Bow, Stern

Well the stern is clamped, glued and screwed. Here's a close up of the bow, looks rather sinister with the stitches hanging out. Notice its almost 90 degrees to the floor.

Is that a boat?

Wow she is really taking shape now. A temporary stick at midship ensures the beam is at spec. Loosely tied off the stern to keep the aft sheer panels in close position. The sheer line takes shape as the panels come together and curve in. For a minute thought about creating a nice solid wood 'wine glass' type stern with some nice gold leaf lettering, but think the rudder would end up hiding it anyway.

Stitches in detail

Capt. Dad requested some closeups of the stitching process. Well here you go. Real simple copper wire inserted in holes of adjoining plywood. start them loose and tight em up later to draw them inside corner to inside corner.

Japanese anyone

It was suggested to use a Japanese saw to make all your cuts, never used one before but trusted their judgment. The beauty of the saw apparently is that you push to cut rather than pull as with a more traditional handsaw. This gives you incredible accuracy when cutting bevels, even for a hack like me. Once the bevels were cut, glue, screw and clamp up the joint to produce the bow.

Starboard side

The starboard side sheer panel goes in and forms the full bow of the boat. Need to run a center line from the stern to mark the angle on the sheer clamps so the two clamps mate perfectly (or almost perfectly).

Take a Bow

With the port side sheer panel in place you can get a nice glimpse of the bow.

Sheer joy

Time to stitch in the sheer panels. At first this task seemed to be difficult, the instructions left a lot to be figured out on your own, guess thats the fun. Ended up putting a thin piece of plywood across the bilge panels to balance and hold the sheer panels. A clamp allowed to keep it in place for the first few stitches.

Smells like a boat.

She's starting to take shape. Right now the stitches are hand tied loosely. Only stitched up the bow, make way to the stern and then stitch up the sheer panels and she'll really look like a boat.

In stitches.

As the stitches come together the bilge panels fall off the other end, a rope and some clamps hold her in place so you can continue your suturing.

Laid out.

Setup the hull/bottom panel on the horses and laid out the bilge panels in prep for stitching. Scribe a pencil line around the bottom panels and drill a hole every 4". Match up the nub on the bilge panels to the bow of the bottom panel and drill a corresponding hole. Start stitching away with copper wire alternating side every 5 or so holes.

More pieces of the puzzle

Had to glue up the sheer clamps, they will hold the deck to the sheer panels.

Nice joints!

I'm sure as the excitement wears off, I will cease uploading the lamer photos, however seems the expoxy held up and not much to sand or trim off.

Watching epoxy dry

OK all the panels aligned, epoxied and weighted down. 24hrs to dry.

The journey begins...

Before gluing up (epoxy + cabosil) the scarfed joints, you protect the wood with clear packing tape and good ole wax paper to avoid a lot of extra sanding when the epoxy squeezes out. Next step is to lay out and tack down the scarfed joints of the sheer, bilge, and hull panels. A straight line ensures proper scarf alignment using set distances at the middle of each scarf.

Bare bones

Well picked up the kit in Annapolis. Met the shop manager David. Great guy, gave me the tour of the shop, many tips and much encouragement. Here's some boring photos the boat to be. Doesn't look like much yet.

Preparing for battle

Shop is relatively clean. A place for everything and everything in its place... for how long? Pinned up the plans on the wall.

Mill Creek 16.5 (proposed)

Here's a few pics of what I am attempting to build:

Shown here with the optional sailing rig:

Here's a line drawing of the lady:


Here's a write up on the Mill Creek 16.5 (if you are really interested and/or bored)

I've chosen to construct a 'hybrid' version of the Mill Creek, which means the deck will be 'strip built' using cedar strips instead of the mahogony plywood that will be used for the hull and shear. Here's a pic of pattern I will attempt using the strips (minus the American Indian graphic):