3D DAY!

So the day finally came to assemble the sides and bulkheads and see how everything fit.  This is my first boat build, But I'm sure it's one of the red letter days for anyone building boats.  It's the day yu can see the real shape of what you're building for the first time.

I started with the temporary mold

It stands up by itself!  First sense of real proportion.  Next item wast the forward cabin bulkhead #5.  This was the first place i saw a bit of a problem.  Jim specifies a 20 degree side bevel at this bulk head, and i know things turn pretty sharply for the bow, but it seemed like a lot.  Turns out it was.  O sucked the bow together with a rope, but this gap was still present.

I'm thinking maybe the stem and "2 bulkhead in from of it will suck it in, so I installed those next.  I did the stem first to avoid any side to side racking.  then I tapped #2 into place.  They fit extremely well.

Unfortunately the gap at #5 was still present.  Ah well, off to the transom.  I figured I'd lock that in first because the pressure sure helps hold things when putting in intermediate bulkheads.  This is where I noticed another problem.  I'd already reversed the bottom bevel on the transom, and recutting it the right direction made it 3/4" to short.  I figured i'd just laminate some more timber on top to bring it to height.  I'd already sistered the bottom lumber to get some meat back for the bottom pintle and the bottom screws.  Turns out i completely missed the fact that this is the one "frame" that has double thick lumber.  I caught it on laying out the sides.  the line was there for the from face of the transom edge.  That's what tipped me off when i went to install the transom :-)  Ah well again.  it was the right width with the right side bevels, so I installed it as a "temporary" form.  I then went on and installed bulkhead # 12, which came out beautiful.

Back to the problem of bulkhead # 5.  I broke out my handy little protractor, and sure enough the proper bevel is 10 degrees.  Fixing the bevel was going to slight narrow the bulk head.  It's designed at 40" wide.  The curve of the sides seemed to turn pretty had at this bulkhead anyway, and smoothing the curve a bit appealed to me.  not to mention to economy of time and material.  It was a quick fix to change the bevel and see where i ended up, so i tried it.

Perfect.  I'm now 3/4" narrower than designed at bulkhead #5, or 2%.  I can live with that.  The sides look nice and fair.  I took my diagonals and I'm @ 3/16" off measuring stem to each corner of the transom.  On inspecting the stem closely, i see I have one side @ 1/8" higher than the other throwing a slight twist into the boat.  Easy to fix on final assembly.  Here's how it all looks put together.

And I'm a happy camper :-)

So over the next week i'll pull it back apart, cut out the notches and access openings in the bulkheads and build a new transom.  Hopefully next weekend i glue and screw the whole thing together permanently.  I'm going back and forth on whether to frame out the cabin before flipping it for the bottom or doing the bottom first.  the extra framing would be nice for strength while flipping and living upside down.  Then again having the bottom on would have the whole thing in rigid alignment for that frame out.  I'd just want to get the bottom epoxied while upside down, and i'm not sure if i'll have the temperatures for that or get delayed.  Decisions :-)

Here's some video of a walk around after assembly.