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...

Big steps today... I finished the Pinguino panels by beveling the edges of panels #4 & #5 where the hull/deck joint meets. In the past I've used a router table to bevel the edges, but today I didn't have the energy to set it up so I used a new rasp I bought from Pygmy's East coast competitor Chesapeake Light Craft. It's called a "Shinto" and is made in Japan. It's made up of a number of saw blades and is pretty ingenious. You can find it on Amazon too. After that I put the panels aside and set up the temporary frames using the spacers I cut on the table saw last week. Remember that when you use the "taping method" instead of sewing the hull together with wires, that you build the boat upside down over the temporary frames. The official Pygmy manual that comes with your boat gives exact measurements for lines that you mark on the #1 panels (and #4 panels). You will need to also mark those same #1 lines on the table. Before marking...

Today I built the table for the new Pygmy Pinguino 145 that I'm building for a family friend. It's just two sawhorses with short pieces between the legs. On top of that are two 2" x 6" x 8' studs that I selected for being especially flat on edge. If I had a jointer I'd run them both through it to make sure the edges are flat... but I don't have a jointer. Then I laid a 2' x 8' x 3/4" sheet of MDF on top of the studs and screwed them down. I got lucky because to my eye the table appears to be pretty flat which the one thing you must have. It doesn't matter too much if it's not level, but it must be flat across the entire surface. Then I opened the main box and sorted out the panels. The manual says to start gluing the panels together starting with panel 1 and working to panel 6. It also says to do one side at a time. However, that isn't helpful with the steps that come later and you'll end up moving the panels ar...