Bottom panel installed, transom glued, stem installed and stringers glued into transom

Well, another couple of days of big progress.

I am so glad we built the gantry crane. I lifted the bottom off the stringers and repositioned things probably  20 times.  I never would have gotten it as close as we did without being able to easily lift it with the chain hoists.  It really made it a piece of cake lifting it up and making small adjustments.

So, since the stringers were needing to be glued into the transom permanently, that was up first.  The problem was, I cut the stringer notches into the wrong spot on the transom.  They were 1/2" off.  After some research, I found out why.  In the plans, the dimension for the transom notches are 15 15/16" from centerline.  The problem was the "1" in the 15/16" on the plans was printed exactly where a vertical line on the drawing is, so it looked to me like the number was 15 5/16" instead.  Oh well, I broke out the jigsaw and cut the notch over 1/2".  Then I epoxied in a piece or wood to fill the gap. It really is easy to fix when you make a mistake.  Epoxy fixes just about anything.

After that, we set the bottom panel assembly down and checked the fit of the stringers, the stem and the bottom panels until we had the location for the stringers set.  They ended up being about 5 inches further inside the boat than the original starting position was.  But they fit the bottom panel perfectly, so that is where that were glued.  After mixing up a thick batch of peanut butter, they were epoxied in and are solid as a rock!

 So now we were ready to install the entire bottom of the boat.  First I needed to shape the stem.  I marked where it needed to be trimmed in order to fit the bottom panel properly.   Here is the stem after it was marked for trimming.   A lot of wood needs to be removed.

I got out the trusty Harbor Freight electric hand planer and went to work.  A few minutes later I was standing in a huge pile of Cherry sawdust and the stem was very close.  A quick check by lowering the bottom panel again and it needed a little more.  Finally, the stem was shaped and looking good.  Here is the after picture.  It only took about 10 minutes from start to finish to shape the whole thing.  The hoists and the electric planer made quick work of it.

Next it was time to install the bottom.  I sanded down the bottom panel where the stringers were going to rest, and then coated everything with epoxy.  After that, I mixed up a massive tub of peanut butter glue with a heavy dose of micro fibers and spread it all over the transom, stringers and stem with a bondo spreader and a sheetrock mud tray.  Then we lowered the bottom down and I quickly lined everything up.  First I attached the bottom across the transom.  Then I had to force the bottom panel to be centered over the stringers a little bit.  I had earlier drilled a small hole through the keel of the bottom panel and hung a plumb bob down.  Then I could take measurements and the get centerline of the boat centered exactly in between the stringers.  I had to move it over about 1/2" after screwing the transom down.  It was very difficult, and when I had it centered using every body part I had available, I hollered for Tommy to install a screw near the bow into the stringer to hold it in place.  The alignment was perfect.
So, up on top of the boat I climbed and started installed the 2 1/2" screws with the fender washers.  This drew the bottom down tight to the stringers.

The peanut butter was oozing out like crazy .  After getting the bottom screwed down and standing on top the boat for a few minutes like the king of the world, I decided I had to go underneath and scrape up all the oozed epoxy.

This job really stunk, because by this time the epoxy was really setting up.  It was getting thick and hard to remove with the spreader.  After I finished, my hands felt like I had kneaded about 500 loaves of bread!  I had to make bread in the Navy by hand on the submarine, and that was a bear of a job!

I rechecked the alignment again, and the error of the centerline of the boat bottom between the stingers is about 3/32", which I think is pretty darn close.

After the epoxy cured, everything was solid beyond belief!  I trimmed the back of the boat off flush with the transom and it looks perfect.
Before trimming the back of the transom:

After trimming the transom flush:

Finally, I trimmed up the second layer of the from bow panels.  I also cut some relief kerfs in them to hopefully make them easier to install.  We were going to install the panels, but the storms rolled in.  So, tomorrow we are going to install one of the bottom panels and then start glassing the side panels.  Then in the afternoon, hopefully get the other bottom panel installed.

Can you spot the limber hole in this picture?!  Every boat needs lots of limber holes.....