Framing & Measuring & Mounting

In my free time I have been continuing my Glen-L Squirt boat build.

After finishing the gluing of the frames, I got to work sanding the frames down ready for a coat of epoxy. I only coated one side of the frames because I wanted to retain the penciled centre line for aligning the frames on the building form.

Frames sealed with epoxy

The building form was built in the garage given that my sisters car is no longer parked there. I made the building form extra strong because it is probable that I will have to move the boat mid build. I added extra height to the building form to make the boat easier to work on.

Construction

Finished building form with the frames balancing on it. 

 After the building form was complete, the tedious process of aligning the frames to the correct positions began. I took extra care at this stage because I want my boat to drive straight! My friend Nathan had a good idea of using plastic packers to help get the frames aligned perfectly.

After my frames were all fixed in place, I started thinking about the keel and battens.

Keel and battens sitting on boat. STARTING TO REALLY LOOK LIKE A BOAT!

 One of the problems with the keel which lots of 'Squirt' builders come across is the gap shown in the picture below. One solution is to simply bolt down the keel, forcing it to bend into place. The resulting hump between the 1st and 2nd frame would then be removed in the fairing process. I probably would have taken this approach if I had a 25mm keel as is normally used. Given my keel is 20mm, I don't want to have to remove too much material from it during fairing. Hence, I decided to make a wedge shape to fill the gap and therefore keep the keel straight.

Gap between keel and stem

I made a jig and used a router to cut the appropriate angle in piece of the left over keel.

Wedge block cut with router

With the wedge block installed, the keel sits perfectly flat and I will be able to fair the wood to the curve of the stem. The clearance of the bolt heads which go through the stem will need to be a consideration here.

Wedge block installed

 The next step is to remove the frames from the building form and finish applying a coating of epoxy to the frames. I can then glue the stem-breasthook, stem-frame and transom-knee joints.