| 12/24-- The stems are glued on with epoxy and ready to trim fair to the hull. The visible screws will be removed and the holes plugged after the epoxy cures. | |
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My decision to start stripping the hull before making the new outer stems has come back to haunt. I took new tracings off the blueprint and cut out new stem molds. Then I bent and laminated ash stock to replace the old oak stems. |
| Since the inner and outer stems weren't bent at the same time and were bent on different molds there are minor variations. I finally managed to get a good fit between them, but only after a lot of work shaving out the inside surface of the outer stem. | |
| 12/26-- The hull's been faired and sanded with 60 grit. There are still a few minor bumps to smooth out, then to go over it with 120 grit sandpaper. |  |
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A close-up of the stern showing the hardwood stem after
it's been faired to the hull.
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| Here's the array of tools used for fairing the hull. At
first the scrapers removed the dried glue and some of the high spots,
then the spokeshaves and planes were used to shave down the ridges
where the strips come together. Next I used the beltsander. warning about
beltsanders: |
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| Finally a piece of 1/8" luan plywood
wrapped in a sheet of 60 grit paper as a batten to fair out large areas
and to smooth out the curve at the bilge and at the bow and stern.
Finally the orbital sander to take out any cross-grain sanding marks. For most of the fairing process I found the smaller tools to work better. I most heavily used the small plane and the two small brass spokeshaves. |
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