Alignment

I am pretty sure that this next part is the MOST critical. The old story goes like this. The frame alignments are off a little. So the planking doesn't go on right. Then water leaks in unbeknownest to the captain. Soon enough the fasteners rot, the epoxy comes unglued and the boat sinks. So, that's what I am up against. Needless to say, I don't want to rush it. So I started with the frame 2, 3, 4 and centerboard assembly. This part was easy; all I had to do was L bracket it in place. All the dimensions are set in epoxy already, so there's no going back now. There is about 1/8" to 1/4" difference in distance between the left and right sides of some of the frames. I will either have to live with it or put the frames at the right dimensions and hold them with the chines and sheers.

Frame 1 had to be notched into the building form so it would sit level. I measured the distance from frame 2 to locate frame 1. You can see the L bracket used to hold it down.
The transom was the next piece I set up. It has to be at an angle and it doesn't touch the rest of the frame. So I had to align a free floating piece with the rest of the frame in three dimensions. After several tries I came up with a workable method. I attached two 2x4 blocks cut at the transom angle on one side and vertical on the other. Then I used some 1x4's to adjust the vertical dimension while using a level and tape-measure to align the distance from frame 1. Left- right was taken care of by extending the sides of the building frame with a square and checking the distance from centerline.

On the far side of these pieces are the marks I used to set the vertical height. Basically it was a ruler drawn out on the 1x4 and an alignment mark on the 2x4 block. I still have to finish up by bracing it all in place. I will have to do some final chisel work on the chine, sheer and batten notches so the transom will have to be held in place pretty well.

I had to add these little pieces of floor timber back to frame 5 to allow it to sit on the building form correctly. I cut them off to allow the floor timber to attach to the frame without interfering with the gussets. I tried lining up frame 5, which also has the stem attached to it, but I think that the stem may not be exactly square. I can't get the frame 4-5 distance equal on both sides while keeping the stem aligned along the center of the boat. I hope it is because I haven't tried hard enough.

These last two give an overview of what the whole thing looks like so far. I cleaned up all the tools from between the frames. I need to lock down the transom and the frame 5/stem assembly and I will be bending chines. I have read that epoxy covers a multitude of mistakes. I hope it will cover mine. And be waterproof.