Thursday, September 25, 2008

Shape up!

Last night I scarfed the hull panels together, and tonight after work (with surprisingly no cursing and spitting!) Traci and I stitched the hull sides to the bottom. Damn, this thing actually looks like it could one day be a boat. And that forklift driver was skeptical...



We started out by drilling holes for the zip ties the entire length on one side of the chine and "loading up" the zip ties. That allowed us to get a good two-person system going drilling a couple of holes at a time the bottom side and cinching down the ties starting at the stern and working forward. This worked out great and we had the shape of the hull in a couple of hours.

I also laminated up the transom, so that will be stitched in tomorrow. We'll also do a little more work on the cradle so that the hull bottom is where it ought to be before we fillet and tape the chines and center line.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Kids,
This looks like fun! and work! Can't wait to see the finished project.

See you soon.
Bob & Liz

Scott said...

Stitchig? Is thing thing sewn together? How many heads? Room for a hot tub?

Kevin McDaniel said...

Look like you're off to a great start.

I ran a plank on 2 ladders above the hull to fillet and tape the center seam. One mistake I made was getting off the plank and standing in the hull before it was done. I popped the bottom panel below the side panels and didn't realize it until after the fillets had setup. If you can reach in, then stay out of the boat until the frames are zipped in. Or send Traci in :-).

Oh, and consider putting your sheer clamp in before the frames to keep the gunwale fair. You'll have to notch the frames around it, but that could help hold the frames in place too.

Cheers, Kevin.

Unknown said...

Man, you are movin! I better get going, I wouldn't want to get passed!