I have a boat hull !!!

Well today I made a milestone.  I got the bottom panels stitched together, and I officially have the beginnings of the boat hull.  Right now it looks like the worlds largest canoe.

I started out by lining up the molds on the jig and securing them down.  I measured and ran a string down the center of the jig and used this to line up the center of the molds.

That is my oldest son Andy in the background.  He is a great son and a great Captain and fisherman himself!

Next up, we put the giant bottom panels on the jig and I started stitching the bottoms together with wire ties.  They get stitched right where the keel of the boat is.

Next step is to open the panels up like a giant book.  I had Tommy come outside and help me do this.  He saw me overthinking this process too much and said "Stop thinking and flip it over for crying out loud, I am hot!"  How right he was because in a few seconds, we had the bottom of a boat!

Look, a boat is taking shape!

Then I spent quite a while tightening the wire ties and getting the panels lined up.  I put in a spreader board at the front to get the correct critical spacing as specified by the designer.  Then I put in some stiffeners in the back to keep the back of the boat flat and true.  I inserted some dowels that helped to line the panels up as well.

The last step for today was to connect the panels together semi-permanently by spreading a peanut butter like mixture into the seams between the wire ties.  The mixture is epoxy, lots of wood flour (fine sawdust), silica (fine ground quartz) and a teaspoon of microfibers (finely ground fiberglass).  This makes for a thick putty that is incredibly strong.

Look, an epoxy icicle!  This is the only one that dripped out a little, because I had a little larger gap there that I could not close up, even after getting out the giant wire ties!  Close enough!

After this sets up, tomorrow I will remove the tie wraps and start fiberglassing the hull bottom.