Wrapping up a few little things before jigging up

Well the last few days I have been finishing up all the small pieces and getting everything ready to assemble the hull.  I cut out the giant bottom panels.  First I cut out one panel, then rough cut the second.  Next I ran a router with a pattern cutting bit so both panels matched.  Finally, I ran a belt sander with that nasty 36 grit belt all the way around to make them smooth and fair.  Here is a before and after.

 Those panels are right around 30 feet long.  Notice the can of insect repellent?  The mosquitos are horrible!

Then I made the chine flats.  I did not make them according to the Great Alaskan manual, or the Tolman skiff manual.  I figured I knew how to make them better.  I hope that I was right.....

First I lofted the chine flats out on my shop floor with a sharpie.  Then I took my 8 foot long pieces of 3/4 ply that I had ripped down to 14 and 10 inches wide and started laying them out until they covered the lofting.  Then I marked them up where they overlapped and cut more scarfs.  Cutting scarfs really sucks!  I used the dust collector though, and the dust collector on this Harbor Freight planer gets about 99% of the sawdust.  Amazing Tool!

I glued up the panels at the scarf joints and then put one of them back into the same location as the boards were aligned originally.   Then I re-lofted the lines back onto the wood.  I almost missed one of the marks, but it did line up fine.

I cut out the lofted lines with a circular saw, both the inside and outside curves.  The saw cut them out perfectly, much smoother and faster than the jigsaw would have.  Then I put the first chine I just cut out  on top of the other blank and traced the outline slightly larger and cut it out with the circular saw.  Finally I matched the two blanks back up and ran the router with the patter bit around again to get a perfect match.

I have never read about anyone using this idea, but it does seem to yield a nice part.  If you spend your time making the first part really smooth and fair, then rough out the second, then follow with a router bit, it seems to save a lot of time from having to try to smooth and sand two thicker blanks that are screwed together. To rough out the second I just screwed the first part on top of the second, then used a sharpie to trace the line, the cut the part out slightly outside the line. This yielded about 3/32" for the router to trim off.  This was a hell of a lot faster than trying to belt sand the two parts together.

OK, now I have made the stem, the two bottom panels, the two chines, the two shelves and the transom.  Also I have the jig and the molds ready.  Guess what...now it is time to put the pieces together and make a boat hull!