Taking stock

So I thought I might show off just where 50 board feet of mahogany, two sheets of 1/4", one sheet of 3/4" marine plywood and a metric ton of epoxy has gotten me. So feast your eyed on the best looking boat parts you've ever seen. Layed out. In a garage. In chronological order of their completion. for a boat that someone you know is building. (I bet I'm the only person you know building one of these...) A summary of learning experiences accompanies each piece.

Stem. This is the first part that I glued together and it shows. If you remember the infamous bubbling epoxy post you know I did this one in a hurry. I don't know how much epoxy is actually in there between the two layers. It only squeezed out in a few places. I hope it holds.

Transom. This is the very back end of the boat. This layout took me 4 hours. Then I realized I could use a miter saw to cut perfect angles instead of planing bad ones. The rest of the layout for the remaining frames takes about 45 minutes. I still have to cut an 18 degree bevel around the sides and bottom of the transom. Seriously, 18 degrees? My (awesome) Skil saw only has marks every 5 degrees. How am I going to find 18? This might take a while.

Centerboard trunk. Still not technically done due to the misalignment of frame 3 uprights. You know what, I don't want to talk about this anymore. Too painful. All I can say is measure, mark and measure again. Then repeat. And repeat again. Then erase all the stray marks so you use the right ones.

Frames. From right to left in the picture are frame 1 through frame 5. Frame 2 is the only one that has a full width bottom piece. The rest need to be joined in the middle with a piece of 3/4" plywood. The plywood is cut but I haven't got the courage to set the angles in epoxy yet. If you never try, you can't fail. You also can't build a boat.

Epoxy. Ah, the "good stuff." Epoxy fills all "mistakes" and will pretty much bond any two porous surfaces. The tensile strength is 9500 psi which means the wood will break apart before a good epoxy joint will. And it's waterproof. I don't think a better product has been invented.

I also have a box full of scraps and two curved pieces for the deck in the fwd end of the boat. Plus two boards waiting to be ripped down to size for various longitudinals on the boat.

So there's the rundown. I actually don't have anything really done-done. Just in a semi-presentable state that looks good in pictures. I'm glad I did this so I could get a list together of what I need to do. I sure hope it starts looking more like a boat when it all goes on the building form.