Started this morning sewing in the coaming. Pretty simple job but you have to be careful trimming the fabric. To short and there is nothing to sew, to long and the edge will show under the coaming. I almost trimmed it to short in one place but it turned out OK.Next I started doing the whip stitch down the rear deck before I shrank the skin. I typically do this afterwards and I must admit the results have me concerned!  The more I sewed the worse it looked. This photo exaggerates it but it did look bad!

I stopped sewing and grabbed the iron and started shrinking to see what I had. As you can see it started to look much better.

So I moved on to the deck. Finished everything up an d it’s ready to start putting on the color in the morning. It will take most of the week to get the painting done since I am going to two tone it. So stay tuned!

Work has been slow the past few days.  My sinuses have been bothering me and I just not been able to work on it as much as I would like. But of course there is no deadline on getting it done either.

On the bow end of the boat I cut the stringer a little short (on purpose). If you leave it that way you end up with a ugly look at the bow, so I go back and glue on filler strips. These are pieces that were cut off the stringers to make the scarf joints.

I shape mine using a SHARP block plane and follow up with with a little sanding. Here you can see the it starting to take shape.

It takes me 2 -3 minutes to shave and sand the block. I do both sides, flip it over trim the top, a light sanding, stretch some t-shirt fabric over it check the shape and it’s done.

I installed the foot rest on the Gunwale stringer as usual and when I stood back and looked I could see there was a problem. Laying a straight edge across the deck confirmed that the foot rests were going to touch the skin. I should have checked that first but I didn’t and it bite me.

This boat has a more pronounced ‘V’ in the hull than my other designs. After moving them and doing some measuring (which I should have done first) I could see that only my toes would have reached. So I removed them and mounted on the chine stringer. Glad I caught that now.

With that done the frame is finished except for installing the floor boards. I have been painting them and I am waiting on the shipment of sinew to come in and replace the bad shipment.

I put the frame on the scales with the floors and it weights 22-23 lbs. The Baltic Birch plywood is heavier than the Douglas fir I have been using. What surprised me was the floors added almost 3 lbs of that. Even so this is still so much better than 50 lb. Tupperware boat.

Finished frame (almost) ready to be skinned.

Another short day in the shop but that is starting to be the norm.  First order of business was to put a new top on my ‘ladder’ strongback.. I had 2″ lumber on top but it was just to  heavy and hard to move around.

Once that was done I started setting up the keel brackets. These line up the keel and create the rocker in the keel strip.

After that I started to temporarily insert the frames that get mounted and put in some stringers. I can already see the sweep of the sheer and I love it! Need to fill some orders so it is going to be a couple of days before I can get back to this one.

Welcome the Kudzu Craft blog. I am setting up this blog and looking around getting the feel of it.

I am about to start building a new boat and will be documenting it here. I have not settled on the name yet but it is has a strong Greenland influence. It will 17.5 feet long and 23″ wide. Water line is a little over 15.5 feet and the water line width i

I will be documenting the build as I go and tell you how it paddles once it is on the water.  Mean time here are the drawing of the boat.