Further progress on the Shellback...

[Joe Dupere]

As I'm sure ya'll are waiting for updates with bated breath!!

I got all of the thwart blocks shaped and glued in and the thwarts sized and installed. The forward thwart knees are installed. All of the pieces and parts for the daggerboard case are done and will be assembled tonight. The mast, boom and yard are glued up and waiting for shaping and sanding. All that's left are the inwales and spacer blocks and the keel, mounting various hardware and the final scraping, sanding and painting.

Pictures will be forthcoming, I promise.

You know, this is an odd feeling. I dillied and dallied for a long time before starting on this little boat. I'm not sure why, but I suspect it was a little bit of fear that maybe I'd get into this and discover I couldn't do it. The further into this I get, the more it amazes me that I took a pile of lumber and turned it into this three dimensional object that looks suspiciously like a boat!! smile.gif

I'm still hoping for a July 31st launch date.

Joe

[Jon Etheredge]

All that's left are the inwales and spacer blocks...
As an alternative to the inwale/spacer block approach you might want to consider making the inwale out of one piece and use a router with a straight bit to cut the spaces. A jig to do this is quite easy to coble together. When it comes time to install the inwale it is a little easier with a single piece instead of having to fiddle with all those little spacers.

Other advantages are that there is one less glue line to worry about cleaning up, the spacers are guaranteed to be correctly lined up with the inwale, and it looks better (in my opinion).

You can see an example of inwales done this way here:

Firefly Progress thread on WoodenBoat Forum (http://media5.hypernet.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=009891)

Looking forward to seeing the pics of your boat.