GuntherMT

Rich - those deadeyes are a kit. Go to the website and find the instructions to assemble them, there are three pieces to each deadeye and when complete they will look great but they do require a little bit of assembly and finish work. You should not be removing the individual bits from the parts sheet until three sheets are glued together.

Love your scratch stack and the little details. This continues to be a wonderful build.

Fantastic looking furled mainsail Frank! I really like how it came out.

Very good to see you back Frank, and I'm extremely happy that things are turning out well for you. Hope to see her in person one of these days!

Looking great. I like your work on the winch and the butte, very nice. Not sure about the cat-head location, but that's probably just because I'm so used to seeing it in a different location on mine! Enjoying watching your progress, thanks for sharing.

Another possibility is to use the improvised mill to square off the existing attempt, leaving not enough material, but you just use some of the extra sheet wood in the kit to 'shim' those now squared up areas and then sand down as needed for a good fit. Except looking right at the base of the keel from the bottom, no way to see that it is more pieces of wood than it should be. I almost had to do mine that way.

Good luck on the move Rich, hope everything goes well and you are happy in the new place.

Le' boat continues, albeit slowly as I've been out of the country a bit, and very busy, and then sick. Good times. After finishing the keel, the next step is to attach the transom. There is a lovely laser-cut guide making it very easy to get vertical, but of course it also needs to be at a 90 degree angle to the keel. I think I got it pretty close. After the transom the next step is the frames. This boat has two types of frames (as everyone knows by this point, but typing up the log as if it's a stand alone thing) single piece and 3 piece. We start with the single piece frames, which are the frames at the the ends, both the bow and the stern. Chuck suggests reinforcing these pieces prior to working with them, by placing tape on both sides, and also gluing a small piece of wood in place at the tops, which will later be covered below the cap rail and between planking layers. I did this, but took no photo's of that process, although it can be seen in the pictures if you squint just right. The reinforcement is suggested, because these frames are only 1/32" thick, and will need to be faired later before planking. After reinforcement the frames are removed from the parts sheet, and then test fit into the proper slots in the building board. They are purposely cut just slightly oversized as they need to fit snugly. The process here is simply sand slightly, test fit, sand slightly, test fit.. until they fit snugly, but not so tight that they can't be adjusted. The same process is then used to make the frame pieces fit snugly into the proper slots in the keel. Once all the pieces are test fit individually, they are then all put into the building board, and test fit together with the keel as a single unit. Nothing is glued (including the build board which will remain in 2 parts for a while) in these photo's, this is a dry fit. Next up I start assembling the 3-piece frames, which will then need to be fit into the building board and keel in the same way.

Looking great! Wish I could find more time to get into the shop and continue work on mine. It's good to have a busy life, but sort of wish it was less busy at times.

I glued them one at a time also, did not pre-assemble them. Worked perfectly.

Photo's from earlier. Once the lap joints were secure, I moved on to attaching the 4 other parts of the keel, which are centered on the now finished section. I followed the instructions and added the bow piece first, then the two stern pieces, and then finished with the long center piece. This kit is going to completely wreck my desire to do any 'mainstream' wood kits, as every single piece so far has fit perfectly without any adjustment at all. Cleaned up all the excess glue before it could dry, and then moved on to removing the laser char from the edges. Decided to give everything a coat of wipe-on poly per the instructions, when I discovered that my can of wipe-on poly is now a brick of solid poly. Oops! Time for a run to the store. Returned from the store and decided to go ahead and do the nails before the poly because I didn't want to wait for it to dry. I used some tracing paper to trace the pattern for the nails from the plans, and then used a pin to mark the locations on the keel parts on both sides. I then test fit the mono-filament line in several different size holes, and ended up using a .028" drill for the holes, which is a nice tight fit. Drilled out all the holes and then inserted mono-filament line into the holes after dipping the end in my wood glue and clipped it off to dry. I used edge-cutters to cut the line very close to the wood, and then finished with a straight razor, being careful not to cut into the wood. Gave everything a final pass with 220 grit sandpaper, and then cleaned everything and applied the first coat of wipe-on poly.

Re-assessed the keel this morning with a hopefully fresh brain, and decided that I could salvage it even though it wouldn't be "right" (one half of the lap-joint would be thicker than the other). The only way this would be seen would be from the bottom of the keel, so I decided to go for it and see what happens. I put the keel piece that I had cut too deeply into the mill and took that entire side down to match the lowest point, and then milled the stem piece much shallower to match it. I then completed the bow lap joints and fit them together. I'm not 100% happy with the joints, but they work and I don't think anyone but me will notice the imperfections, or the 'out of balance' lap joint in the stern (since it's pretty unlikely even in a high level model show that the judges would pick up the boat and inspect the keel from the bottom). I have them glued up and drying now, and will hopefully add the other 4 pieces to the keel and get the nails done this afternoon, and then I'll post some pictures.

The rust is certainly showing. Started on the keel and on the very first lap joint I got too deep on one edge and wrecked it (cutting it beyond half way). I've ordered some 5/32" yellow cedar to use to replace the keel parts and will try again, so my 'start' will be a bit delayed because of my own stupidity. Oh well! I will use the rest of the keel parts to continue working on knocking the rust off, and hopefully will only need to re-cut and replace the one piece.

Great start, but that's not a scarf joint. 😁

Coming along nicely Rich.