This boat is for my wife, and she wanted the seats dyed. She picked a "Vintage Cherry" from General Finishes. They look great. I dyed them a couple weeks ago and have since added two coats of epoxy to all of them, sanding between coats. They're ready for varnishing.  Today I installed them, but I'm doing it in a few steps instead of all in one shot as the manual says to do. I am first just tacking them down and using weights to keep them in place. Tomorrow I will sand those "spot welds" and then run nicer looking seams. The weights will be out of the way by then and it will be easier to make the seams without the seats moving.  For the thwarts, I first sanded a line down the middle of the underside of the thwarts so that epoxy would stick well, and then also lightly sanded the top of the bulkhead too. A small bead of thickened epoxy was added to the top of the bulkhead and then the seats were set down on top. When cured, it will be much easier to then add...

For the past week (yes, WEEK!) I have been working on the outwales and spacered inwales. The inwales and outwales are such an obvious part of the boat that you really want them to look as good as you can possibly make them. And doing that takes a lot of time and patience.  The spacered inwale kit is an addition to the basic wherry kit. The kit includes the OUTwales, but does not come with INwales. We like the look of the spacered inwales and find that they have some function too for securing things to the hull. They look nautical.    The spacered inwale kit comes with inwale rails, sticks you cut to make the spacers, a replacement breasthook for the bow, and replacement quarter knees for the transom.  They leave it up to you for how long to cut the spacers and how far apart to space them. The manual that comes with the kit is extensive.  I like the look of rounded spaces. No, it's not the normal look of spacers which are supposed to simulate the ribs on a wooden...

The manual for the Annapolis Wherry has you drill and install the drain plugs as one of the very last steps right after finishing. Do it now instead!  First, it’s just easier to drill the 1” hole now, before you install the bow and stern seats, and before finishing. Plus, it doesn't wreck your finished surface. You can also vacuum up all the sawdust. If you wait until the seats are installed, you will always have sawdust and chips inside your tanks.  Drilling the hole will often chip out wood on the inside. Drilling them now will give you access to the inside so you can properly epoxy coat any bare wood. I used a spade bit and it chipped out wood on the inside. Always drill from the outside of the bulkhead into the tank! Here is one of my drain holes. It was drilled, sanded, vacuumed up, and epoxy coated. I'll install the actual drain plug and screws after finishing, but the messy bit is done now.  Tomorrow the hull gets turned over and I'll start on the bottom. Lots of w...

Today I sanded out the entire inside of the hull again, and epoxy-coated the entire inside, again. Phew.  Here's how it looked at the end of the day.   First I used a cabinet scraper to cut down the really big fuzz that is created when you epoxy bare wood. I used it on the entire hull because it's a great tool for finding raised epoxy bits too. Then power-sanded where my 6" sander could reach. I hand-sanded the rest using a foam block with 80-grit sticky sand paper backing. I buy the rolls of sandpaper. The sticky back works really well.  Then I used the cabinet scraper again to cut off the tall scratches that the 80-grit paper leaves. This gave a nice surface for the epoxy.  Here's a close-up of how it looked after sanding. Then I epoxy coated the entire inside again.  I mixed up about 10 pumps of epoxy and poured it along the keel in the second section (I'm not epoxy coating the fiberglass again in the bow and stern... will leave the weave rough in those areas...

Yesterday I brushed on a coat of epoxy into all the seams on the Annapolis Wherry. I then wiped the planks down to get rid of any drips but made sure to allow epoxy to settle into the seams.  Today I gently hand-sanded the seams just to rough up the epoxy so that the next coat would stick.  I then epoxy coated the entire inside of the hull. Remember that I had already sanded the fiberglass on the bottom two planks and they were ready to go.  This coat was to add a second coat to the fiberglass to start to fill the weave, and to add a first coat to the bare wood on the upper three planks on each side.  I used three tools: An epoxy spreader, and 3" roller with an Wooster Tiz epoxy roll on it, and a 2" foam brush.  The Annapolis Wherry is an easy one to epoxy coat because the boat is neatly divided into five separate sections. That way you can completely take care of one section without feeling like you have to rush to the next one.  I did one section at a tim...

Today I tightened the wires that I installed yesterday, adjusted the hull as best I could, and then epoxied it all together.  You start by rolling the hull upside down and tightening the wires using pliers. It's a challenge to get used to how tight you can go without snapping the wires. I've done many stitch and glue boats and I still snap a few each time. The hull will be noticeably tighter afterwards. Then you roll the boat upright and start epoxying.  NOTE: YOU MUST DO THIS NEXT STEP AND GET THE HULL UPSIDE DOWN AGAIN IN ONE SESSION OR THE BOAT MIGHT BE CROOKED! I used epoxy thickened with wood flour to make the fillets at the bow, all the bulkheads, and the transom.  Then we flipped the hull upside down again onto the 2 x 6s so that it was level. We took all the time we needed to make sure the hull, especially the bow, was straight and looked good.  If you want to stop for the day at this point you can, but I wanted to keep going so I filled all the seams with ep...

I'm making very good progress. I brought home the Chesapeake Light Craft Annapolis Wherry one week ago, and yesterday was able to wire the hull together.    CLC does a very nice job in designing their panels. They use a puzzle joint that very accurately aligns the panels into the full-length planks.  After gluing up the final planks and storing them under my table, I adjusted the table to get ready to wire the hull.  The planks will need to be suspended between two sawhorses normally, but I'm very tall and bending over that much kills my back, so I simply removed one of the MDF boards that formed my table and shifted the other one to the middle. Then I screwed two 4' 2 x 6's to the ends of that MDF panel. That way, by using the factory edges, the 2 x 6's are aligned to each other. See the pictures below.  I store my completed planks and rails under the sawhorses until needed. That way they are mostly out of the way and stay flat. After making sure that the 2 x 6...