Day 10 - Laying the keel

After getting all of the panel pieces glued together, bevelled, and prepped, it was now time to start slapping them together. Before I could do this, I now had to drill holes in the boat. It does seem strange that I have to drill holes into my boat, but that's what they told me to do. I used a block of wood I created to act as a guide when drilling the holes. It's 6-1/2" long and 1/2" wide. I drilled two holes, spaced at 6" in the center of the block. So, when I spun the block around, and made it flush, it spaced the holes out at 6".

After drilling hundreds of holes, it was time to tie together the to bottom pieces of the boat, to form the keel. You can see the wire ties along the length of the keel, all loose at this point. I had to cut each piece of wire and then bend each one into a U shape to aid in getting it in the holes. The pieces are being supported on a bunch of 2x4 scraps, so I can reach under the boat and guide the wires through the holes.

After getting the pieces wired together, I also wired in some temporary forms to hold the shape of the boat. When I get a bit farther along, all the internal bracing is removed. At this point, all the wire ties have been tightened. I spent some time making sure that the joint along the keel was aligned and even for the entire length.

Here's a shot of the stern. At each end of the boat, I had to triple the number of wire ties to hold the shape of the boat. You can see the amount of flex in the hull panel as it comes up and forms the tail end of the boat.

All in all, made a lot of progress today, and that includes re-building my bike (adding a new bottom bracket, stripping the frame down, cleaning all the parts, and putting it back together).