More progress and a few details

I feel like I made some great progress this weekend. Between kid's events and work it's been hard to get solid blocks of time to dedicate to the project. A little trim here, a little tuck there, but not any real time. Well, this weekend, there was nothing on the schedule. No games, no dances, no places to be. The weather started off chilly and ended up in the 50's on Sunday. I opened the garage doors, let the sun and fresh air in, and got down to work. Several things got accomplished:

I got the seat fronts measured, cut and installed. I made the rudder cheek assembly.

Cut the holes for inspection ports, and laminate a reinforcing ring to the inside face

Picture of the finished inspection port with reinforcing doubler ring.

Seat fronts installed and setting up. Trickiest part here is getting the angle right on the aft side so that the ransom angles back correctly.

Made the seat faces slightly oversized so I can plane them down once the seat stringer is in place. In this picture, the bulkhead frames are clamped on for dry fit/visual check.

Making the rudder cheeks. I had a nice piece of white oak, so I sized the plank, planed it to thickness and made the first cheek. I used this as a pattern for the 2nd cheek, and then used the sizing of that and dimensions from the plans to do the spacer blocks.

Simple geometry drawn on the plank

Rudder cheek, starboard side. Pivot point epoxy filled to be drilled out to size later. Stainless screws countersunk and covered over with thickened epoxy.

Front view of the cheek assembly. I'm quite proud of how this turned out.  The cuts and holes are quite precise and clean, and the whole thing feels solid and like something that will last.

I used a 3/16" rounding plane to knock the edges off the corners of the piece. It's one of my favorite tools. It cuts true and smooth, and leaves the piece with a wonderful hand-feel. If you click the image and look closely at the edges, you'll see what I mean.

Here are a few pictures from some of the little details that I've been working on evenings after I get home from work. Little stuff for sure, but stuff that's fun and will add to the overall nice finish of the boat once it's done.

This is the temporary king plank. I say temporary because I'm not sure I want it made from pine, which is what this plank is. Maybe it should be oak? 

I like this detail on the centerboard case. I shaped a piece of white oak to the proper dimensions, and then on the underside, I made 3/4 cuts through the plank every inch or so. The idea was to make the board flexible below so that it could bend to the curve of the sides of the case. It was then secured with epoxy and screws. Eventually, I'll make a covering board from laminated teak. 

This is the floor brace for Bulkhead 5. I used my Bosch jigsaw to cut the profile of the base moulding, and my 3/16 roundover plane to soften the top edges of the brace. 

Precision fitting the port seat face to where it meets the transom.  Nice fit. Right angle. 

Making the inspection ports on Bulkhead 3. These will be sealed with rubber gasket/o-rings and then mounted with  thumb screws. I don't anticipate having to take these off every day...


Now that the seat faces are in place, I'll begin gluing up each of the bulkheads in preparation for putting the stringers on. I'm quite nervous about this. As they say, this is where the rubber meets the road. I'll get to see just how far off my measurements were and how bad my cuts were! Hopefully, there won't be too much in the way of re-fitting.