I was really pleased to get the glue out yesterday - so the assembly of the newly cut hull parts has now started.
The doublers were added to the keel while it was still in the jig, but only one side of the two doublers that will encase the prop shaft was glued down. When everything was solid and dry I was able to cut away the part of the prop shaft slot in the keel that was still visible before gluing the remaining half to cover it. I am hoping this will make the work with a round file a bit easier when the time comes to enlarge it and fit the shaft.
The apron was glued to the first bulkhead and then re-screwed down onto the jig as per the kit instructions and the remaining bulkheads were glued onto the keel after checking that all of the datum lines I had drawn onto the bulkheads lined up with those on the jig.
The original kit bulkheads were badly warped and twisted so when I copied them I also had to check the shape before cutting them out as they all needed some "adjustment", and I found the best way to do this was to mark the centre line on each of them and fold the template down this centre line to see the deviation between the left and right sides of the template.
The easy "first check" was to flip the old bulkhead over after drawing around it, and then draw around it again. The double lines clearly showed the difference between the two halves
It was surprising to see just how far out the two halves of the bulkhead templates were, and not all of this deviation was caused by the warping and twisting! Most kit built model boats are probably not perfectly symmetrical if they were all checked to the n'th degree as I have seen this amount of "deviation" on just about every kit built bulkhead part that I have ever checked over the years - but it also goes to show that it is not terribly important either as long as it is "more or less" right.
Having to draw out and make new templates for the bulkheads made it easy to make the new bulkheads with a "mirror image" between the left and right halves. The central datum lines were good to align with similar datum lines that I marked on the jig baseplate and the securing "alignment blocks".
I also think that the boat would look the same and sail every bit as good if I just draw around the original parts and cut them to the same shape !
The 1/8 by 1/4 obechie strips were fitted and glued into place. At this stage I also decided to beef-up the bows a little by adding another 1/4" "apron infill" between the chine stringers and the bows to add a bit of strength to the area where they butt against the keel. I am sure the bows would have been strong enough in this area without them, but I felt a little happier with them fitted.
After they had dried I laminated the second strips onto the chine stringers but now have to remove the dried assembly from the jig before laminating the second row of deck stringers as I forgot to put some plastic covering on the base of the jig, and I don't think the jig would look too attractive as a permanently laminated part of there hull