Bubble, Stringer Alignment & Bulkheads

Took most of the day off yesterday to recover from a beer binge on Friday night at our HS reunion. I don't normally drink a lot of beer. Three big jugs of it and I was a lil' tipsy! Woke up Saturday morning about 2 AM with a horrible pain in my right elbow. Wife says it's 'beersitis' and to just suck it up buttercup! *sigh*

This morning's task was to deal with the bubble in the keel. I slit the top of it open and poured in a couple ounces of epoxy. I then jambed in a piece of plywood covered in a grocery bag and wedged it tight with some 2x4's. A fair amount of epoxy squeezed out so I think I got all the air out of it. We'll see tomorrow.

Bubble Fixin' in the Bilge!

So next up I'm putzin' away at trying to align the stringers. Careful measurements & laser level helped but I was still off a bit, about 1/16". Figured out one stringer has a slight bow to it. So I'm sittin' there lookin' at it and Shazam! I'll drop the two aft frames in to help me get it aligned!

Frame I is actually a bulkhead

That's Frame I. Just sitting there for now to help align the stringers etc. I have some sanding to do before I can start to bed down the stringers & fillet/tab these parts in place. Likely tomorrow I'll start that. The pink line hanging down is a plumb bob which I used with the laser level to find the center line.

Laser level & plumb bob to find center

 If you look closely you can just make out the laser on the cross pieces.

Frame H sitting in place

Frame H was next. I should add that neither H or I had the slots cut for the stringers so I had to do that before setting them in the boat. They'll both need a little trimming here and there to get the to fit properly. The stringers will be raised up off the bottom of the boat slightly so that they can be 'bedded' in thickened epoxy. This will require some further trimming to get the frame/bulkheads in their proper place. I have to remark the base line around the perimeter of the boat to ensure the frame/bulkheads are at their proper height before I fillet/tape them down.

Got lots of ponderin' to do so I don't make any mistakes or get stuff out of sequence that'll cause me problems later.

Standby....