Construction Journal

Here I'm gluing the stem that took hours and hours more and buckets of epoxy more than should have been used, so I'm naturally nervous about the whole thing.

It's been an awful long time since I have had a chance to work on the boat, but I'm back and I have a new tool; a spokeshave. I finally had to order one of these babies on-line (Amazon.com of all places!) because none of the local wood shops had any, and the ones that would order one for me applied a damned hefty markup.

Anyway, once I got a spokeshave, I was able to attack the globs of epoxy left over the outer stem, and here is a nice little picture of it. It's amazing how much more efficient this tool is than a block plane for many jobs like this.b

Happy birthday to you -
Happy birthday to you -
Happy birthday dear USA-A -
Happy birthday to you!!!!

It's now time to make a pattern of the first plank, also known as the garboard strake. This will serve as both a bullet proof way to cut both sides accurately, but it also allows me to test the fairing job I've done on the keelson, stem and transom.

Here is the transom being tested with the pattern. I'm not too pleased with the picture because it doesn't show very well the angle at which the strake landing places on the transom had to be cut. It's kind of nerve-wracking chiseling away at this expensive lumber, but I'm getting used to it.