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Monday, January 16, 2012

Bottoms Up

I laid out the bottom sections yesterday and the day before.  It was cold out, and inside the shop, but I wanted to work on the skiff, so I laid out the remainder of the plywood as directed in the building instructions and traced out the bottom of the boat on the two pieces.
There was plenty of wood to spare and once I had the pattern traced I cut out the 2 pieces leaving about 1" extra along each side and about 4 inches at the bow.  I just used the foot of the jig saw as a guide by putting it on the line as I cut instead of putting the blade on the line.
After I had the wood stove going to heat up the place a bit I cut out the 4" wide butt block  for the scarph to just shy of the inside edges of the bottom, about 1/4' shy of the full width.
Just as I had scarfed the side panels together way back when, I scarfed the 2 bottom pieces together as well.  The main difference is that I haven't put in any fasteners and I am not sure that I will.
I have since learned about how poorly brass does in the water and though it won't be such a problem in the side panels, in the bottom it could be a problem.  Hopefully the glue, the skeg, the grounding pieces will be enough mechanical support if the glue isn't enough.  We'll see.

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