoined, plus a couple milled doublers along the outer edges.  The process enscribed in the manual required dozens of tiny plywood blocks and nails for this process, so to begin I made up the little blocks from scrap 1/4″ plywood, cutting roughly 60 1/2″ square (ish) pieces. This was tedious.  Then, I pre-drove 4-penny bright nails through each of the pads till I had enough for the job, which was purported to be 56; I made 60 to be safe.

Next, with the foredeck panels upside down on the bench, I laid out the centerline of the foredeck panels as needed for the nails, measuring and marking as indicated and using an awl to pre-mark all the holes.

To finish up the early preparations for the foredeck, I lightly drove these nail assemblies into the foredeck panels at the marked locations, then laid out, marked, and pre-drilled the curved edge doublers to accept their nails before aligning these as needed along the edges of the foredeck panels and lightly driving the nails in.  This was all just setup for the actual gluing process, with which I would have continued except it was nearly the end of the day and time to return to the fiberglassed panels I started earlier.

To round out the day, I applied a good fill coat of epoxy to the fiberglassed sides of the aft seats and daggerboard panels.  This busy afternoon had knocked off many of the future steps required in the build, and once these parts cured they’d be ready for the next steps of assembly whenever progress on the hull dictated.

Over the weekend, I removed all the screws that I’d used to temporarily secure the gunwale during gluing.

With the gunwale firmly affixed, the next step in the process was to flip the hull over and work through all the seams and wire ties to ensure that the seams were as tight as possible and properly aligned.  To begin, I modified a couple narrow sawhorses with some plywood beams wide enough to support the boat over its width, then flipped the boat onto the horses.  I aligned the horses perpendicular to the boat’s centerline, and after some minor adjustments clamped the boat securely at all four sides where the gunwales lay on the horses.  This ensured that the boat was straight and true and not twisted at all.

I removed the 2×4 blocking on which the bottom panel of the boat had rested during assembly, and secured the four points where it had been lightly nailed with copper wires to stitch the panels together in those areas.

Now I went over the hull methodically, seam by seam, tightening the wires where needed and ensuring that the panels were properly aligned with one another by pressing from inside or out as needed and adjusting the wires.  Several wires broke during this process, not unexpectedly; I replaced the wires as needed.  I went over all the seams several times till I was satisfied that each seam and wire was properly tightened, and that the panels were well aligned throughout.

Although the transom was stitched to all the hull panels, there was minor misalignment between the parts, so after moving the transom in or out as needed to align it with the aft edges of the various hull panels (starting at the center), I drove small nails partially in from the hull panels to hold the transom in alignment.

Finally, I trimmed off excess wire length just to remove unneeded impediments to the next processes. and masked over all the seams from inside the boat.

It was time to glue all the hull seams and the stem with epoxy.  This was a two-step process, beginning with injecting unthickened epoxy from a syringe into all the seams, other than a few of the seams with the widest openings, mainly at the aft end of the bottom.  I stayed clear of the wire locations for now, and also kept away from the main bulkhead location (marked with green tape), as this bulkhead would be temporarily removed from the boat later in the build process.

With all the seams thus treated (and some filled), next I mixed batches of thickened epoxy and filled all the wider seams with the mixture, removing any excess.  Again, I stayed clear of the wire locations as much as possible to make wire removal easier; these voids would be filled later.  I filled the gaps at the stem thoroughly with the thickened mixture to hold the panels together securely.

I left the epoxied hull to cure overnight.  Next time, I hoped to remove wires and continue with additional structural steps.

To finish pre-installation preparations for the gunwale, I masked off beneath the rail to protect the hull, then cut and installed with small bits of hot glue three plywood supports on each side, which would help hold and align the rails once they were covered in epoxy.  Then, I removed all the screws and clamps and secured the gunwales faying side-up to the table on each side of the boat, ready for epoxy coating and glue.

I soaked the pile of drywall screws in WD-40, then blotted off the excess in a rag before partially inserting all the screws, with their plywood washers, in the holes inside the hull, staged and ready for the final installation.

Then, working on both sides at once, I epoxy-coated the inside of the gunwale assemblies and the top edge of the hull, then mixed and applied a thickened epoxy mixture to the gunwales before installing them with the screws and clamps, ensuring that the tops of the gunwales remained flush with the top edge of the hull, and tight against the cutout at the forward ends of the hull panels.  At the forward end, where the two gunwales met, I filled the gap with thickened epoxy and clamped it top and bottom with a couple plastic-covered plywood pads to secure and hold the forward joint in the proper orientation.  I cleaned up the excess glue and removed the tape, leaving the assemblies to cure overnight.

There was a little work remaining to finish stitching up the #2 hull panels, including filling in between wires I’d installed earlier, adding a couple new stitches where the bulkheads met the panels on each side (to help close up small gaps), and then securing the stem and forward ends of the panels.  Throughout, I checked alignment marks and centerline marks to ensure nothing was being unduly skewed.  Later, I added a wire to the top part of the lower stem to help pull  that section closer together.

Next, I turned to the top panels on each side, which required a minor modification at the forward lower edges.  I lightly planed a chamfer on these edges, running from just over two feet back to the stem end and increasing the chamfer in size towards the forward end.  According to the instructions, this step was required to provide an open gap on the exterior edge of the panels to match those gaps on all the other seams; these voids would later be filled with epoxy to secure the panels together along their lengths.

Afterwards, I wired the panels and hung them from the center bulkhead tongues, and then the aft seat bulkhead tongues to secure them loosely in place.

Next, I pulled together the lower edges of the stem on these panels and secured them with a wire, and also wired the panels to the transom.  Securing these key points bent the panels into the generally proper shape along their lengths.

Now I went through and wired the bottom edge of this panel to the one beneath, starting at the center bulkhead and working out towards both ends, but leaving the short sections forward of the mast step bulkhead unwired till I pulled the stem together, after which I completed the panel wiring.

The next step was to dry fit the gunwales, clamping them in place flush with the top edge of the hull on each side and aligning them tightly with the cutouts in the top edges of the forward ends of the top panels.

Next, I laid out, drilled, and cut a series of small plywood washers to use for the temporary screws that would secure the gunwales during installation, then dry-installed all the screws from the inside, through the pre-drilled holes I’d made in the tops of the panels.  For this, I clamped the gunwale adjacent to each screw hole and installed the screw after ensuring the gunwales were properly aligned with the top of the hull.  Then I could remove all the clamps.  I completed this on both sides of the boat.

The curved stem pieces interfered slightly with one another at the stem, and now the instructions mandated that I install a small spreader bar to force the hull slightly outwards at the stem, providing better clearance for the stem.  This spreader bar is a narrow strip of plywood nailed carefully into one hull edge, then, after pushing the hull apart till there was a small space between the lower edge of the gunwales at the stem, nailing the strip to the opposite side.

A couple additional preparatory steps remained before I could glue the gunwales in place permanently, and I planned to do all that next time.

 

I began by lightly sanding the epoxy coating on the mast step bulkhead, transom, and aft seat bulkhead to prepare them for assembly.  Then, after some minor layout and hole-drilling to accommodate the stitching wires on the main and mast step bulkheads, I installed these in their proper positions with a few wires through the bottom as directed, keeping them properly aligned with the marks at the centerline.  There was a small learning curve on how best to twist the wires tightly without breaking them, but I quickly got used to the process as time went on.

Next, I laid out the pair of #1 hull panels and secured them to the main bulkhead and mast step bulkhead;  tabs on the bulkheads fit into slots in the panels.   Each location required drilling a few holes to accept the wiring:  one at the bulkhead, centered on the tongues and a bit above, and two on the hull panel, one on each side of the bulkhead location.  While I secured the wires tightly at the main bulkhead to hold the panel properly positioned, I kept the wires loose at the forward bulkhead for now; they’d be secured later.

Next, ensuring that the alignment hash marks on the bottom and the two hull panels remained in line throughout, I began at the main bulkhead and, working alternately on both sides and fore and aft as well, stitched the panels to the bottom, using about every other hole to start.  I worked my way nearly to the forward bulkhead, and a good ways aft, then filled in the stitching locations between those I’d done to begin with.

At the stern, I used a piece of line to pull the hull panels together and close the gaps till they met the bottom panel, then added wires there and filled in the remaining wire locations running forward to hold these panels in place.

Now I worked at the bow to pull the panels tightly together and complete the stitching.  I found it useful to use the line to help pull the panels together, in addition to a longer wire suggested in the manual that helped pull the panels together near the stem.  I snugged up the wires where the panels met the mast step bulkhead, and pre-installed wires through the various holes in the stem itself.

Using a combination of wiring force, hand pressure, and the control line further aft, I pulled the leading edges of the two hull panels together at the stem and tightened the wires, or stitches, from bottom to top as I went.  This was the most complex curvature in the hull, but I found that it went more smoothly than anticipated.  Once the stem was wired together. I installed the stitches to secure the hull panels to the bottom from the mast step bulkhead forward, oompleting the assembly of the first two hull panels.

To continue, I installed the aft seat bulkhead, with its glassed face point forward, and aligned it with the marks on its aft edge, which pointed to the edges of the bottom panel.  Then, I installed the transom to the inside edge of the hull panels, wiring it as directed and aligning it on the centerline.  At this point, I also added a couple stitches to the main bulkhead to close up small gaps on either side where it met the first hull panels.

With the foundations in place, I loosely secured the pair of #2 hull panels on each side, holding them with loose stitches at aft seat bulkhead, where tabs fit into slots in the panels, leaving the forward ends to flop as they saw fit.

Then, I wired the panels to the mast step bulkhead–again loosely–before starting again at the main center bulkhead and stitching the panels to the tops of the first row of panels, running forward and aft a couple stitches at a time and alternating sides.  As I neared the bulkheads, I tightened and fully secured the wires there.  As I worked aft, I found it useful to pull the panels into the transom with the piece of line.

By the end of the afternoon, this left me with the panels fully secured to the tops of the panels beneath, from the transom to the mast step bulkhead, but still ahead lay the final wiring to the transom, and then at the stem ends, which is where I’d pick up next time.

My first task of the day was to epoxy-coat the mast step bulkhead (with its new cleat), and the opposite side of the aft seat support.  I epoxied both sides of the mast step bulkhead and supported it on three cut-off nails I drove into the bench for the purpose.

Next, I laid out and drilled 9/64″ holes along the top edges of the #3 (top) hull panels, which holes would later be used to secure the gunwales.  At the ends of these planks, I drilled smaller holes as indicated in the manual for the wires that would secure pieces together later.

I unclamped the newly-glued gunwales, then lightly sanded the four scarfs to remove excess epoxy.  I also removed the plywood nubs, leftover from when these parts were milled from the original stock, from the edges of the gunwales.  Then I set the assemblies aside for now.

At this point, I was nearly ready to begin assembling the hull from its component parts, though I couldn’t yet proceed since I required the mast step bulkhead, which was still in wet epoxy.  Reading ahead in the manual about the assembly process, I took care of a couple small steps to better prepare, including solvent-cleaning the assembly wire (purported to have oil on it, though I couldn’t tell) and cutting a number of short lengths of the wire to use for assembly.  I also installed short 2×4 pieces beneath the bottom panel to hold it off the bench and allow it to be easily moved around while wiring up the hull panels.

For now, this appeared to be all I could do to advance the project.

The fiberglassed hull panels had had ample cure time, and my next task was to sand them all with 120 grit paper on a 6″ orbiting finish sander, along with some hand work with a sanding block as needed.  This lightly abraded and scuffed the surface to remove gloss and prepare the panels for later steps.  Since the fiberglass and resin was flat and smooth from application, there was little need to smooth any irregularities.

When the sanding was complete, I used a router and a flush-trimming bit to remove any overlapping fiberglass from the edges of all the panels, and also sanded a light bevel into the top edges of the panels as indicated by the build instructions.  I cleaned out all the slots that would later accept tabs from bulkheads and other interior components.

At the forward ends of the first pair of hull panels, I used a pull saw to cut through the scribed marks on the plywood, which, according to the directions, would help in bending these panels into position during assembly.

Next, I laid out and epoxied in place a support cleat at the top edge of the mast step bulkhead.

The milled plywood gunwales came in three sections per side, with machined scarf joints, and now I laid these out and clamped them dry to check the fit and make some alignment marks prior to gluing.

After disassembling the parts, I applied a base coat of epoxy to the faying surfaces, then applied thickened epoxy to glue the scarfs together, securing the two joints per side with several clamps to pull the joints tightly together and also hold the gunwales flat to the table surface.

I laid out and stacked the hull panels with their glassed faces together (other than the single bottom panel), then marked the locations for the small holes that would be used to wire the panels together for assembly.  Following the manual, I laid these out starting 1″ from the transom end of the panels, and 7-1/4″ on center from there.

With a 1/16″ drill bit, I drilled a hole at each location.  For the matched pairs of panels (just sets #1 and #2 for now), I clamped the panels together in perfect alignment so I could drill through both sets at once.  I marked and drilled additional holes at the ends of the panels as indicted in the instructions.

The top panel for each side (#3) would receive layout and holes for gunwale screws, but for now I was out of time, so I’d continue with that next time.

After letting the epoxy set up overnight, my next step was to trim the fiberglass close to the plywood with a sharp knife, separating all the panels and removing the excess.  I also trimmed all the various bulkhead-alignment holes in the panels.  I kept the knife close to the plywood, but didn’t worry about a perfect cut as during later steps I’d sand or use a router to trim the overhangs perfectly flush.

With minimal time available, the final task I wanted to complete was to install the curved transom form to the transom panel.  This form would hold the transom in its appropriate curve during eventual hull assembly, and the manual suggested that it was best to install the form when the fiberglass was not completely cured (it takes several days for epoxy and fiberglass to reach its ultimate and final cure state).  As directed, I secured form to the panel with screws and plywood washers through the four slots in the transom, forcing it into the designed curve.

After lightly scraping and sanding flush the epoxy leftover from filling the nail holes in the panels, I laid out as necessary the 4 oz. fiberglass cloth for sheathing.  The five panels on the main bench were covered with a single width of cloth across the entire area, ending at the forward end of the panels where they extended past the bench (eight feet from the stern).  The last several feet of the tips of these panels did not require sheathing.

For the two remaining panels, located on another bench, I cut three pieces of cloth wide enough to cover both panels at once (16-1/2″) and laid these out with slight overlaps, all in accordance with the build manual.  Then, I used some of the excess scrap length off the end to create two triangular pieces for the sides of the aft bulkhead, and two 5-/2″ strips to cover the top edge and center portion f the inside transom face.

With all the cloth laid out dry, I prepared a batch of epoxy to wet out the cloth, working over all the panels as needed to install the cloth.  I also epoxy-coated the plywood tips of the hull panels, except for the two panels closest to the bottom panel, which the manual indicated were best left bare to make bending them into shape for assembly later a bit easier.  I also epoxy-coated the two plywood inwhales, and applied a layer of the sheathing to a small wedge-shaped piece eventually intended for the inside of the stem once the boat was assembled.  These smaller pieces didn’t have to be dealt with right now, but were suggested in the manual to be done now if time and epoxy allowed.  I tried always to read ahead a few pages in the manual beyond the current steps to see what was upcoming and make suitable preparations that might save time later.

I left the epoxied panels to cure for a while before I could come back and apply a second, fill coat of epoxy once the first coat had cured enough.

This took several hours, since the shop was cool and I was using West System’s 207 special clear hardener–which was what the dinghy kit provided–for this job, which apparently didn’t kick as fast as the usual 205 hardener that I normally used.    This was the first time I’d done anything time-sensitive with this particular hardener, but I’d not be taken by surprise by this again.  In any event, by mid-afternoon, the first installation of epoxy had cured sufficiently to allow me to continue with the fill coat, which was just another coat rolled on to fill the weave of the cloth.  With the first application cured a bit past the point of tackiness, but still highly green, I had no issues applying the fill coat; I’d wanted to be sure the first coat was cured enough that rolling on the second wouldn’t tend to pull up the fiberglass.

Now I left the second coat to cure overnight.