Little stuff



I started assembling the case today, realizing it is going to take several stages (days) of glue-up to put it all together.  Taking a cue from the book (duh), i decided to glue just one of the cheeks to the case uprights.  It will be best to paint the insides before assembling the case, and I may even include a few inches of anti-fouling paint on the lower few inches.

Tomorrow I'll glue the other cheek to the assembly, and fit it into the slot in the keel to make sure it will go together and mate with the floors at stations 2 and 3.   The third stage will be to add the end cap, logs, upper rails, and topcap.  There will be some additional cosmetic trim pieces that will hide the aft edges of the case cheeks and improve the visual balance of the case.  All but the top-cap will be painted.  The top cap will be finished bright, as it will be perpendicular and contiguous with the midships thwart.  The other thwarts, quarter knees, knee braces, and floorboards will also be finished bright.

While  I was messing with epoxy, I glued the floors for stations 4 and 5 into the bottom, using some poplar battens to spring-clamp from the ceiling.



I finished the day making the oarlock caps from a piece of iroko I had around from the summer's replacement of the chafe strips on Ripple's mast.  Iroko is an inexpensive teak substitute, and should stand up well to the battering it is liable to suffer in this application.


I drilled the holes for the bronze gudgeons, traced the outline of each gudgeon, and drilled the corners of each with a small forstner bit to approximate depth.  I knifed the outlines so as to start a knife wall for chiseling, wasted the insides and then progressively brought each to a constant depth with the router plane.  I really like this tool!  I will find many more things to do with it, I am sure.

About 4 hours, and a real relief for the temperature to have come back up into the 40s and 50s.

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