To help protect a few key contact points when nesting the forward hull inside the aft hull, the kit included four leather pads, which needed to be installed in specific locations.  I prepared the four locations as directed, and masked off around them to protect adjacent areas while gluing in the leather.  There was one patch on the inwale, at the centerline notch; one on the bottom of the dinghy roughly a foot forward of the transom; and one on each side at the forward end of the gunwales, where the bulkhead gussets were.  To gain the best access to the two patches at the aft end, I stood the hull on its transom next to the bench.  This also allowed working on the two patches near the upper end of the gunwales.

Once I’d masked off the perimeter of the patches, I sanded off the glossy paint and nonskid as needed, and cleaned the surface.

The leather was all cut to size and scored with alignment marks on their centerlines to help with positioning.  To install them, I applied two coats of contact cement (the real stuff) to all the bonding areas and the back side of the leather patches, letting each coat dry in the usual way.    Then I installed the leather in its designated areas, which frankly went more smoothly than I’d been expecting.  I used a small roller to press the leather down securely in all areas.

To finish off the aft seat, I secured the other end of the bungee cord to the newly-installed padeye on the deck, and cut off the excess.  I left the cord tight, to hold the seat in place, but with enough slack to enable one to lift the seat and store it alongside the starboard aft tank, wedged between the padeye and support cleat, where the seat could be placed when nesting the two dinghy halves.

Now that the risers on each end of the daggerboard trunk were cured, I drilled the mounting holes for the turn dogs, and installed the latches the same way as with the forward hatch, with some epoxy in the screw hole to secure the screw, and the screw tensioned just enough that the turn dog could still move.  This pair of latches included slim plastic washers beneath, for clearance, and the after washer included  an extra tab with a hole to which I could secure the lanyard from the cover.  The forward latch doubled as a hold-down for the pin that I’d installed in the leading edge of the daggerboard earlier; the daggerboard still needed a short loop of line to secure to the hole in the top of the board and provide a grip for installing and removing the board.

Next in the rapidly-dwindling list of remaining tasks was the watertight gaskets required for the forward hatch, daggerboard lid, and the forward hull bulkhead.  These gaskets were made from 1/4″ surgical tubing and the book recommended thick-style cyanoacrylate glue (super glue) as the best method for securing them in their respective grooves.

I started with the forward hatch gasket, and dry-fit the tubing to determine its final length; afterwards, I butt-glued the two ends together in a simple corner jig made from a block of wood clamped to the bench, with plastic tape against both surfaces; this allowed me to easily hold the two ends together and in alignment when gluing, and thus creating a one-piece gasket for both the forward hatch and, later, the daggerboard.  This worked well.  Then, I taped the gasket in place in its grove to hold it and allow me to incrementally glue it in place by lifting one section at a time around the opening.

Gluing was straightforward and effective in this way.  Several inches at a time, I’d lift the gasket, apply a small bead of the glue, reinstall the gasket, then dog down the hatch lid over the whole thing to hold it in place briefly while the glue cured.  In practice, the curing happened quickly, and soon the gasket was in place and complete.

I worked on the small daggerboard lid concurrently, alternating gluing operations with the hatch, and before long both these gaskets were complete.  The book made it sound like it would be more challenging than it turned out to be.

Next, I propped the hull up on its stem so I could access the gasket notch in the bulkhead with it held horizontal for weighting purposes.  (In reality, at least with the glue I used, I probably could have easily glued this gasket with the hull in its normal orientation.)  I used a scrap of plywood and a lead weight over each section to hold it while gluing, and had bits of tape ready if needed, but I never needed the tape, and the gluing process went quickly.

To help prevent the gaskets from sticking to their mating surfaces during longer periods of assembly, the book suggested a light coat of paste wax on the opposite surface–not on the gasket.  So I applied some paste wax to the underside of the hatch lip, the deck around the daggerboard, and on the aft hull bulkhead opposite the gasket.  This treatment is suggested periodically to ensure the gaskets avoid the tendency to stick.

Now I could move on to the final task remaining in this build:  installing the rubrail.  From the start, I’d not looked forward to this, and again the book seemed to suggest it would be profoundly difficult.  (The book does this a lot, actually.)  To begin, I prepared the outside faces of the gunwales on both halves of the boat with a thorough sanding to remove the bulk of the paint (hindsight note for another time:  it would have been simpler not to paint the gunwale faces).  I sanded enough to ensure a good bond with the glue required on the rubrail, but not so much as to worry about sanding through the fiberglass on the gunwales.

The vinyl rubrail came in three pieces:  two shorter pieces for the aft hull, and one longer piece for the bow–here it would wrap around the stem and do both sides in one section.  I nailed these to my bench with the mating surfaces facing up; this held the strips taut so that I could sand the back sides with coarse sandpaper (and also so that later they’d be secure for applying the glue).

Next, I masked both sides of the gunwale–the top and bottom–and also some 4″ strips (1″ tall to match the rubrail) onto the transom face, as the gunwale would wrap onto the transom.  I sanded the transom areas, as well as the rounded part of the stem, once I’d done the masking.

The rubrail was to be installed with hypalon glue, and now I mixed the glue according to its instructions, then coated all the gunwales and rubrail pieces with one coat.  After 30 minutes, the first coat was ready for next steps, and, one section at a time, I applied a second coat of glue to boat and rubrail, then installed the rubrail.  This was a contact-type adhesive, so it stuck upon, well, contact.  I was pleasantly surprised by how not-bad the whole installation was, as the instructions certainly were thorough in pointing out the potential difficulties and pitfalls.  But in fact it went smoothly and quickly, once the prep was done; the sanding of the gunwales had taken the bulk of the time needed for this particular installation.

At the transom, I cut an angle into the rail where it ended at my tape marks, and cut the ends at the mating bulkheads nearly square, with the slightest angle away from the joint.

I propped the hulls closely together (but not connected) for the final photos.  The book suggested masking over rubrail at the curve at the stem to hold it against a possible propensity to sag down while the glue started to fully cure overnight; I’d seen no suggestion it might do this in practice, but why take the chance, so I masked this area for security.

With that, the dinghy construction was complete:  nothing remained on the to-do list or in the manuals.

To wrap up the project, I had a couple final videos still in the works that I planned to post soon, and will have some parting thoughts about the kit in due course as well.

With only final details remaining in the build, I attacked the list of remaining projects, hoping to complete most of the list.

A few days earlier, I removed the dry-fit alignment clips, reversed their positions so the correct clip was on each side–with the angled sides facing outboard and generally inline with the angled bulkhead above–and permanently installed them with sealant at the screw locations.

Now, I started with a cove stripe, which I chose in an accent color (light gray) to coordinate with the boottop color of the owner’s sailboat.  Installation didn’t take long, and it added subtly to the appearance of the boat.

Next, I permanently installed the rudder gudgeons.  I’d previously laid out and dry-fit this hardware, so now it was a matter of installing the pieces again with sealant to finish the rudder installation.  I forgot to take photos of the rudder in place, but did take video that will be available sometime later.

Next, I installed the rowlocks.

I’d planned to leave the boat assembled so I could install the rubrail, but discovered that the rubrail was designed to be installed in separate pieces, so with that I separated the boat to make access to the foredeck a little easier, and because there was no reason to leave it assembled for now.  Separation seemed a bit more challenging than I’d expected, but I discovered that some sealant had seeped out on one side when I installed the alignment clips earlier, and this had glued the halves together somewhat.  You can’t get good help anymore.

The aft seat required several additional steps, and with epoxy involved, it meant I couldn’t call the installation complete just yet–something that would become a theme of the remainder of the day.  The installations on this boat frequently require steps that can only happen on multiple days.  For the seat, I started with a pair of fiberglass pins in the forward ends of the support cleats, just forward of the forward corners of the seat.  These pins would hold the seat in position.

The other part of the aft seat securement was a carbon fiber eye strap, which I had to mount with epoxy to the hull a bit off center to one side (on the lowermost chine).  This eye strap would eventually hold one end of a bungee cord that would secure the seat in place, but allow easy removal for when the boat was nested.  I masked around the faying surfaces, cutting the tape as needed, then lightly prepared the tiny bonding areas with sandpaper before epoxying the piece in place.

The daggerboard trunk cover required several steps now too, though I couldn’t finish installation either because of the need to wait for epoxy cure time.  At either end of the trunk cover, I installed a small fiberglass riser, which I’d taken aside and painted a few days earlier anticipating the installation now.  I painted them black to match the turn dogs that would later be installed on them.  These risers also got installed in epoxy.

The cover itself needed a lanyard to hold it to the boat, which I installed according to the book by inserting the end of the supplied lanyard into a hole filled with epoxy.  Later, the other end of the lanyard would get tied to one of the turn dogs that I was currently working on.

Similarly, the forward hatch received a couple short pieces of line too:  one formed into a loop that would function as a handle for removing the flush hatch, with a 3″ piece of small stuff epoxied into a pair of holes on the starboard side of the hatch, and another lanyard on the bottom side, which could later be secured to the mast tube inside the boat.

To secure the forward hatch, I installed several turn dogs around the opening.  I’d prepared these holes much earlier in the build–they’re filled with epoxy–and before painting had been insightful enough to mark each location with a small pilot hole. making installation easy now.  At each hole, I used a larger bit to drill a pilot hole for the fixing screws, then dry-fit all the turn dogs.  Afterwards, I removed the screws and dribbled some epoxy into the holes, then reinstalled the screws tightly, before releasing them just a bit to allow the turn dogs to actually turn.  When the epoxy set up, the screws would not move, but the latches would spin on their axes.

There were more installations I’d hoped to address now, including the vinyl rubrail and some leather protective patches for when the dinghy parts were nested, but with the various epoxy installations underway and taking precedence. new work would have to wait will another day, along with the final steps on the various projects I’d started but couldn’t finish now.  With luck, one more work day would take care of finishing all the remaining tasks.

Now that the hull paint had had a few days’ cure time, I was ready to move forward, and the next step was to reassemble the hulls for the first time since paint.  With a short day on tap, it seemed a good time for this job.

I started by reinstalling the four connecting pins, this  time with a bit of waterproof grease on the shaft where it passed through the aft bulkhead, and also in the threads of the forward bulkhead.  Once all the pins were reinstalled, I carefully connected the hull–the last time this would be done before the alignment clips were installed, and which would help with future connections.  I did this on the bench, but then moved the boat onto a pair of sawhorses positioned as indicated in the book, and once there, I released and resecured all the pins to ensure there was no binding.

I’d done the early layout and installation steps for the alignment clip before the boat was painted, and now, to install them for real, I started by installing a second pair of wooden spacers–with sticky tape on one side–to the clips, which would hold them just slightly off, and the proper distance from, the bulkhead.  Then, I drilled for and installed the mounting screws, just a dry-fit for now.

It’s funny how you notice things sometimes that blew by you the day before.  As I reviewed these photos, I noticed that I’d installed the alignment clips backwards, or on the wrong sides, something that I obviously didn’t notice during installation.  The angled side of the clip should face the sides of the boat, as this angle helps bring the forward half of the boat in and then lock it down in the single and proper location for securing.  But it was the first thing I noticed now, so I’d have to switch them around.  This posed no problem as the top parts of the clips were symmetrical, and I’d yet to finish off the installation with epoxy in the screw holes.

I lightly sanded the hull with a small block sander and 320 grit, and by hand on the chines and in the corners, to prepare the surface for the third coat of hull paint.  Afterwards, I vacuumed and solvent-washed the hulls.

Later in the day, after a final tack-off, I applied the third coat of the gloss polyurethane paint.

To prepare the hull for the second coat of gloss paint, I lightly scuffed it all over with a scotch brite pad, then cleaned with solvent and finally tack rag to remove any dust.

Then, I applied a second coat, using a roller and small brush for application as with the first coat.

I sanded the primer coat with 320 grit paper, using a small sanding block on the flats and by hand on corners and tight areas.  Afterwards, I cleaned up the hull and the shop around it.

Next, I applied the first of two or three coats of gloss topcoat, in a custom color to match the owner’s sailboat.  I was pleased with how this paint went down on the hull.  I applied it thinly with a roller, with no need to tip off as the paint self-leveled well; I only needed a brush for the corners at the juncture of skeg and hull, and at the inner gunwale.

Getting ready to do the primer and finish coats on the outside of the hulls, I set the hull halves upside down on a work table and some saw horses to support them during the next rounds of work.  The exteriors were mainly ready for primer, but would require just a bit of touch-up work to remove a bit of paint from the interior work here or there, and so forth.

I went around the hull sections and lightly sanded away a spilled bit of paint here or there, and cleaned up some places where the various turning and angling of the hulls while working on the interior had slightly scuffed up the surface.  After cleanup, I masked off the gunwales, mating bulkheads, and any other areas as required for hull primer and topcoat.

After final preparations, I applied a coat of 2-part primer to the hull sections.  The primer was easier to apply on the relatively broad sections of the hull versus the interior.  At this early stage the primer, while still glossy from application, highlighted the condition of the hull beneath, which looked good, fair and smooth.

The next and ultimately final step in the rudder saga was to install the gudgeons on the boat.  The book called for doing this later, after the hull was painted, and while that was fine, I saw no reason why I couldn’t and shouldn’t do the initial layout now, even though I couldn’t finalize the installation just yet.

I started with a vertical centerline drawn on the transom, using the skeg and center of the notch in the inwale as my guides.  Then, I installed the tiller in its spot at the top of the rudder case and clamped it in its fully-down position, protecting the clamping position with some scrap wood.  With a 1/2″ block on the inwale to space the tiller appropriately and determine the final height of the rudder case, I slid the gudgeons up onto the pintles and, holding the assembly against the stern, made pencil marks at the top edge of each gudgeon on the hull.  This gave me the reference points I needed to then strike lines perpendicular to the centerline at each mark; these lines represented the top edge of each gudgeon.

Because of the additional thickness of the outboard mounting block at the center of the inwale, the upper gudgeon required screws to install, rather than the supplied bolts, as the position fell comfortably within the reinforced section.  Had this not been in place, the upper gudgeon would have ended up just below the original inwale, and would have used short through-bolts to install.  I drilled pilotholes and dry-installed the upper gudgeon with four screws.

The lower gudgeon’s position meant that only the two inboard holes could be through-bolted, as the two outer holes would end up screwed into the edges of the aft seats.  For now, I drilled and installed only the two center fasteners, and would wait on doing the final two screws during final installation of the hardware once the hull was painted.

With both gudgeons dry-fit, I hung the rudder case to ensure things were properly aligned, then marked and dry-installed the final piece of the puzzle, the spring hold-down clamp just above the lower gudgeon.  This would prevent the rudder from moving upwards unless the clamp was compressed.

Finally, I mouned the rudder blade to check the appearance of the whole operation before removing the hardware for now. I’d mask over the bolt holes from inside to protect things while I painted the hull soon.

Now that the fresh nonskid had had another full day’s cure time, I felt safe to remove the remaining masking tape from the food cleats and other wooden installations inside the boat.  I was disappointed to find that the paint had bled beneath the tape in several areas, staining the varnish work, so I resolved to lightly sand off the offending paint and revarnish all the bits and pieces; I needed to varnish the aft seat cleats anyway, as I’d installed bungs and sanded the faces when I installed those cleats a while back, and hadn’t had a chance to finish up the varnish work there.

With the cleats and rowlocks thusly prepared, I masked around everything and applied a coat of varnish all around.  Just the one coat would be required everywhere as a touch-up, as there was plenty of buildup on all the parts.  I didn’t include this time in the day’s billing.

Later on, I removed this masking tape.

In other works, I took the opportunity (before varnishing) to clean up a few paint drips that had ended up on the hull, mainly on the transom and stem.  I used light scraper pressure to remove the bulk, then lightly sanded.

With time left in the day, I turned to some small jobs I could complete on the rudder and daggerboard assemblies.  The starboard side of the rudder case required squaring the rudder bolt hole (created in overfilled epoxy) to accept a carriage bolt, so I took care of this task with a chisel, having first marked out the rough square with masking tape around the hole.

Next, I installed the pintles, a relatively straightforward task.  There were scribed marks on the forward edge of the rudder case on both sides, which marks indicated the pintles’ positions, so I followed the instructions to lay out the initial screw holes 3/8″ in from the forward edge at the scribe mark, and dry-fit the pintles with just the one screw on each side.  Then, I carefully adjusted their position so the pins were straight and inline with one another, and appropriately spaced from the rudder case itself, and drilled and dry-fit the second set of screws on each pair.  The book called for setting these screws in epoxy, which was my final step.

While I had a small batch of epoxy going, I drilled a hole for and installed a hold-down pin at the forward top edge of the daggerboard.  There’d be some corresponding hardware mounted to the foredeck itself to finish off this little bit later on.  For now, I propped the daggerboard with the pin facing up to keep it secure while the epoxy cured.

The rudder blade got secured to the rudder case with a carriage bolt and hand wheel on the opposite side, making it easy to secure the blade in any position, from kicked up to the sailing position.

 

With the first coat of nonskid cured overnight, I started the day by rolling on a second coat on all areas.

Later in the afternoon, the second coat had cured enough that I could remove the masking tape to reveal the finished product.