Freezing February

It's bloody cold, the forecast is for even colder weather for the next 10 days and I've got chilblains :-(. Progress is surprisingly good though. Here's some pics

The start of the strongback.

I've made sure that the strongback is parallel to the lofting grid and have now marked a centre line down its length to guide the alignment of the sections. I used douglas fir for the long lengths of the strongback so I can use the wood in the build later on (deck beams, etc).

Station 8 showing notches for chine log, sheer clamp and whatever the bit that runs around the top of the coachroof is called!

All of the station section will need to have notches cut into them to take the various longitudinal members. I've done stations 6, 7 and 8 so far. This involves some careful calculation and measuring. If these notches are cut accurately, the whole boat should take shape fairly easily (I hope!!!)

Stations 6, 7 and 8 set up and with chine log and sheer clamp in place.

So, we've set up the first three sections. The 3 metre straight edge is very handy here. The main cabin sections are fairly easy to set up as the top of the floor beams (as it's all upside down, the bottom of the floor beams here) should all run level. The centre lines marked on all of the stations obviously need to be in line and directly above the centre line marked on the shed floor (perspective is doing something weird in the photo - they are actually correct), and the stations need to be upright. Then it's just a case of fixing them in position. The chine log and sheer clamp do that, along with the piece that I've clamped to the floor beams.