The promised pix

Not much has changed, really - just that there are now three coats of S-1 sealer on all the bare wood and fillets. The stem (first pic) is nice and shiny and waterproof. You can see the bilge keels and skeg, too, but the second shot makes them a little more clear.

That's probably it for sealer - now we just have to fine-sand all over and give everything a good wash, and we're ready for primer!

New linky

Kind words and a link from bdillahu over at craftacraft.com. A quick glance (I am supposed to be working) suggests it's worth checking out in depth. Thanks Bruce!

Sealer coat is on

Sanded the fillets and applied the first coat of S-1 sealer last night. The stuff has a pretty long pot life so I mixed up a decent batch and will put on as many coats as possible before it hardens in the jar. Pix coming soon.

Douglas fir is splintery

So I'm sanding away on the keel, and the sanding block lifted up a big splinter which proceeded to enter the tip of my right thumb. Somewhat painful, some blood, but worst of all, a delay in the sanding while I glued the splinter back into place.

Then the band was off on a road trip, followed by a bunch of gigs back home, so the boat took a bit of a back seat. I'm pleased to say that I got back to work last Sunday, completing the epoxy fillets along the edges of the stem, keel, skeg, and bilge keels. Assuming tomorrow's sanding goes without a hitch, I'll put the first coat of sealer on the remaining bare wood tomorrow night. A couple more coats of sealer, final sanding on any stray epoxy drips, and a good wash, and it's painting time! Good thing Tara's home.

Oh, and I'll try to be more diligent about posting now that we're back to work.

At last, fresh pix!

For a variety of reasons, it's been a while since we posted pictures, but here are a couple to illustrate progress. The first one shows the stem and keel along with the bilge keels, which will help keep our Shilling level when she's on the hard. Constructing the bilge keels was interesting - they're laminated into a curve and then fit to the hull, which involves complex curves of its own, so the fit was a tricky iterative process.

The second shot shows the bilge keels from the stern, and also the skeg, which projects up (well, down, once she's righted) from the keel. As you can see, we still have to fillet the joints and do some final sanding and sealing, but the bottom structure is basically complete. Painting is tentatively scheduled for mid-to-late June, as both Tara and Buster will be out of town until the middle of the month.

Real progress, though--W00T!

Actually, pix THIS weekend.

I decided to hold off taking pictures until the bilge keels and skeg are in place, which is the last assembly job before we paint. In the meantime, we've chosen a colour scheme: Blu-glo White with dark blue bulwarks. Here's a rough look with the chosen colours:

Yep, she's gonna be pretty!

Quick update without pix

I'll try to post some pix this weekend; we've installed the keel and stem and laminated up the bilge keels and skeg.