JEM Watercraft

Wooohoot!

All the planks now cut and finished (planed to the lines). Was just about to lay them all out on the yard for the traditional photograph when it started to rain So didn't get the photo this evening. Will grab one before I do the butt joints though.

I've been using a combination of electric planer to rough plane close to the pencil line and then switched to the good old stanley smoothing plane to finish them off. I found I had so much more control with the old hand tool. For the concave lines I found I had to go in with a belt sander just to get a nice curve.

Glass tape arrives tomorrow so I can mix up some peanut butter and have them laid up until the weekend.

Trad: All the planks now cut.
Each plank pair is held together with cable ties whilst sanding to shape.

Planks now need to be butt jointed

Will start to look like a boat soon.

Cable ties are a good idea. Coming along Falcn!

All planks now butt jointed. Should be able to start stitching this weekend. Piccies to follow. Could well see a boat shaped thing soon instead of a pile of floppy timber.

Starting stitching, first four planks starting to put some shape into it.

Mate I love your workshop. Very roomy.

I have been working in the garage, but the light is better for photos outside

First mistake of the build too - forgot to mark up the reference lines on the inside. Luckily I noticed before I've tacked it with epoxy. A quick snip of a few cable ties should get me back on line.

I also spotted a couple of wavy cuts, but nothing too problematic

Yep, it's gonna be a boat alright. Brings back some recent memories.

Love the commitment to nice pics. I'm not so fussed, besides, most of my build has been at night when it's been dark cold and wet.

A quick question about stitching the boat:
I'm starting to tighten up some of the stitches to get the alignments correct, but there do appear to be a few wood-on-wood tight spots. Whats the best way of dealing with these? In the instructions it says you DO NOT want any wood on wood joints.
Is it best to force in additional spacers to spread the planks, or is it better to maybe run a tiny dremel circular saw down the joint to ease it a little?
Any thoughts welcome.