Frames

Next job was to mark out and cut the frames.

Then fit them of course!

I first dry fitted them, held in place with screws through the sides and bottom, then using a simple jig (an offcut of plywood with a hole drilled in it for the sharpie to poke through) marked the lines for the reinforcing tape.

I used a wet lay-up again:

1. Prime the plywood sides and bottom, plus the mating surfaces of the frames with unthickened epoxy
2. Lay glass tape reinforcement strips on the sides and bottom
3. Apply thickened epoxy to mating surfaces of frames
4. Insert frames and hold in place with screws
5. Apply thickened epoxy fillets using rounded wooden sticks (from choc-ices) to get a reasonably neat curve
6. Lay glass tapes over the fillets on both sides of each frame

It took me 5 hours to fit 3 frames, so the main frames took a whole weekend to fit.

The state of build as at mid July 2016

This was followed by fitting the (optional) outer top planks, scavenged from the aborted side panel scarfing exercise I mentioned earlier - the resin had by now hardened enough. I fitted these to restore a fair edge to the topsides which had developed a distinct scalloping effect after the main frames were bonded in, despite my gaffer-tape trick.. I struggled to get measurements for the curve on the bottom edge of these panels until I spotted (on John Milgate's plans) that the curve runs parallel with the bottom of the punt, so I clamped the ludicrously long and bendy panels to the topsides and scribed the line with another simple offcut jig.

The half frames and bulkheads came next (another weekend), followed by the rear seat rails, transom and transom cap, bow and stern blocks (yep, another weekend), and most recently the mast thwart (and yet another weekend).

Mast thwart and step dry fitted

Mast thwart fitted and first sealing coat of resin applied