Finally I got the last bulkhead put together. The centerboard case makes up the front of the starboard side bench, so that hatched bit of ply gets cut away after the bottom two pairs of planks go on. The center section will form the end of the water ballast tank.

With the bulkheads all in place it was finally time to work on the stringers. For nearly 10 years I’ve had a 9.5′ long redwood 6×6 I found when I moved my metalworking shop into an old boss’s workshop. He had it for over 30 years and I’ve never really known what to do with it since it seemed too nice to cut up. I figured this was a worthy project so I took it over to a buddy’s sawmill and sliced it into four equal slabs. In a previous job I helped design and manufacture a portable sawmill and it was really interesting seeing how this company solved the same problems we came up against.

After running the slabs through the planer I found the tightest sections had about 45 rings per inch!

Next I ripped six strips per slab and planed everything to 30mm x 3/4″. This build has been a hodgepodge of metric and customary. The plans are metric but I’ve built most of the stuff that doesn’t really matter to customary so I can visualize what I need to make or make use of common material thicknesses. Originally I thought I’d use 1x material for the stringers so that’s what I made my stringer notch router jig cut.

Finally I checked each strip for a bow and rounded over the edges on the inside of the curve. I figured it’s better to put the strips on the boat the way they want to bend rather than fighting them.

I’m going to need to do a lot of scarfing so I made a 10:1 jig. I think the fence might be a bit bowed or something because I found I needed a shim to keep the strips tight up by the blade.

Gluing up the scarfed sections. I ran a 36 grit disk over the joints to really rip them up a bit before priming with neat epoxy and then clamping with thickened. Heat lamps help things along.

Got the bottom two pairs screwed into place. I had to do some beveling on the notches in the frame with a burr in a die grinder and one of the notches seems to be nearly an inch off to get the batten to lay fair. After dry fitting I’d let the forward half spring out and glue them in place. Then the next day I’d do the rear half of a stringer. I guess it helps prevent distortion, but mainly that’s all I could get done during a lunch break!

Unfortunately my strips were about a foot too short so I had to scarf a bit more on.

Finally the strips are in and fairly fair. Next up I’ll build some cardboard plank patterns, scarf my plywood, and put the bottom two pairs of planks on. I trimmed the OSB bottom panel supports so the planks can lap over the bottom without interference. I figure I’ll leave the plywood oversize and scribe it to the bottom panel.