Wrestling (successfully) with seat pieces. Yay!

Last night involved gluing the deck panels, doing a final bit of rework on one keel panel with a couple of air pockets under the glass and joining one bulkhead but a lot more time on stitching the seat panels together.

The seat looks really cool - it's almost like a tractor seat, and that means the panels curve up as they move to the outside of the seat.  This was my first crack at stitching panels together and there was clearly some learning involved, but time, a few broken wires, a few more that had to be taken out and redone, and a bunch of additional wires to pull that outside panel into something resembling a flush fit with its neighbors did the trick.  There were still a few gaps that I simply couldn't make go away, but when it's time to glue I'll tape the gaps on the topside of the seat to minimize bleed through and fill everything with thickened epoxy, and once it's been glassed top and bottom it won't matter at all.

The panels in their flat, non seat-like state:

The manual called for a saturation coat on the back side and i did the top and back.  The only problem that i can see with that approach was to make it impossible to use a heat gun to try to gently shape that outside panel (that'd be the upside down u-shaped one above) when things got unpleasant.

The seat, post stitch:

I hear that some people leave the seat glassed and don't add foam.  I assume such folks hail from Sparta.  The seat is leaned back a touch and if you lean forward in paddling that would place all of the paddler's weight on the sit bones.  On what amounts to a smooth rock.  I ride a bike with a leather saddle and I think that's ridiculous :).

Assuming my epoxying skills improved last night with the deck panels, and i'm hopeful, tonight will be the first stitches into the hull, and in a day or two i'll have something that actually starts to look like a boat.  Looking forward.

Well, it's a start

I got started last night, thanks to Gull Lake Boat Works, where I've been able to get space in a workshop.

I will just say something I fully expected, that the time estimates provided by the manufacturer are shaping up to be wildly optimistic.  I work in the mining industry, so I know what it's like to be hard-wired for optimism, but this is significant.

First things first, though.  I set up a temporary 16' workbench, which will be needed until the panels start getting stitched, took inventory of the wooden bits, and started doing surface and edge sanding.  I assume things would have gone quicker if I had a bit more space but after 4 hours of sanding I'd managed to sand both surfaces and the edges of all of the bulkheads, hatch components, seat components, and three of the four panels that make up the keel, leaving 16 pieces that make up the remainder of the hull and another 12 that make up the deck.  Clearly, I've got to either speed up or temper my expectations.  I think I know which :(.

A couple of pictures of a LOT of plywood.

One thing I've already learned, at this early stage, is just how easily the plywood splinters.  I've had a couple of bits where my sanding pad caught on an edge and tore.  Luckily I think it won't impact the final appearance.

One thing that is terrific is those puzzle joints which you can see on the midpoints of the panels and the other components. Just thinking of the additional setup and misery that would be involved in assembling a kit with butt or scarf joints to get the two pieces of each panel to be correctly aligned AND the right overall length gives me hives.  That's especially important if you're not imbued with either a lot of woodworking experience or a lot of space, which is me in a nutshell.

Hopefully tonight I can start getting the panels together.  In my available space this will entail some juggling of those 16' panels.  Oh yes.  I may be begging for more room before the night's out!