I put the last pieces of the sub deck on and then decided to start with the woodwork.. I want the transom to be varnished with the name of the craft in gold lettering so I decided to apply the first of many veneers to the boat. Not having done these before I read up quite a bit of what others had done..... and then just sort of did it my way.
I firstly cut the veneer roughly to shape using
very sharp scissors. Then I put aliphatic glue onto the transom and spread it thinly with a piece of scrap wood, making sure there was enough all over and that it reached completely to the edge all round. ... I then placed the veneer on the transom ........ and it immediately curled up !
So, I then placed the boat vertically on a very flat surface so that the transom and veneer were pressed together and popped a 6v lead battery in the boat to make sure that they were together very tightly ... and went and had a cup of tea
An hour later with trepidation I had a look and was pleased to see that they had glued beautifully together but, before I started trimming the veneer to shape, I put two coats of Eze Kote onto the veneer with the hope that it would stop it splitting while I trimmed it and cut it to shape, the .06 veneers are lovely and light but delicate to work with ! I did this work with a brand new scalpel blade and I'm pleased to say that worked very well too, the Eze Kote had toughened up the veneer making it very easy to cut and sand it to the shape of the transom without a single split ...... First bit successful !