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12/02/01 - The Final Plank Part Five
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Here's what it looks like at the transom end. Miraculous stuff, that epoxy, eh? If I was depending on skill to close those gaps, I'd be in very deep shit, that's for sure. As it is, the dark lines between the plank wood and the mahogany transom make things look kind of classy. Well, maybe that's overstating things, but at least it doesn't look like total crap either. By the way, I'm going to drill out and set dowel plugs in the screw holes, sand 'em smooth and paint the hull a nice white.

12/02/01 - The Final Plank Part Six
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Well, there it is, all mistakes cast in polyester stone. It looks quite a lot wider than the other strakes, and I suppose that's because the outer gunwale will be glued to the edge, visually reducing the area of the strake to a width consistent with the others. That's my theory, anyway. So I'll do the plank on the opposite side tomorrow, and then it's on with fairing the stem, fitting the outer stem and placing the keel and skeg, placing the outer gunwale, and then I will get to turn this bastard over and see how things are.

12/18/01 - Fairing the Bow
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With the planking finished, I turn my attention to getting the bow ready to receive the outer stem. Since I used the inner stem as a mold for laminating the outer stem, I expect a pretty good fit here, but I was over-eager with the sander and I've managed to put a few low spots in it. So now I'm debating whether to add another layer of laminations to the stem or simply to mix up an especially thick batch of epoxy to fill the gaps. I admit that I'm leaning toward the latter.

12/22/01 - Shaping the Outer Stem
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Here I'm shaping the outer stem. I've measured a 3/4 inch facing and I'm making guiding saw cuts that should indicate the depth to which I need to plane. I feel a kind of sick dread with each saw cut since the inner and outer stem laminations are the best thing I've done on this boat so far, with few voids and no twists.

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