Our Ladies of Spain

Checking out yesterday's work, it appears the chines have glued up just fine. Tonight's task was to start getting them properly mounted to the jig to prepare for skinning the hull.

First step was to lower the flare form extensions:

These were previously installed flush to the top of the flare forms in order to facilitate laminating the chines. Now they will serve as a notch to hold the chines in position. I made a little block of "chine" to assist in positioning these extensions:

Next came the task of actually getting one of the chines in position. This was somewhat daunting at first.

Cutting it to length on the ends was pretty simple. A few quick swipes with my pull saw and it was set. I had marked it yesterday flush with the transoms, but as I see it, there is almost nothing structurally important about gluing the end grain of the chines to the transoms, so I cut them just a tad short and figure I can slather the joint full of epoxy.

Since I started this project, I've been interested in reading all this talk in the Barlow instructions about "Spanish Windlasses". Somehow, that struck me as a kludgy thing to do...after a skilled craftsman such as my self will do such a masterful job of making the chines that they will lay easily and effortlessly right in their notches, with virtually no clamping required.

Wrong.

I am now in love with Spanish Windlasses.

Took a little trial and error to get them sorted out, but after a bit of struggle, I ended up with a bunch of these beauties:

I'm sorry I ever doubted you! Those things are slick!

What put me off was the prospect of drilling holes in my lovely chines (see the copper pipe hanger on the right?). But I realize now that a dab of epoxy will clean it up just fine, and they work beautifully.

Got most of the starboard side finished tonight. Should have the port side finished tomorrow. Saturday we scarf the sides and Sunday, maybe, just maybe we can start skinning!