300 Hours

I passed another milestone this week; I passed 300 hours on the build. Am I half way? Who knows?

This week I worked on filling holes (covered in the previous post) and later some sanding and working on the outer stem.

I did not laminate the outer stem over the inner stem when I made it. Many do that. Others laminate it strip by strip over the inner stem once it is in place which I thought I might do. I have decided to craft a solid stem from 2 pieces. Larchmont Jim did that in his build as have others.

Here's a pic of my form that I'll use to get the shape correct. These are called tickler sticks.

I cut out the shape in a scrap piece of ply so that I could use it to cut out the stem from a 2x6 that I have. It's not exactly exotic wood, but it'll have to do. It's going to take some work to get it right. Once it's cut out, I have to plane it down and bevel it a little bit. 

I did some sanding. I went over the entire hull with some coarse sand paper paying special attention to the holes that I filled. It's going to take some more work filling in a couple of those holes and the countersunk  screws in the bow. I may try to find some shorter screws to put into the transom as well. Once that's all done, I'll go over the hull again with 120 or 150 sand paper.

I also went over the transom after doing some filling the other day.

Last night I finished my work with a little cleanup. Cleared off the work bench and vacuumed the floor.

I'm going to need that work bench, especially when I turn the hull over.