Day 60 - Gettin' close

Today was a struggle for a completely different reason. We've had a good size storm blow in and we got about nine inches of snow at my house and about six inches at the shed. I got up early this morning only expecting the two inches they called for last night, and boy what a surprise! I got down to the shed to find the roof significantly depressed with about four inches of very wet snow on top. I pulled out the ladder, put an extension on the floor broom and pulled it off and the roof popped right back up. Had to sweep it again at lunch. Supposed to get more snow tonight, I may have to make a middle of the night run to deal with it.

Anyways, on to boat building. Tonight I pulled all the screws and washers from the second 1/4" plywood panel. Then I started work on the front side panel on the port (or left) side of the boat. I moved all my jig pieces over to the other side and drove some screws into the right hand shelf so I could get my clamps back. Then using the cut-off corner from yesterdays work I traced and cut the corner on the forward side panel.

Now there's no way to carry the panel around the boat, so up and over the hull it went. Clamped it to the shelf at the rear, screwed it to the bowstem at the front and traced the shelf and chine and then back over to the first side for cutting and sanding. Next I sanded the panel I installed yesterday at the bowstem to match the angle of the bowstem. Then back up and over the hull went the cut panel. I made a batch of epoxy, liberally coated the bowstem, shelf, vertical support and the panel. Turned the spare epoxy into peanut butter and liberally coated the bowstem. Put the panel in the rear jig and bent it around to meet the bowstem and screwed it down. Put a clamp at the rear, screws in the tabs, then screws in the shelf from the bow to the rear.

All that's left is to fit and cut the rear panel and with a big enough bilge pump it'll float! Well, maybe not quite ;-), but it's pretty close!

4 Hours