Finishing up the transom cheeks

Pretty easy night tonight.

The objective was to get the remaining cheeks attached to the bow and stern transoms so I can get them sanded smooth and installed tomorrow.

The first step of the night was to finish dressing the keelson. I sanded off the transom knee repairs from yesterday (turned out fine), sanded the edges smooth, and cleaned up the gunk on the inside (the visible side)  as well. Came out fine.

Next, I wanted to ensure that I had the keelson placed perfectly correct on the jig. The plans call for the bow transom knee to be exactly 11" from the first flare form. Turns out I had it a tad short before, so I cut off about an inch from the stern end of the strongback and slid the entire keelson forward until it was perfectly on the mark. After clamping it down along the length of the jig, the keelson is now in its final location until the hull gets pulled from the jig.

Time to dry-fit the transoms. A clamp was enough to hold the bow in place, which allowed me to drive one screw very close to the keelson, and then make whatever minor adjustments I needed to make sure it sat level.

Sorry about the quality of these pics. It was dark and there was very little light coming in from outside the garage.

Dead nuts level:

The stern was more difficult. I couldn't get a clamp to hold it in place, so I ended up stacking some odds and ends on the floor to prop up the transom until I could get my starter screw in place. Once that was set, the rest was easy.

In doing both, I realized that the keelson wants to "rock" a bit on the jig. I corrected that by applying a clamp to one side or another to pull it down level (port to starboard, as it were).

Once both ends were in place, I was able to cut the cheeks to final size. I decided to get a wee bit fancy and applied a radius to the inside corner to dress it up a bit. Careful observers will note that that radius corresponds precisely to the size of the head of my rubber mallet.

I had initially contemplated carefully carving the cheeks so that they ended up flush with the transom knees as well as the keelson. It didn't take a lot of thinking-chair time to conclude that the juice wasn't worth the squeeze on that one. Rounding them off is as dressy as they are going to get.

Getting more and more confident with the epoxy with every passing day. I had good luck with the "fast" hardener again tonight. First I mixed a batch clear, and brushed it on the mating surfaces, then I squirted in another batch to what was left in the cup (not much) and mixed in a bunch of wood flour to thicken it up. Smeared that on the mating surfaces and screwed the boards down. Pre-drilling the holes and marking the position of the boards makes alignment all but automatic.

Things were rolling right along, and I thought about going ahead and installing the transoms tonight. I thought the better of it, though, when I considered that I am going to want to sand those cheeks smooth before painting the inside of the boat. That's going to be a lot easier to do tomorrow than it will after the transoms are installed. 

So I waited. But it was kind of hard. I have to say, it was pretty cool looking at the boat with both ends dry-fit into place. Really made the shape start to appear. I had a good conversation with Lou Brochetti today, going over a bunch of details for the coming steps. I think now it is realistic to think that I'll get the sides on by the weekend, and the bottom on by the end of next week. Can't wait to see this thing really show its form!