In my last post I had wired and glued the Annapolis Wherry hull together. The next day was spent, and I mean the entire boat-work day, removing the $&*#ing wires! Unlike boats that are glued on the edges of the panels (kayaks for example, and the Expedition Wherry), the Annapolis Wherry uses the Lapstitch process which embeds every wire in epoxy. They ALL were a challenge to remove.  Luckily I had one trick up my sleeve that helped. You can heat the wires and they will soften the epoxy just around the wire and the wires can much more easily slip out. I use a soldering iron.  If you have a wire that just will not come out, you can hold a hot soldering iron to it and let it heat up for 20-30 seconds. Be careful not to scorch the wood! You can then generally work the wire out. In the picture above you can see me holding the soldering iron to the end of a cut wire. It easily came out even though it was embedded in epoxy.  This trick even works on the bow, stern, and...

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...

 Just a quick update... I was able to pull the wires from the CLC Expedition Wherry.  The wires that held the panels together came out easily. Just snip the inside bit and pull from the outside and they will come right out.  The wires on the transom, bow, and bulkheads though were harder to pull. The bulkhead wires eventually came out with some persuasion. I found that I had to snip both sides of the bulkhead wires and then pull out the two outside wires separately and then the inside bit that ran through the bulkhead. Wasn't too bad but took time.  I started with the transom though and wish now that I had learned a trick that I would figure on on the bow. I ended up leaving some wires in the transom. They will not be seen, but I now know that I could have easily gotten them out.  NEAT WIRE PULLING TRICK: IF you have a wire that is stuck in hardened epoxy, you can usually get it out by doing this. 1) Snip the wire on the outside close to the hull be leave an 1/8...