Bottom Panels and Bow Stitching

Bottom Panels

I spent the last two nights stitching and restitching the two bottom panels to the keel. It took me a little while, since I had to lay down to tighten the cables. I broke a few, but would just get another one. When I say restitching, I did remove a lot of the copper cables and replaced them with steel, because I kept breaking them and could not get them tight enough.

The above pictures show the bottom panels stitched in and bulkhead #4 stitched in as well. The holes did not line up with the cradle for bulkhead #4,  so I just drilled a couple new holes so I could stitch everything to the cradle. I spent a lot of time trying to line everything up and make things look good. I have a level you can see in the picture and I also measured from the bow to each end of the stern and it was right on. I like it when a plan comes together.


The Bow

The bow was interesting. The bottom panels kept slipping over each other when I tightened things up, so I removed the cables and took my plane and took off the edge about 15 inches on each side. This gave them more of a square edge where they connected. Seemed to do the trick.

It also took a while to pull things together. I did some last night and left about 2-3 inches from bringing it all the way. Tonight I finished pulling it all together. I also added another set of holes in the bow area to help leverage getting it together.

Below are some pictures of the bow.

Last night almost together.

All stitched together.