Full Monty on the bow shapes

I'm sure I've related in earlier blogs that I have seen issues in the resulting bow sections after I joined the float halves. I addressed some of this as best I could earlier with light filler, as seen above, but it is time to pay the piper when your trying to get the bow caps shaped correctly. Root cause of the problem? I suspect there was an issue in how I laid up the foam in the frames and/or the halves twisted in storage outside.

So, how do I know I am shaping the cap correctly? Well first I used the two beam locating dowels to verify that the bow cap radius is dead ahead. Then I used a plumb bob to verify the position of the keel - bow radius. Then I used a straight edge to fair the bow cap to the shape of the float hull. This is where the use of filler comes in.



I ended up fairing the keel bow thickness down to something close to 3/8" thickness. This could be a bit sharp. At deck level the thickness at the bow is ~ 1 3/8".


Gunwales are close to finished. I found the use of the rigid long board helpful here. You can also see that my access hatches have arrived. I am actually pretty close to covering the bow caps, transoms and decks with the A spec. fiberglass. Yup, time to get the heaters out again.


Putty and cloth around the chain plates. I apply the cloth when the putty is still wet. Actually I saturate the cloth with the putty before applying it against the wet putty build. I'll clean it up when it's hard and cured.