Next I made a plank pattern out of cardboard. I looked for some copper roves and rivets for the butt blocks, but in the end I just hot glued them on.

Using the cardboard pattern I scarfed up some ply to fit. After tracing I jigsawed about an inch oversize because I wasn’t sure if the cardboard would distort when I laid if flat. To clamp the scarf joint I used a group 24 battery sitting on top of a 2×4 wrapped in packing tape.

Once I got the port plank fitting nicely I used it as a template for the starboard side. I cut the top edge an inch oversize but the bottom edge fit the bottom panel almost exactly. Hopefully that means the boat is fairly symmetrical.

When dry fitting the port plank I found I had a bit of a pucker when I tried to screw the bottom of the plank up to the frames. I assume it was from distortion when I laid out the cardboard.

To fix it I cut a dart while the plank was on the boat and epoxied a butt block on. After this I used it as a template for the starboard side which fit really well.

After gluing the plank on I chiseled most of the butt block off and sanded the remnants out with a die grinder. Then I beveled out the ply and made a plug to fit. 36 grit roloc disks make short work of scarfing! This plank will have fiberglass on the inside and either fiberglass or possibly kevlar on the outside, so strength wise I doubt it changes anything.

And after a 5 hour marathon session I got the starboard plank glued on as well. I’ve been putting a small popsicle stick radius of thickened epoxy at every joint in the build to make painting and eventual cleaning easier and it’s incredible how time consuming it is. Especially since I try to scrape up all the excess so I don’t have to chisel and sand it off later.