A few more things done

Work on the boat has been sporadic because work has been keeping me busy.  I've reached the point where I am just doing little bits and pieces.


First I tackled the ladder frame support for the center thwart.  The pieces that extend from the centerboard case to the hull were bit tricky as ensuring they were parallel to the frame as well as level took some doing.  I did have to re-cut one piece, but no harm done as I just used the mess-up for the cross pieces.  I notched the cross pieces like I did on the rear deck supports earlier in the build so I didn't have to use screws.  It took a bit more work but it was fun.

cross piece showing notches

Dry fitting one side together

Adding a coat of epoxy

Ladder frame in place

Then I set about making the thwart, which was fairly easy.  I just pulled some measurements of the frame and left myself about 1/16" overlap on the front and back so I could make the edges flush with the frame.

Dry fitting the center thwart

I'm waiting to epoxy it in place until I epoxy coat the underside and paint the frame.  I left it shy of the hull for drainage and so I can tie stuff down by lashing it around the supports at the end of the thwart.

With the thwarts ready to go I drilled the holes for mounting the hatches.  At this point I am ready to paint the interior.

I made my rudder blank months ago, but it's just been lying around.

We've had a few nice days, so in addition to the other stuff I took advantage of the sun and shaped the rudder outside.  The plans say to round the leading edge and fair the trailing edge to approximately 1/8".  I went ahead and made a template using a NACA 0010 foil.  The rudder isn't thick enough for the foil cross section, so it has flat areas.  Much like the rest of the boat this makes it better than had I simply shaped it by eye until it "looked right", but it's not optimized.

Shaped

At some point I'll get around to glassing it and the centerboard.

I also installed the bow eye.  I made a piece of blocking for reinforcement, as with stitch and glue construction there is no wood stem, just a thick fillet of epoxy.  I didn't tae an after pick, but I scraped off the paint so that I was epoxying the wood to the underlying fiberglass tape and fillet rather than to the paint.

I rasped a flat spot on the outside so the plate would sit flush.  I over drilled the holes and filled them with epoxy.  Typically bow eyes are bedded in place, but considering that once the deck is on I won't have access to it anyway I went with a more permanent mounting and epoxied it all together.   

It may be a little low, but I didn't want it located at the chine where the stress may cause issues in the future.  I figure it's better a little low than a little high anyway.