Cathead

I'm hoping the bending iron helps with those inside frames as it's good at massaging interior curves into place.

Starboard frames are done. Had trouble at first, changed my methods and all went smoothly.
 
Started by soaking in regular tap water for a few hours, then using my bending iron. Worked fine at bow & stern, broke five trying to wrap around the middle molds. Switched to boiling water as described in the instructions. Five minutes in boiling water, plus the plank iron worked like a charm. Redid the whole starboard side with nary a snap. The iron really does help snug the frames down over the tighter curves; I tried it without and they didn't conform as easily. This is the best practice based on the manual, as he says he did the prototype with boiling water, but also praises bending irons to high heaven. 
 
Now I have to wait until tomorrow to do the port side, as (1) I'm out of clamps and (2)I don't dare dislodge any of these mucking around with the model.
 
Steve, I remember reading that discussion. My plans have the same discrepancy. I've decided to ignore it, as (1) the more detailed plan matches the keel, (2) it makes sense to have extra room for unshipping the rudder, and (3) it doesn't change the look of the final model, at least by the standards I've set for this first attempt. Appreciate you bringing it up, though, as it's well worth considering.
 
Also, since I decided to rebuild the transom from scratch, I made it the same thickness, so there's no worry about plank length.

RABBETS AND FAIRING AND TRANSOMS, OH MY!
 
Onward with the launch...the forms are finished and I've begun fairing frames 1-3. The finished keel, rabbet cut and with a second coat of stain, sits proudly in front.

Speaking of rabbets, here's how I approached cutting them.

First I tested methods on scrap wood, by drawing a series of parallel lines the same width apart as the laser-engraved rabbet markings on the keel. I found that a combination of rough cut by knife, followed by a finishing pass with a square file, worked very well. If you look closely, hopefully you can see this sequence in the photo. At bottom, pencilled-in rabbet and bearding lines. Next two up, rough-carved with knife. Last two up, smoother finish using the square file. The other benefit to using a square file is that it produces a true rabbet, by gently filing an angled bearding line 90 degrees from the rabbet. It's harder to achieve this with just a knife, and the result works very nicely based on my test fits of a scrap plank.

Now here's a view of cutting the rabbet on the keel. Pre-staining the keel turns out to be very handy indeed, as the rabbet groove really stands out in fresh wood color and helps guide the work. Working from one frame gap to another, I first carefully traced a shallow vertical cut with the knife along the bearding line, which acts as a guide of sorts for the actual rabbet cut and keeps you from peeling off more keel than you intend. Next, I laid the knife gently on the wood, held with my right hand, and pushed the blade with my left hand in a gently slicing motion to the right, doing about 1/2 inch at a time. Letting the tip of the blade follow the first guiding groove, and watching the middle of the blade to keep it cutting right along the rabbet line, this produced a very accurate first cut. If I needed it deeper, such as at the bow, I cut a second groove along the bearding line, then repeated the process. Finally, I ran the square file along the finished groove, tilted at approximately the accurate rabbet angle, which gave me a very nice angled rabbet groove more accurate than I could have cut on my own, and smoother too. This image shows a first cut on the left, blending into a filed and finished rabbet on the right.

On to the transom, which I decided to rebuild. I found a piece of very thin scrap wood in my leftovers bin, which when combined with standard 1/16" planking, was exactly the original thickness of the transom piece. I traced the transom on this sheet, cut out the new piece, spread wood glue thinly all over, and laid a set of planks cross-ways upon it. Note that I laid the grain of the planks 90 degrees to the grain of the sheet, to minimize warping. Next I set the assembly under a large, heavy stack of appropriately nautical books, and let it dry before carving the planks to match the transom's shape. I've since filled any gaps and stained the result, though I don't have a photo of the result.
 
I've now moved on to fairing the rest of the forms, a process whose squeaking file & sandpaper echoes through our small house and is tolerated good-natured-ly by Mrs Cathead, even when she's trying to play dulcimer over it. This is going well, though I've  had to brace the aft-most frame (#15) to keep it from wiggling too much. I'm looking forward to the adventure of bending frames over the form, having read about a number of interesting results elsewhere.

Pops, thank you, I went and looked at your log after posting that last comment, should have done so before. I'm tempted to try that (building my own transom) as I like the look much better.
 
On to the forms and keel, which I decided to share photos of because I think I set these up a little differently than other logs I've seen.
 

 
As I do a fair amount of home carpentry and woodworking, I have a ton of clamps and squares and such around. Here the keel form is held vertical with a rafter tie (on the left side of the image) while the cross-form being glued is held perfectly square in all three directions with two solid corner squares.
 

 
Taking a page out of my experience building Guillow balsa-frame planes, I mounted the keel plan on a sheet of wood, covered it with tracing paper, then used sewing pins to hold the keel exactly in place while gluing. The instructions say to ensure that the inner curved surface is exactly in line with the plans, never mind if the rest of the joints or surfaces are slightly off, so that's what I did.
 
The joint surfaces themselves were slightly off, such that if you clamped them together the keel twisted slightly. So I used paint bottles to weigh down the assembly, and inserted more pins at shallow angles to hold down the pieces (since I couldn't get bottles right on top the joints with other pins sticking up there). Closeup insert at lower right shows this. I've since taken the keel off and it's perfectly flat/straight.
 
Next update may be a while, as I'll be slowly clamping and gluing one form at a time, and we all know what that looks like. Will be carving the rabbet in the meantime, and we all know what that looks like too unless I do something especially right or wrong.

Two (somewhat weak) arguments against flipping: TRANS may still be visible since it's an open boat, and the laser-scribed fairing lines on the outside of the transom would be hidden and I'd have to either transfer them to the opposite side or just eyeball it. Which could be done.
 
On planking it over, are the kit's planks long enough to accommodate the extra thickness of the transom in that case? It sounds like it would look better than a solid sheet of wood anyway, but I'd hate to do so and then find that the planks end exactly at the original piece?
 
Also, in that case, would I use the same width planks as the sides? And should they be trimmed as they go down to keep seams matching side & stern, or should they stay full width and have the seams not match up?

Like so many before me, I am entering the world of wooden ship kits with the Model Shipways Bounty launch. This is not my first ship model, I have scratchbuilt 3 before this first attempt at an actual kit, but I am still mostly a beginner. Two questions have arisen right away that I am hoping to find advice on.     Here is my workspace, just getting started with the sheer tabs glued on and the keel pieces laminated together. You may notice I've already stained the keel; I want to do the whole model stained, not painted. It makes more sense to me to stain ahead of time, before assembly, but this leads to my first question:   (1) If I pre-stain the planks, will it be a problem for soaking and bending? Will the stain run or be otherwise affected by soaking and using a plank iron?   The image below illustrates my next question:    
So it's quite annoying that MS laser-burns "trans" onto the outside of the transom, I guess just assuming that you'll paint over it. I thought I had sanded away the word before staining, but lo and behold, there is the little bugger. Guess I didn't look at the piece in the right light angle. So the question is, 
 
 
(2) Now what? I can't hardly sand this away, can I? Should I just turn the transom around and hope it isn't visible from the inside? See if I can find a piece of scrap basswood big enough to cut a duplicate?
 
Thanks for any advice, I hope this log is worth following even though the kit isn't very unique.
     

I've been thinking about my oars, too, as something to do in between waiting for soaked planks to dry. There's a nice diagram on p.145 of Roth's Ship Modelling from Stem to Stern that gives the "proper" ratios of different parts of the oar relative to the beam of the boat they're used in. Can't seem to find a version online. It's a nice chapter on small boats in general.

Really interesting image, thanks for sharing!

Really interesting image, thanks for sharing!

Like Bligh before me, I discovered a problem in my supplies, and overcame it through patience and analysis. Namely, my intended source of planking clips did not manifest itself as I had expected.
 
I have seen reference in numerous places to the practice of using binder clips (as they are called in the US) for holding planks firmly to bulkheads and frames. In every reference, one simply removes a handle, inserts it in a second clip, and one has a three-dimensional planking clip.
 
That did not work for me. The handles of my large clips are not long enough to fit entirely through their clips; after multiple attempts at squeezing them in there sent sharp metal objects pinging off my glasses, I opted not to finish the launch as a one-eyed pirate and considered other options. Clearly I needed to try other sizes of clips, but as I live in a rural area without shops, this would have to wait until my next trip into town. 
 
This eventually achieved, I present the Cathead Index of Usable Binder Clips:
On the far right, you see the initial binder clip with handy scale (I'm sure the rest of you can convert to metric if you really want to). You can see that the handle simply doesn't extend far enough to allow the wide part through the clip.
 
I purchased two smaller sizes to experiment with. The smallest one was too small, having exactly the same problem as the biggest one. The medium one worked as it is supposed to. I know that Jack Aubrey is referred to as Goldilocks from time to time, but I did not expect the Goldilocks solution to apply so neatly to this nautical dilemma.
 
On the left side of the Index, you see my other discovery. In general, you can insert the handle from a larger clip into the clip of a smaller clip, and achieve a proper result. From right to left (apparently this is a Hebrew Index), big handle in medium clip, medium handle in medium clip, medium handle in small clip. Now I have three sizes and strengths of clip to use. The other benefit here is that the medium clip handles are coated in something soft, possibly limiting any damage to planks.
 
Forgive me if wrong, but I have not seen this salient point presented elsewhere. Or do non-American binder clips come in subtly different length-to-clip ratios?  Regardless, I am pleased to have worked out this discovery on my own and can proceed with planking. The launch is getting lonely.
 
Oh yes, one other item of note: I seem to have fallen into the same trap as Captain Steve. I intended to use candle wax between my frames and forms, but found it too hard. After some cogitation, I struck upon the use of an old tin of Mrs Cathead's natural beeswax lip balm. The consistency is perfect. However.
 
The poor launch now smells of the type of store frequented by ladies with names such as Dandelion and Beatrice. Model Shipways really ought to develop a modelling wax that smelt of tar, sweat, and salt. I must simply hope it recedes over time.

Hey CaptainSteve,
 
Check this toolbox out at toolchest-site.com
 
Matt

I'm hoping the bending iron helps with those inside frames as it's good at massaging interior curves into place.

RABBETS AND FAIRING AND TRANSOMS, OH MY!
 
Onward with the launch...the forms are finished and I've begun fairing frames 1-3. The finished keel, rabbet cut and with a second coat of stain, sits proudly in front.

Speaking of rabbets, here's how I approached cutting them.

First I tested methods on scrap wood, by drawing a series of parallel lines the same width apart as the laser-engraved rabbet markings on the keel. I found that a combination of rough cut by knife, followed by a finishing pass with a square file, worked very well. If you look closely, hopefully you can see this sequence in the photo. At bottom, pencilled-in rabbet and bearding lines. Next two up, rough-carved with knife. Last two up, smoother finish using the square file. The other benefit to using a square file is that it produces a true rabbet, by gently filing an angled bearding line 90 degrees from the rabbet. It's harder to achieve this with just a knife, and the result works very nicely based on my test fits of a scrap plank.

Now here's a view of cutting the rabbet on the keel. Pre-staining the keel turns out to be very handy indeed, as the rabbet groove really stands out in fresh wood color and helps guide the work. Working from one frame gap to another, I first carefully traced a shallow vertical cut with the knife along the bearding line, which acts as a guide of sorts for the actual rabbet cut and keeps you from peeling off more keel than you intend. Next, I laid the knife gently on the wood, held with my right hand, and pushed the blade with my left hand in a gently slicing motion to the right, doing about 1/2 inch at a time. Letting the tip of the blade follow the first guiding groove, and watching the middle of the blade to keep it cutting right along the rabbet line, this produced a very accurate first cut. If I needed it deeper, such as at the bow, I cut a second groove along the bearding line, then repeated the process. Finally, I ran the square file along the finished groove, tilted at approximately the accurate rabbet angle, which gave me a very nice angled rabbet groove more accurate than I could have cut on my own, and smoother too. This image shows a first cut on the left, blending into a filed and finished rabbet on the right.

On to the transom, which I decided to rebuild. I found a piece of very thin scrap wood in my leftovers bin, which when combined with standard 1/16" planking, was exactly the original thickness of the transom piece. I traced the transom on this sheet, cut out the new piece, spread wood glue thinly all over, and laid a set of planks cross-ways upon it. Note that I laid the grain of the planks 90 degrees to the grain of the sheet, to minimize warping. Next I set the assembly under a large, heavy stack of appropriately nautical books, and let it dry before carving the planks to match the transom's shape. I've since filled any gaps and stained the result, though I don't have a photo of the result.
 
I've now moved on to fairing the rest of the forms, a process whose squeaking file & sandpaper echoes through our small house and is tolerated good-natured-ly by Mrs Cathead, even when she's trying to play dulcimer over it. This is going well, though I've  had to brace the aft-most frame (#15) to keep it from wiggling too much. I'm looking forward to the adventure of bending frames over the form, having read about a number of interesting results elsewhere.

I found that using a flat metal file with one dull edge worked really well for fairing past the sheer tab. I held it vertical along the mold, with just a slight twist to the wrist, and was able to finish the fairing all the way down pretty consistently. The dull edge is important so it doesn't saw a notch into the tab.

Starboard frames are done. Had trouble at first, changed my methods and all went smoothly.
 
Started by soaking in regular tap water for a few hours, then using my bending iron. Worked fine at bow & stern, broke five trying to wrap around the middle molds. Switched to boiling water as described in the instructions. Five minutes in boiling water, plus the plank iron worked like a charm. Redid the whole starboard side with nary a snap. The iron really does help snug the frames down over the tighter curves; I tried it without and they didn't conform as easily. This is the best practice based on the manual, as he says he did the prototype with boiling water, but also praises bending irons to high heaven. 
 
Now I have to wait until tomorrow to do the port side, as (1) I'm out of clamps and (2)I don't dare dislodge any of these mucking around with the model.
 
Steve, I remember reading that discussion. My plans have the same discrepancy. I've decided to ignore it, as (1) the more detailed plan matches the keel, (2) it makes sense to have extra room for unshipping the rudder, and (3) it doesn't change the look of the final model, at least by the standards I've set for this first attempt. Appreciate you bringing it up, though, as it's well worth considering.
 
Also, since I decided to rebuild the transom from scratch, I made it the same thickness, so there's no worry about plank length.

Starboard frames are done. Had trouble at first, changed my methods and all went smoothly.
 
Started by soaking in regular tap water for a few hours, then using my bending iron. Worked fine at bow & stern, broke five trying to wrap around the middle molds. Switched to boiling water as described in the instructions. Five minutes in boiling water, plus the plank iron worked like a charm. Redid the whole starboard side with nary a snap. The iron really does help snug the frames down over the tighter curves; I tried it without and they didn't conform as easily. This is the best practice based on the manual, as he says he did the prototype with boiling water, but also praises bending irons to high heaven. 
 
Now I have to wait until tomorrow to do the port side, as (1) I'm out of clamps and (2)I don't dare dislodge any of these mucking around with the model.
 
Steve, I remember reading that discussion. My plans have the same discrepancy. I've decided to ignore it, as (1) the more detailed plan matches the keel, (2) it makes sense to have extra room for unshipping the rudder, and (3) it doesn't change the look of the final model, at least by the standards I've set for this first attempt. Appreciate you bringing it up, though, as it's well worth considering.
 
Also, since I decided to rebuild the transom from scratch, I made it the same thickness, so there's no worry about plank length.

RABBETS AND FAIRING AND TRANSOMS, OH MY!
 
Onward with the launch...the forms are finished and I've begun fairing frames 1-3. The finished keel, rabbet cut and with a second coat of stain, sits proudly in front.

Speaking of rabbets, here's how I approached cutting them.

First I tested methods on scrap wood, by drawing a series of parallel lines the same width apart as the laser-engraved rabbet markings on the keel. I found that a combination of rough cut by knife, followed by a finishing pass with a square file, worked very well. If you look closely, hopefully you can see this sequence in the photo. At bottom, pencilled-in rabbet and bearding lines. Next two up, rough-carved with knife. Last two up, smoother finish using the square file. The other benefit to using a square file is that it produces a true rabbet, by gently filing an angled bearding line 90 degrees from the rabbet. It's harder to achieve this with just a knife, and the result works very nicely based on my test fits of a scrap plank.

Now here's a view of cutting the rabbet on the keel. Pre-staining the keel turns out to be very handy indeed, as the rabbet groove really stands out in fresh wood color and helps guide the work. Working from one frame gap to another, I first carefully traced a shallow vertical cut with the knife along the bearding line, which acts as a guide of sorts for the actual rabbet cut and keeps you from peeling off more keel than you intend. Next, I laid the knife gently on the wood, held with my right hand, and pushed the blade with my left hand in a gently slicing motion to the right, doing about 1/2 inch at a time. Letting the tip of the blade follow the first guiding groove, and watching the middle of the blade to keep it cutting right along the rabbet line, this produced a very accurate first cut. If I needed it deeper, such as at the bow, I cut a second groove along the bearding line, then repeated the process. Finally, I ran the square file along the finished groove, tilted at approximately the accurate rabbet angle, which gave me a very nice angled rabbet groove more accurate than I could have cut on my own, and smoother too. This image shows a first cut on the left, blending into a filed and finished rabbet on the right.

On to the transom, which I decided to rebuild. I found a piece of very thin scrap wood in my leftovers bin, which when combined with standard 1/16" planking, was exactly the original thickness of the transom piece. I traced the transom on this sheet, cut out the new piece, spread wood glue thinly all over, and laid a set of planks cross-ways upon it. Note that I laid the grain of the planks 90 degrees to the grain of the sheet, to minimize warping. Next I set the assembly under a large, heavy stack of appropriately nautical books, and let it dry before carving the planks to match the transom's shape. I've since filled any gaps and stained the result, though I don't have a photo of the result.
 
I've now moved on to fairing the rest of the forms, a process whose squeaking file & sandpaper echoes through our small house and is tolerated good-natured-ly by Mrs Cathead, even when she's trying to play dulcimer over it. This is going well, though I've  had to brace the aft-most frame (#15) to keep it from wiggling too much. I'm looking forward to the adventure of bending frames over the form, having read about a number of interesting results elsewhere.

RABBETS AND FAIRING AND TRANSOMS, OH MY!
 
Onward with the launch...the forms are finished and I've begun fairing frames 1-3. The finished keel, rabbet cut and with a second coat of stain, sits proudly in front.

Speaking of rabbets, here's how I approached cutting them.

First I tested methods on scrap wood, by drawing a series of parallel lines the same width apart as the laser-engraved rabbet markings on the keel. I found that a combination of rough cut by knife, followed by a finishing pass with a square file, worked very well. If you look closely, hopefully you can see this sequence in the photo. At bottom, pencilled-in rabbet and bearding lines. Next two up, rough-carved with knife. Last two up, smoother finish using the square file. The other benefit to using a square file is that it produces a true rabbet, by gently filing an angled bearding line 90 degrees from the rabbet. It's harder to achieve this with just a knife, and the result works very nicely based on my test fits of a scrap plank.

Now here's a view of cutting the rabbet on the keel. Pre-staining the keel turns out to be very handy indeed, as the rabbet groove really stands out in fresh wood color and helps guide the work. Working from one frame gap to another, I first carefully traced a shallow vertical cut with the knife along the bearding line, which acts as a guide of sorts for the actual rabbet cut and keeps you from peeling off more keel than you intend. Next, I laid the knife gently on the wood, held with my right hand, and pushed the blade with my left hand in a gently slicing motion to the right, doing about 1/2 inch at a time. Letting the tip of the blade follow the first guiding groove, and watching the middle of the blade to keep it cutting right along the rabbet line, this produced a very accurate first cut. If I needed it deeper, such as at the bow, I cut a second groove along the bearding line, then repeated the process. Finally, I ran the square file along the finished groove, tilted at approximately the accurate rabbet angle, which gave me a very nice angled rabbet groove more accurate than I could have cut on my own, and smoother too. This image shows a first cut on the left, blending into a filed and finished rabbet on the right.

On to the transom, which I decided to rebuild. I found a piece of very thin scrap wood in my leftovers bin, which when combined with standard 1/16" planking, was exactly the original thickness of the transom piece. I traced the transom on this sheet, cut out the new piece, spread wood glue thinly all over, and laid a set of planks cross-ways upon it. Note that I laid the grain of the planks 90 degrees to the grain of the sheet, to minimize warping. Next I set the assembly under a large, heavy stack of appropriately nautical books, and let it dry before carving the planks to match the transom's shape. I've since filled any gaps and stained the result, though I don't have a photo of the result.
 
I've now moved on to fairing the rest of the forms, a process whose squeaking file & sandpaper echoes through our small house and is tolerated good-natured-ly by Mrs Cathead, even when she's trying to play dulcimer over it. This is going well, though I've  had to brace the aft-most frame (#15) to keep it from wiggling too much. I'm looking forward to the adventure of bending frames over the form, having read about a number of interesting results elsewhere.

Pops, thank you, I went and looked at your log after posting that last comment, should have done so before. I'm tempted to try that (building my own transom) as I like the look much better.
 
On to the forms and keel, which I decided to share photos of because I think I set these up a little differently than other logs I've seen.
 

 
As I do a fair amount of home carpentry and woodworking, I have a ton of clamps and squares and such around. Here the keel form is held vertical with a rafter tie (on the left side of the image) while the cross-form being glued is held perfectly square in all three directions with two solid corner squares.
 

 
Taking a page out of my experience building Guillow balsa-frame planes, I mounted the keel plan on a sheet of wood, covered it with tracing paper, then used sewing pins to hold the keel exactly in place while gluing. The instructions say to ensure that the inner curved surface is exactly in line with the plans, never mind if the rest of the joints or surfaces are slightly off, so that's what I did.
 
The joint surfaces themselves were slightly off, such that if you clamped them together the keel twisted slightly. So I used paint bottles to weigh down the assembly, and inserted more pins at shallow angles to hold down the pieces (since I couldn't get bottles right on top the joints with other pins sticking up there). Closeup insert at lower right shows this. I've since taken the keel off and it's perfectly flat/straight.
 
Next update may be a while, as I'll be slowly clamping and gluing one form at a time, and we all know what that looks like. Will be carving the rabbet in the meantime, and we all know what that looks like too unless I do something especially right or wrong.

RABBETS AND FAIRING AND TRANSOMS, OH MY!
 
Onward with the launch...the forms are finished and I've begun fairing frames 1-3. The finished keel, rabbet cut and with a second coat of stain, sits proudly in front.

Speaking of rabbets, here's how I approached cutting them.

First I tested methods on scrap wood, by drawing a series of parallel lines the same width apart as the laser-engraved rabbet markings on the keel. I found that a combination of rough cut by knife, followed by a finishing pass with a square file, worked very well. If you look closely, hopefully you can see this sequence in the photo. At bottom, pencilled-in rabbet and bearding lines. Next two up, rough-carved with knife. Last two up, smoother finish using the square file. The other benefit to using a square file is that it produces a true rabbet, by gently filing an angled bearding line 90 degrees from the rabbet. It's harder to achieve this with just a knife, and the result works very nicely based on my test fits of a scrap plank.

Now here's a view of cutting the rabbet on the keel. Pre-staining the keel turns out to be very handy indeed, as the rabbet groove really stands out in fresh wood color and helps guide the work. Working from one frame gap to another, I first carefully traced a shallow vertical cut with the knife along the bearding line, which acts as a guide of sorts for the actual rabbet cut and keeps you from peeling off more keel than you intend. Next, I laid the knife gently on the wood, held with my right hand, and pushed the blade with my left hand in a gently slicing motion to the right, doing about 1/2 inch at a time. Letting the tip of the blade follow the first guiding groove, and watching the middle of the blade to keep it cutting right along the rabbet line, this produced a very accurate first cut. If I needed it deeper, such as at the bow, I cut a second groove along the bearding line, then repeated the process. Finally, I ran the square file along the finished groove, tilted at approximately the accurate rabbet angle, which gave me a very nice angled rabbet groove more accurate than I could have cut on my own, and smoother too. This image shows a first cut on the left, blending into a filed and finished rabbet on the right.

On to the transom, which I decided to rebuild. I found a piece of very thin scrap wood in my leftovers bin, which when combined with standard 1/16" planking, was exactly the original thickness of the transom piece. I traced the transom on this sheet, cut out the new piece, spread wood glue thinly all over, and laid a set of planks cross-ways upon it. Note that I laid the grain of the planks 90 degrees to the grain of the sheet, to minimize warping. Next I set the assembly under a large, heavy stack of appropriately nautical books, and let it dry before carving the planks to match the transom's shape. I've since filled any gaps and stained the result, though I don't have a photo of the result.
 
I've now moved on to fairing the rest of the forms, a process whose squeaking file & sandpaper echoes through our small house and is tolerated good-natured-ly by Mrs Cathead, even when she's trying to play dulcimer over it. This is going well, though I've  had to brace the aft-most frame (#15) to keep it from wiggling too much. I'm looking forward to the adventure of bending frames over the form, having read about a number of interesting results elsewhere.

Pops, thank you, I went and looked at your log after posting that last comment, should have done so before. I'm tempted to try that (building my own transom) as I like the look much better.
 
On to the forms and keel, which I decided to share photos of because I think I set these up a little differently than other logs I've seen.
 

 
As I do a fair amount of home carpentry and woodworking, I have a ton of clamps and squares and such around. Here the keel form is held vertical with a rafter tie (on the left side of the image) while the cross-form being glued is held perfectly square in all three directions with two solid corner squares.
 

 
Taking a page out of my experience building Guillow balsa-frame planes, I mounted the keel plan on a sheet of wood, covered it with tracing paper, then used sewing pins to hold the keel exactly in place while gluing. The instructions say to ensure that the inner curved surface is exactly in line with the plans, never mind if the rest of the joints or surfaces are slightly off, so that's what I did.
 
The joint surfaces themselves were slightly off, such that if you clamped them together the keel twisted slightly. So I used paint bottles to weigh down the assembly, and inserted more pins at shallow angles to hold down the pieces (since I couldn't get bottles right on top the joints with other pins sticking up there). Closeup insert at lower right shows this. I've since taken the keel off and it's perfectly flat/straight.
 
Next update may be a while, as I'll be slowly clamping and gluing one form at a time, and we all know what that looks like. Will be carving the rabbet in the meantime, and we all know what that looks like too unless I do something especially right or wrong.