Putting It Together

There really isn't much to say about this without going into a long description of the process. The short version is that you drill pairs of holes along the edges of the panels and "stitch" them together using cable ties. It takes a while to do and, even with the boat raised on trestles, there is a lot of bending and kneeling making it quite hard work. Stitching the panels together took about 4 hours.

At this stage the boat is quite floppy and I spent a bit of time making sure that the hull was fair and not twisted. Where I had cut the bottom panel too narrow at the stern there were gaps either side tapering from about 5 mm to nothing. I cut some scrap timber to suit and slipped it into the gaps.

The next step is to tack the panels together with fillets of thickened epoxy between the cable ties. This took about 2 hours. It's a fiddly job leading to sticky fingers! It saves a lot of time later if this is done as tidily as possible because cleaning off the excess epoxy when it has hardened is not a nice job!

Here are some photos of the boat looking like a boat. You can see cable ties and the epoxy fillets in these photos.

Cutting Out the Panels

I'm using cheap ply from Bunning's (our local hardware store) and I found they have a sheet 2745 x 1220 x 4 mm which is just long enough to cut out all the side panels without the need for any scarph or butt joints. The plans suggest adding stiffeners to the bottom panel if it is 4 mm so I decided to use 6 mm for the bottom.

Marking out the panels on the sheets is straightforward but care is needed - I made an error at the stern end of the bottom panel resulting in the panel being 10 mm narrower than the transom. I didn't spot this until I had cut the panels and started fitting them together! I cut the side panels in pairs from 2 pieces of 4 mm ply temporarily screwed together. Planed the edges to the line and laid the finished panels on the floor. Here they are.