Let's Build a Boat!

So... boatbuilding began in earnest this morning upon my return from the local marine supply shop for some epoxy and epoxy tools/safety equipment. I must say, my geographic location has been a blessing for undertaking this project. I have read about a few other people's projects who have to have supplies shipped to them in bulk from a great distance away, and I feel very very fortunate to have a myriad of marine supply shops as well as marine plywood suppliers in the greater Boston area. I can literally buy supplies as I need them avoiding any large lump sum payments (a key factor to allow me to finish such a project). The biggest x-factor I thought was going to be acquiring the okoume plywood. After some brief web research I discovered Boulter Plywood, all of 1 mile from my house. Anyway, onto the boatbuilding.

I started with cutting out the pieces for the centerboard trunk and sanding them down to the exact size, it was pretty fun getting started I had to admit. I then milled down a nice solid piece of mahogany I had laying around into the noseblock. It's probably about 1/16th of an inch shorter than it's supposed to be but I assume I can get away with that. (Apparently the guide marks on my table saw are off by 1/16th on an inch. A good fact to know upfront) Another exciting revelation was the joy of using a block plane. You can see by the mess I made in the last photo that I decided to forego ripping off a large chunk with the table saw (it does still scare me after all) and went after that chunk of wood with zeal with the block plane. Serious fun. My father had a block plane when I was a kid but it was a piece of crap, I bought a new one and that thing is a thing of beauty in action. Apparently I am amused by simple things.

Lastly, I laid down the first coat of epoxy and glass fabric on the insides of the centerboard trunk before calling it a day. I found working with the epoxy to be much easier than I had expected, and with disposable gloves clean up was easy. (I chose this as my last step of the day b/c I figured sawdust floating around the work area and landing on curing epoxy would not be desirable.) Tomorrow is going to be an easy day I think, just cutting out more pieces and applying another coat of epoxy onto the trunk. There's no turning back now...