The main bulkheads continued to be my priority, and to get started I trimmed the overhanging fiberglass from around the edges, and the hardware holes, and with a sanding block finished the edges back to the original plywood.  For the moment, I left the glossy epoxy surfaces alone, but they’d get sanded before installing the bulkheads.

With both bulkhead sections trimmed as needed, I assembled the two pieces together using the two dowel pins designed for the purpose.  These pins fit in the two small holes at the top edges of the bulkheads, and aligned the sections well.  The large hardware holes lined up well, and as directed I cleaned these openings up a bit with sandpaper to ensure perfect alignment through both bulkhead sections, and from both sides.

With preparations complete, I epoxy-coated the insides of the hardware holes as indicated in the manual, and epoxy-coated the mating faces of both bulkheads; these were the sides opposite those that I’d treated earlier.  Now the bulkheads had to cure before I could proceed with the next steps.

Turning to the foredeck, I trimmed the excess fiberglass as needed and block-sanded the edges back to their original shapes all around, as well as on the deck hatch.  Again, for the moment I left the glossy top surfaces unsanded, as it would be easier to sand this epoxy after additional cure time.  I flipped the foredeck over, and after some minor sanding work to ease the edges of the various cleats and structural members, I coated the underside with its first of two coats of epoxy, including the structural members and the curved edge doublers.  I left the area around the hatch opening uncoated, as soon I’d be installing the plywood hatch coaming in this area.  This coat of epoxy was designed to stabilize the foredeck and avoid any wood movement now that one side was glassed and coated; the final coat of epoxy on the underside wouldn’t occur till after the foredeck was dry fit in the boat, a few steps down the road.

A significant structural aspect of the boat and its ability to be in two halves would come from a series of plywood gussets to reinforce the main bulkhead on each side.  These gussets came pre-shaped in the kit. and as I perused the manual and with installation pending, I saw that it was advised to pre-coat these gussets with epoxy, so after a light sanding to clean up the parts, I rolled on one coat of epoxy on the exposed edges, top, and bottom, leaving the straight/square faying surfaces uncoated.

Throughout the build, I’d striven to stay several steps ahead and ensure a continuous work flow, with various side projects to turn to at any given time, but now, with the substructures all built as far as they could go and awaiting the inevitable epoxy cure time on crucial pieces, I was frankly running out of things to do.  If I could go back in time, I would have removed the main bulkhead from the hull quite a bit sooner, and then could have had the time-consuming epoxy work (time consuming only by nature of the required cure times) underway in the background.  The bulkhead could have come out of the boat anytime after the chines were glued from outside, and while I frequently read ahead in the manual, this didn’t jump out at me ahead of time, particularly as I had already found three or four other sub-projects to move forward with in the meantime.  But now it would have been helpful if I’d had the bulkhead pieces ready beforehand.

In any event, I’d soon be back at work with the bulkhead, but for now I turned to a small job:  installing a structural tunnel for a towing line/painter.  The kit included a small 3/4″ diameter fiberglass tube for this purpose, to be installed just aft of the stem.  With the chine fillets in place, I could proceed with this.  I began by marking the hull on each side as directed in the manual, and drilling small pilot holes to check the location from inside.  Satisfied with where the holes fell, I enlarged the pilot holes to 1/4″, drilling from each side first, but then ensuring that the drill bit passed straight and cleanly through from side to side, and finally drilled 3/4″ holes with a hole saw to accept the tubing.

The tubing fit right where it should, basically resting against the inside of the inner stem bulkhead, and now I taped it in place from inside and secured it around its outer edges with epoxy.  To speed things up, I used shop epoxy for this, as it would cure more quickly.

Indeed, after lunch I found things had set up enough that I could proceed with the final epoxy work to secure the tube from inside, which involved two sections of 6 oz. fiberglass set over a mass of thickened epoxy that I installed around the tube and nearby corners.  The fiberglass tied the tube into the sides of the hull, the inner stem, and extended down over the centerline and onto the bottom plank of the boat, covering the fillet I’d installed during the stem construction earlier.

Finally for the day, I turned the hull over and, after final preparations, fine-tuned the hull seams as needed, using a thickened epoxy mixture to fill any tiny low spots and clean up the chines, transom corners, and bulkhead slots as needed.

 

I prepared the two main bulkhead sections by removing the temporary nails, then lightly sanding around the glued-in doubler pads to prepare them for fiberglass.

I prepared 4 oz. fiberglass as needed to cover the aft bulkhead (the cutoffs from this rectangular piece would cover the portions of the upper bulkhead that required it), then wet out and installed the cloth in the aft bulkhead, pressing it tightly into the contours of the four plywood pads.  The forward section of the bulkhead required fiberglass only on the upper sections that would extend above the foredeck, and smaller pieces over the lower doubler pads for reinforcement.  I epoxy-coated the remainder of the plywood as well.

Next, I turned to the foredeck, and cut 4 oz. fiberglass to cover the foredeck, seat tongue, and foredeck hatch cover.  Before installing the cloth, I filled all the remaining nail holes in the top surface of the foredeck, then laid the cloth dry and wet it out.  At the seat tongue, the cloth wrapped over the top edge and down over the exposed edges of the seat.

I lightly sanded the new chine fillets and the inside of the hull as needed to clean things up for the next steps.

By mid-afternoon, the first layer of fiberglass on the bulkheads was sufficiently cured that I could come back and apply a fill coat of epoxy over the surfaces.

I also applied a fill coat of epoxy to the foredeck and hatch cover.

The two main bulkhead sections required several steps before they’d be ready for final installation, beginning with preparing and installing some pie-shaped reinforcements over the fastener locations.  These four openings would eventually be the key to the connection of the two halves of the boat.

These reinforcements began as a punch-out set of cutouts from 1/4″ plywood panels,  Once I’d removed the eight pieces and cleaned up the edges a bit, I sanded a bevel on the curved side of each piece, as directed.

The small reinforcements were labeled as to which of the two bulkheads they fit–forward or aft–but each had to be located according to which hole it fit; each hole had a little keyway, for lack of a better word, and each reinforcement fit only in one place.  There were scribe marks on the bulkheads to show how the pieces needed to be aligned.  Once positioned, after ensuring that the hole lined up perfectly, I drove three small nails through the pads and part way into the bulkhead to help align the pieces now and during gluing presently.

Removing all the pads, I coated all the bonding surfaces with epoxy as a primer, then mixed a thickened epoxy batch for final adhesion, thick enough to hold the pads without clamping (the small nails provided some clamping power, though they weren’t driven in all the way).  I cleaned up the excess epoxy and left the assemblies to cure.

Next, I turned to the daggerboard trunk, which was all glued up.  Now I cut off the excess trunk logs from the top and bottom, holding the saw flush with the t ops of the panels, and lightly sanded the cut ends as well as the two narrow vertical sides of the assembly to remove any epoxy drips.  The daggerboard trunk was ready for installation as soon as the main bulkheads were permanently installed.

The foredeck and hatch required several additional steps.  I’d removed the nails from the foredeck cleats over the weekend, and now I trimmed the excess cleats where they protruded past the seat tongue, and milled a rounded edge on the top side before sanding the areas clean.

Next, I trimmed the excess fiberglass from the narrow hatch edge and block sanded the remnants flush with the hatch surfaces on both sides.  I performed several minor preparatory steps to the hatch frame and hatch collar–mostly light sanding–and set these parts up for epoxy coating and initial assembly.  Both sides of the hatch frame would receive a coat of epoxy before installation, and the hatch itself required the inner collar/reinforcement to be installed first with epoxy as well.

With all the setup and other preparations complete, I turned to some epoxy work, and coated the hatch parts as needed (the frame had both sides coated at once, and held off the bench with cutoff nails driven into the bench), glued the hatch collar to the bottom of the hatch using six of the plywood nailing pads to secure it flat to the bench, then applied the first of two coats of epoxy to the edge grain at the hatch cutout in the foredeck, and filled the nail holes in the underside of the foredeck with epoxy.  Late in the day, I applied a second coat of epoxy to this hatch opening edge.

With the various sub-assembly parts all taken as far as they could for now, I spent the remainder of the day working on the hull, starting with sanding as needed the latest epoxy work on the hull seams and gunwale fillets.  I forgot to take photos of this work before I turned the hull upright (though I took video that will be published when the time is right), so I had to settle for the following photos that I took from each side when I had the hull propped up to do work on the interior chine fillets.  The bulk of the work on the exterior of the hull was complete at this point, though there’d be some minor touch-ups and fine-tuning before doing the hull sheathing sometime later.

I turned the hull upright and after final preparations installed all the fillets on the hull chines.  These were small fillets to fill the insides of the seams and ease the transitions so the chines could be taped with fiberglass soon, but not till after the main bulkheads were permanently installed.

To finish up the day, I applied another coat of unthickened epoxy to the edges of the gunwales.

I continued work on the foredeck and installed the cleats I’d prepared last time, following the usual steps of pre-wetting the bonding surfaces with epoxy, then installing in a thickened epoxy mixture.  I secured the cleats with the nailing pads and clamps on the after part of the seat tongue, and cleaned up all the excess epoxy.

Next, I cut and installed 2″ fiberglass tape over the centerline seams (just the aftermost 6″ of the aft part of the seam).  I also installed a strip of fiberglass on the outside edge of the foredeck hatch, a process designed to provide a more durable hatch edge.  Late in the day, I applied a fill coat of epoxy on this narrow edge as well.

I epoxied the second side of the daggerboard trunk in place, ensuring it was aligned with the first side at both ends.

Next, I sanded the hull to clean up the epoxy-filled chines all over.  Some minor fine-tuning remained, but overall the hull and chines were looking good.

I shaped the stem to form a smooth curve following that of the gunwale at the top edge, and tapering to a narrow profile at the cutwater.

With the hull back upright again, I removed the transom formwork, as the transom shape was now well-supported by the hull, inwales, and fillets.  I lightly sanded the transom fillets, then marked and cut the aft bulkhead to remove the center portion after removing the remaining stitching wires.  I also removed the amidships bulkhead, which would require a long series of steps to prepare it and its forward counterpart for final installation.

Now I installed epoxy fillets on both sides of the mast step bulkhead, and the after sides of the aft bulkheads; the forward sides would receive their fillets later, once the rest of the seat/tank components were in place.  I also touched up a couple places on the transom fillets, and fillet the remaining seams between the transom face, hull panels, and inwales.

I inverted the hull once more, then installed a small epoxy fillet where the hull met the underside of the gunwales along the entire lengths, using some of the excess epoxy to begin to fill the bulkhead tongue slots (aft and mast step bulkheads) and the hull chines where the amidships bulkhead had been.  I finished things off with a rolled coat of unthickened resin on the edge grain of the gunwales.  These steps with the gunwales were preparatory as we slowly neared the task of glassing the hull.

I began the day by removing the nails from the foredeck assembly.

I unclamped the first side of the daggerboard trunk assembly and lightly sanded the new fillets inside.  Then, the instructions called for applying an additional coat of unthickened epoxy to the inside faces of the trunk, after first masking off the faying surfaces where the trunk logs would eventually be bonded to the second side.  I set the wet pieces aside to cure, unable to do more than this at the moment.

I removed the clamps from the transom inwale, and lightly sanded the area as needed to clean up the forward, exposed edges of the inwale, and any small bits of cured epoxy in places it didn’t belong.  Then, I cut and removed the stitching wires at the transom, and removed the temporary alignment nails as well.  As needed, I sanded the inside seam to remove any epoxy bits.

After final preparations and cleanup, I applied structural epoxy fillets to the inside edges of the transom, and where the inwale met the transom along the underside.  I tipped the boat up to one side then the other as needed for better access in order to install the fillets.   I’d touch up any small voids or surface interruptions later, once the fillets had cured.  I used different-sized plywood filleting tools that came along with the kit and worked well for the job.  Milled by CNC, the fillet tools required me to sand an angle on the ends to create the sharp edge needed for proper fillet shaping.  The instructions indicated which size should be used for which fillets.

Next, I marked and cut the stem just forward of the inner stem bulkhead, leaving a bit of material to trim to final shape with planing and sanding.

Afterwards, I turned the boat upside down on the sawhorses and cleaned up the stem back to the inner stem bulkhead, leaving the area flat for now pending final shaping soon.

When I glued the hull seams, I kept the epoxy away from the many stitching wire locations; this left voids in the seams that I now wanted to fill before moving on very soon to cleaning up the hull and chines.  To that end, I applied thickened epoxy to the seams again, focusing on the void areas but troweling material into the entire lengths of the three seams on each side.  With crisp and fair chine lines so far throughout the hull build, final shaping wouldn’t take too much work, but it made sense to fill these voids first.  I left the epoxy to cure and moved on to the foredeck.

With a bit of time left before I had to make an early departure from the shop, I got to work on the support cleats for the foredeck.  Two long, narrow, transverse cleats required minor trimming at the ends to prepare the raw stock to fit the spaces required, which were marked with scribe marks on the plywood.  I cut the ends to slight angles as needed, then tapered the ends several inches in to reduce the thickness of the cleat where it met the curved side doublers of the foredeck.  I drilled pilot holes and partially installed some of the nails and nailing blocks I’d removed from the foredeck earlier.  This held the cleats lightly in place for the moment.

Next, I laid out, cut to length, and milled as directed some addition cleats along the after part of the foredeck, a protruding tongue-shaped feature called, not surprisingly, the seat tongue.  These cleats, along with the pair of transverse cleats, would be ready to epoxy in place next time, after which I’d also immediately install some fiberglass tape over the centerline seam to reinforce this underside of the foredeck.  For the moment, however, I was out of time for the day.

Beginning with the small panels I’d fiberglassed last time, I trimmed the excess material close to the edges, then lightly sanded the panels to prepare them for use somewhere down the road, sanding the edges flush as I went.

Next, I turned to the transom inwale.  After removing the nails and alignment pads from the top section, I test-fit the lower section (no modification needed), then installed it with thickened epoxy adhesive, clamping it securely to the layer above.

At the centerline, I added a small 1/2″ thick reinforcement that aligned with the notched cutout in the inwale.  I shaped the piece slightly as directed, then installed it with thickened epoxy and clamps.

Next, I removed the wires from the mast step bulkhead to prepare for the next steps.  The tight angle between the forward side of this bulkhead and the hull, coupled with some excess epoxy that had gotten on the wire, made removal a bit fussier than the removal of the hull panel wires, but it just took a few extra steps and all the wires were out.  This cleared the way for the lower part of the mast step, an wing-shaped piece that I shaped to fit the angle of the hull on each side till it fit flat on the bottom of the boat and tight to the aft edge of the bulkhead, all aligned according to the scribed marks on each piece.

Happy with the fit, I installed the piece with plenty of thickened epoxy on all bonding surface, carefully cleaning out the round hole on centerline and ensuring the part was properly aligned.  Afterwards, I prepared the upper piece of the mast step–this would be installed later– with a roundover on the after, lower edge and epoxy coating the same edges.

I turned to the next stage of the daggerboard trunk assembly.  With the panels lightly sanded and cleaned up, I aligned and installed a pair of pre-glassed plywood assemblies to one of the panel edges, using alignment nails and thickened epoxy.  These end logs were over-long and would be trimmed later.  I left the first half of the assembly to cure; the second panel would be installed later.

With a clear work table, I laid out the foredeck pieces and marked their edges and the centerline on the table, then covered these marks with plastic tape to prevent epoxy from sticking during the glue-up.  Then, I prepared the centerline edges of the panels with a coat of unthickened epoxy followed by a bead of thickened epoxy, before installing the panels together on the table and securing the seam with the multiple nails I’d prepare along the seam–first one side, then I pressed the second side into position, aligning it with the hatch cut and layout marks, then nailing the second side into place.

Then, I prepared the edges and curved doubler pieces in the same way, and secured these with their nails.  This all held the foredeck nice and flat on the table surface.  I cleaned up the excess epoxy and left the assembly to cure.  LAter, there’d be hardwood cleats installed in various places to reinforce the joint, and the entire foredeck would ultimately be fiberglassed as well.

At this point, with various semi-cured epoxy works on the hull and all the side projects taken as far as they could for the moment, there was little more I could do to advance things at the moment, other than browse the manual as usual to see what was coming up soon.

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.