Re: stitching

Posted by Ken Leffert on Dec 19, 2004

Howdy Ray! The answer is a little bit yes and a lot no.

The best way to drill the holes in the hull bottom panels is to put the panels together face to face (actually inside-to-inside or back-to-back is more appropriate here) then drill through both panels at once. That way, they'll be exactly aligned along the keel. While those two panels are together, go ahead and drill holes along the chine edge of the bottom panels, where they'll join the sides of the hull. At the same time, you can put the side panels face-to-face and drill the very front holes (the cutwater) and the very rear holes (the stem), but don't drill the holes where the bottom panels join the sides just yet. Very loosely wire the bottom panels along the keel, swap the side panels around so that they are no longer face-to-face, but are back-to-back and loosely wire them together at the front (cutwater) and back (stem), you'll find that the sheer clamps want to mess with you here, but not too badly.

Now, after you've loose wired the above, open up the sides a good bit while they're upside down on sawhorses, put the right length of spreader bar across the sides at the sheer clamp, and put a couple of small pieces of wood or pvc pipe across at 1/3 and 2/3 of the way back (the cutoffs from the sheer clamps work very well for this). Now don't laugh.....really pay attention to bow and stern at this point, it really sucks to get them backwards. When you open up the previously stitched bottom panels and lay them on the boat, being supported by the pieces you put across the already spread open and wired sides, you'll be able to look at the already drilled holes in the bottom panels and "eyeball" where each accompanying hole in the side should go......

Some of the holes in this process need to be precise, but they are automatically drilled in the right location by having the matching pieces face-to-face or back-to-back and drilling both pieces simultaneously......I started at the bow (if memory serves me) and wired my way toward the stern. Don't worry if the bottom assembly doesn't match up perfectly with the side assembly at the stern, this is inevetible and is easily fixed. For the final set of holes in the sides to match up with the previously drilled holes in the bottom panels, eyeballing is close enough.

In Response to: stitching by ray on Dec 19, 2004

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