Outerstem, Sternpost and Deadwoods fitted

What seemed like a formality, took quite a while to accomplish, however today I finally was able to view the the fruits of my labour.

Getting the deadwoods to fit snug with the curve of the keel was a slow process, equally fitting it to the lead keel was slow, but somewhat easier as the lead keel is relatively straight.  I used a stick of chalk to cover the entire mating surface on the keel and pressed the deadwood onto the keel - this left chalk high spots on the deadwood which I then addressed using a variety of tools, including my new Japanese wood file.  In the end I finished up using my Metabo orbital sander with 60 grit discs which was quite effective at removing material from the curved surface.  I did check on eBay to see if I could pick up a compass plane, but they all seem to go for big bucks.  I toyed with the idea of investing in a Arbortech Power plane disc, but at over 130 euros, it seemed expensive, so I persevered with files and sanders. 

Most satisfying was drilling the sternpost and deadwoods for the 3/8" bronze threaded bar which by all accounts presents the distinct possibility for drilling off centre.  So armed with a 10mm augur bit I took a line of the scale drawing with my mitre gauge and used this to line up my drill.  Taking it slowly and frequently clearing the bit, ended up with a dead straight result for both bolts.  However, I possibly should have drilled for the countersunk part first and then continued on with the 10mm bit, as doing so after drilling the main hole, it was tricky to centre a forstner bit to widen out the recess.  So I will deploy that technique for the remaining keel bolts which are larger 1/2" bronze threaded bar.

Fitting the keel filler was more problematic - as it turned out I had to remove so much material from the middle of the filler that it ended up in two pieces (actually three - since the two legs of the tuning fork were separated from the other part.

Reverted to handsaw having toiled with a hand plane....!

I am considering the idea of placing the lead keel on top of the hull to drill the keel bolts and finish fairing in the keel and deadwoods.  I would then remove it prior to turning up the hull.  

All the tools in the box thrown at it!
Fish eye lens adds extra curves to the hull!

Lead Keel bending!

Today I made a template from the lead keel and fitted it on top of the boat keel and deadwoods. Unfortunately, I didn't take a photo of the first template on the boat, but it showed that to get it to fit,  I would have to remove a lot of stock from the keel filler and even further down past the filler into the keel.

The problem was that the lead keel has a straight edge which needs to face up to the curve of the boats keel.  There is a keel filler part which is designed to be planed to accomadate the curve, but my gap was even larger than the keel filler.

Curve bent into straight edge of keel

 So I decided to see if I could bend a slight curve into the lead lead.  Supporting it at about 18" from either end, so as not to bend just the thin ends of the keel, I measured the distance from the floor and took a few wild jumps on to the middle of the keel.  Surprise - surprise, it moved about 1mm.  So egged on by this modest success  I enlisted some help and two of us jumped on it and manged to get a curve into the straight side of the lead keel, which made for a much better fit - as the new template shows. Thankfully no pictures of the jumping  madness!

Pic showing template at back of keel shows original line of keel before bending.

This shows how the keel will sit lower down on the deadwood - where previously, I would have had some gaps

New template made off curved lead - here you can see where bottom of lead sits higher over the boat keel, such that no stock has to be removed from the boat keel.

Template sitting lower down on deadwoods.  This will allow me recut topside of deadwood for a snug fit to the lead keel.

Now I have some final fairing on the keel filler to do and should be able to finally fit the outer stem, forefoot filler, keel filler and deadwoods, which will bring me ever closer to turning over the hull..yeah!