Last weekend i finished up the sanding and planing of all the frames pieces, stems, etc. I then drew up the full size frame patterns onto a sheet of plywood. This will ensure all my frames are correctly aligned and assembled squarely and properly. Once I was done I quickly grabbed all the pieces for frame #1 and laid them out on the plywood to make sure my cuts were good and that everything will line up properly prior to actually glueing and fastening them together.
I soon discovered that I messed up the bottom frame member on frames 1, 2, 3 and the transom. How could that be they all came from full size plans, its not like I even had to measure something.
When drawing out the frame pieces I assumed that the set up level line on the plans were perfectly level, or at 90 degrees from the centerline so I made sure I used the top edge of my lumber pieces. This would save me cutting a perfect line at least on a few pieces. It turns out it isn't perfectly straight but a very shallow V so instead of my bottom frames pieces having a nice upward wing to each side they have a downward wing and do not fit within my plan lines.
With the floor planed and its bevel roughed out, I'm ready to move the boat parts to the carport and begin setting up to hang the planks. I made a pair of sturdy sawhorses out of two by fours, and when I had the bottom laying across them, I saw right away that they were too short for the stem. How did I possibly fail to account for the length of the stem when I was making sawhorses for this very specific purpose? I've found that when I build and fabricate, the most frequent challenge is correcting after the fact for one important point or other that I missed in the planning stage.
I made the sandwiched bow tank top today. The photo at left shows it as the top layer is glued on and pulled down using "buttons" -- small blocks of wood with screws that assure the two halves are pulled tight together. The tank top is crowned so that the sides drop about one inch from the center line. This makes it easier to make the sandwiched top as the top layer presses against the bottom layer as the two pieces are glued into place.
So here is my first plan laid out on my first piece of Mahogony. Note that in this picture I have put the tacks around the lines of the plan I am going to transfer onto the wood. In the future I put the tacks onto each corner of the plan frame member that I am transfering onto the wood so that I knew exactly where the corners were. This next picture (if you can imagine the lines) shows how I started to place my tacks on the plan to mark the corners.
I installed the bulkhead for the forward bow tank today. All fiberglass Thistles have an air tank in the bow to help with floatation. Most wooden Thistles have giant foam blocks that are not as effective. To be self-rescuing, Thistles need as much floatation as possible. My #1 reason for installing the bow tank is to give the boat as much floatation as allowed by class rules to make the boat safer. My #2 reason is that having the tank bulkhead and top makes the boat stiffer.
I now have both rails on, plugged and sanded. The outer rail came from long piece of purple heart that was salvaged from another boat project and was going to be discarded. It was too nice a bit of wood to not use. The only problem it had was that the screw holes had been pre-drilled by a drunken novice (not me... really...) and at least one hole on each side was so far from the center line of the wood that they were unusable. Making old usless things new and beautiful though is what this project is all about and I manged to salvage the nice purple rail and it looks great. 
Today I installed the port side rail. It's made up of three pieces of mahogany laminated to create the inner rail and one piece of purple heart for the outer rail. In this photo, you can see how the rails are leveled by clamping to a crossmember while gluing. Both rails are installed about 1/16" proud so they can be belt sanded flat to the top of the hull skin.
I have both sides of the boat interior sanded. The first layer of epoxy and 3.7oz cloth is now smooth and ready for one more coat of Low-V epoxy but we'll have to wait until it's warm enough for the Low-V to flow out and level before it can be applied. That means it's time to start working on the rest of the new woodwork.
p is just too small for.
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