Adventures in a Mill Creek 16.5

I have now fibre-glassed the inside of the hull; a single layer of the 125 g/sqm, with an extra patch of heavier cloth where my feet will go.  The beam is still OK at 61cm (even if the photo makes it look a bit squashed!). Once the epoxy has set, the hull should be more or less done...hurrah. I have made an error of my epoxy quantities, and I will need to buy another 3kg... more delivery costs!!  

  I have now started the process of fibre-glassing the hull. I have used two layers of 125g/sqm (4oz) glass, and both epoxied at the same time. After applying the 'wetting out' coat with a wooden spatula (probably a poor choice!), I applied two top coats using a foam roller. My objective is to just cover the weave of the cloth...

  I have flipped the hull again and sanded up to 120 grit, ready for glassing. The deck has had to be put out of the way, and is a bit precarious balanced on top of the drill press!

  The deck is now just about done, and I have cut out the cockpit and also fitted the walnut bow stem. The cockpit coaming is also to be made from walnut, and I have made a start on this now.

  The deck is now fully 'stripped' and I am starting to shape with planes and a scraper prior to sanding. The wood around the front of the cockpit opening was under a lot of strain, and I had several splits along the glue lines. I have fixed these with thickened epoxy, and once this has set everything should be stable.  There are a couple of spots where the strips are not level and I have glued in a some extra strips which I will shape later. I used the spare thickened epoxy to fill some small gaps, and the nail holes. Also, I have decided that a rear hatch makes sense, so I have changed the planned bulkhead positions a bit.

I am working on the deck at the moment. There is a really awkward twist and bend, and a couple of the joins that I have managed are horrible. Multiple clamps, tape, screws, nails, heat gun, torture... despite all this I couldn't make them fit nicely. So, for the remainder of the troublesome strips I am making two 'half' strips (1cm wide instead of 2cm) and gluing them together in a curve (e.g. the leftmost strip in the photo).  I have made a small jig to do this...so far it seems to be going OK. I will have to fix the untidy joins later on.