Let there be sides!

Now that I've got the strongback built, it becomes the work surface for all of the plywood. Having a plan that only requires two sheets of 1/4" plywood means I can lay out the entire boat in one shot. This design is the easiest boat in the book to build, so easy that a father/son team could build it in a weekend. Well, let's see how far I can get.

ok this already has the sides cutout. I got a bit excited.

So both pieces of plywood lay out on the strongback, and I marked each foot then drew out the sides according to the plans. The sides had to be exact mirror images of each other, so I measured and cut one side, then flipped it over and cut the other side. I marked the bulkheads on the first side, but forgot on the other.

All 4 pieces of the sides leaning against the shed

Then I cut out the plywood for the bulkheads and backed them with the 1x3 pine. Also cutout the transom and backed it by pine, and made the center temporary form out of 1x4 pine. Then it's time to butt joint the sides and attach them to the bulkheads.

butt joints coming together for the sides

This glueup took a while

Attached the sides to the bulkheads and transom

 So the front is not attached there. I still have to build the stern piece and attach it. After the sides were joined I attached them to the bulkheads. You can also see in the bottom pic how I framed out the back of the bulkheads with the 1x3 pine. Again the plans had all of the dimensions for these pieces. The rise on the sides went from about 8 3/8" up to about 11" so it's not exactly a complex arc. But this? This looks like a boat now. An actual boat. I'm getting excited now.

Next I have to cut the 1x8 pine board up into 3/4" angle pieces to make the chine boards and gunwales, then I can cut the bottom out of the plywood. The deck plates also get scribed as well as the hatches from the scrap plywood. After that it's all sanding and finishing. Progress!!