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The plan gives the offsets to lay out the side
and bottom panels on the plywood. Full size drawings of the stem and stern
are included to ensure alignment. I took a great deal of care over this
stage, because small errors may be magnified at a later stage in the build.
The 8ft X 4ft ply panels are butted up end to end and I used a couple of
temporary wooden battens to hold the panels in place for marking.
I Carefully support the panels whilst cutting
because they are fairly fragile and can snap if left in an unsupported
length.

Here you can see all the pieces after cutting and
then joining. The Frames are laid on the top of the joined side and bottom
panels. Note the plywood panels on the ladder sections that formed my
building bench.
I used 3.6mm thick plywood butt
straps about 75mm wide to join the panels. It is important to ensure that
the panels are carefully aligned and assembled as handed pairs. If not, one
side will have butt straps on the external faces on the outside! The joints were assembled using a 2-part marine
glue which seems very expensive. I think epoxy resin would have been just as
good.
After the panels were joined and
the glue set, they were clamped together and trimmed as pairs using a Surform, file or small plane depending on the profile. This was followed by
a careful sanding of the edges and then a roughening of the bonding surfaces
where the 50mm glass tape was to be fitted. |