attaching the sole

After checking the rough fit of the stem and being satisfied with it, I beveled the forward face as per the rough bevels indicated in the plans. It was nice to be able to use a drawknife and my beautiful birthday present from Briony - a Lie-Nielsen rabbet block plane - to tidy it up

I glued this in place attached to the keelson and bulkhead A and then bolted the forward end to the building jig. When I did this, I pushed it aftwards about 5mm to rectify the springback that I got after glue laminating the stem.

Next, I sanded back the bottom surfaces of glue lumps and to key in the glue to attach the sole. Here is the bottom of the centreboard case where the logs meet the keelson with intervening stuffers (all these timbers are regrowth mountain ash/ swamp gum/E. regnans - which is very strong and more durable but a similar density to Douglas fir)

After a dry test with the sole and after giving it a second coat of epoxy on the inside surface, I glued it on. This was a little exciting and nervewracking as it means the start of the planking.

I lined up the centreboard case cutout with the centreboard case and the edge of the sole nicely lined up with the planking marks on the stations. My only concern was that the sole did not come as far forward as it showed on the plans. I wasn't too worried about this as there was plenty of gluing surface for the sole and it might just mean that there is a small gap that I need to fill before I eventually glue on the outer stem. It's hard to know what that gap might be as I can't really visualise yet what the garboards might look like in this zone