Transom Planking Complete, Front Panels Fit

I made good progress this week by screwing and epoxying the transom panels into place. I also trimmed and  countersunk all the screw holes for the front two panels, which will go on this upcoming weekend. To trim the front panels, I used a wet towel to dampen the side plywood near the transition joint, and then using a blue marker, I drew on the edge of the wood. This meant when I was fitting the bottom plywood pieces, I could simply bend them down to where they met the side plywood, and the blue marker would leave a line for where to cut. I'm not sure if my strategy comes across when explaining it so the pictures should help.

The first two pictures show the marking process I used to trim the plywood, and the third picture shows the bottom plywood completely fitted.

I would also like to add some mistakes I made this past weekend. I originally thought that I could mix up the epoxy, and then do all the gluing and drilling myself. As it turned out, there were far too many screw holes, which meant it took a long time to fasten the rear panels. By the time I was done my epoxy batch had hardened and was unusable. Then, not learning from my mistake, I tried to do the same thing while fastening the front panels but figured I could move a little faster. By doing this I didn't take my time to make sure all the screws were fitting properly in their corresponding holes, and at some point the screws and holes got off by about a half inch, which meant when I was doing the front, the panel didn't line up. Also my epoxy hardened in the process. I broke my number one rule which is to always take my time and ask for help when needed. Well, the lesson has been relearned and I will proceed with caution this upcoming weekend.

Side Planking Complete, Bottom Cut

I have epoxied and screwed both side panels into place. I then sanded down any exposed screws and covered them with a mahogany filler, which was also sanded down after it had hardened. I had a little extra space at the bow where the plywood meets the stem but I was able to fill that with the mahogany filler also. I then leveled the plywood with the frames and made the transition joint for the bottom plywood to fit.  The transition joint is the point where the overlapping plywood turns into a butt-joint, as you move forward. I made mine about 7.5" inches from frame #2. As always, there are more pictures in the Full Album on the right of the screen. 

The first picture shows the contrast between the sanded down filler (left) and the filler that still needs to be sanded (right). It also shows the filler I used in the small space between plywood pieces at the stem. The second picture shows the filler sanded smooth and the bottom planking pieces cut out. The two near the transom are ready to be screwed and epoxied but the front two need to be trimmed still.

Side Plywood Section Screwed and Epoxied

It was warm enough to finally put the plywood on but I ended up running into a different problem. As you can see in the first picture, the nails that I had were about 1/4" too big. I found this out about halfway through the day so I posted a question on the Glen-L forum about using a different length. It was also recommend that I could use screws, and since I already had to get new nails I figured I mine as well get screws. I ended up getting #8 3/4" Bronze screws which worked out pretty well. I pre-drilled and counter-sank all the holes and because of this I didn't have any screws break on me when I put the plywood on. The second picture shows the bottom panel installed. Next weekend the other panel goes on and hopefully the bottom planks too. I'll have more pictures up in my "Full Squirt Album" later this week.