3-6 & 3-7.

We finally have something resembling a boat!
It took a couple good days of tracing and cutting. We drew (twice) and cut out (once) the spine, which is one big piece of 9mm plywood from the bow to the centerboard case, or centreboard if you're speaking British english. Then the frames we'd already cut out notched onto the spine, but we noticed that frame 3, the farthest one back in the top picture didn't have a notch to fit onto the spine. The plans hadn't called for a notch. Up till now, while the plans may have been unclear or vague to the novice builder, they were specific enough in the measurements so that anyone with a bit of sense could draw out the designs on wood. Now, though, we have started to come across blatant emissions or errors that are throwing us curve balls. First was this missing notch. Obviously the frame needs a notch to attach to the spine; this was clarified from an experienced boat builder in Texas that has responded to our emails full of questions. (John Welsford down in New Zealand is hard to get hold of). Next we realized that on the spine plan, we had followed the design with a 10 mm notch at the bottom, meant to fit up against the 9mm plank that will be the bottom of the boat. But looking onward, another part of the plan calls for 12.5 mm ply on the bottom of the boat. So which is it? This is important, as we found out today, because we bought the minimum sheets of plywood called for, and this marine plywood can't be purchased in Tallahassee (plus it's expensive). Well, we're going with the 9mm for the bottom. While we may be slightly discouraged by these design flaws, I am confident that we'll figure them out and put our boat together regardless.
Cutting is tedious most of the time. It has to be done well, to a certain extent it seems, so that pieces come out the right size. To a certain extent because epoxy can fill any spots that aren't fitting perfectly, and will fill any and all spots. It's nice cutting with two people - one holds the light and blows away sawdust that's covering the lines, and there's relief when the arms get tired. A sharp blade helps, too.
We cut out all of the arms along with the spine and remaining doublers. The arms are what we used the double sheets of paper for - the ones I mentioned in the last post and wasn't sure how we would use them. The top sheet with full drawing lays in wait as a template for putting the parts together. The bottom sheet that I punched holes into has been cut up into parts for tracing. We connected the dots (the punched holes) to re-draw the arms, then cut out those arms, traced the outline of the paper arms onto 12.5mm plywood, and then cut out the wood to make our real arms. Ingenious!
Daddy with the beginnings of the boat, holding the transom (the very back of the boat, hole for the tiller to come through). The holes in frames 2 & 3 are just for air flow, and the space between those two frames is where the centerboard will be. That space will be decked over to create one big seating area. Up in the bow will be flotation (enclosed air space) with an inspection port in frame 1.