Bottom panel cut out and glassed

Happy New Year! I am celebrating the new year by continuing with my frivolous sailboat project while Rani attends a service at her Gurdwara.

When I marked out the bottom panel, I noticed that the curve of the outside near the front did a slight reversal. In my attempt to make the entry (where the front of the boat meets the water) finer (narrower), I had pinched the bottom panel and other panels in so far that it would probably be impossible to make the plywood take this shape. I went back to the CAD software and adjusted the panels so that they curve in a continuous convex curve and never become concave. I think this will be much easier to build because otherwise I might have to laminate up thin sheets of plywood to 'torture' the panels into the right shape. So, already, making the model is paying off. 

Bottom Panel and height offsets table with reciprocal heights

Bottom panel glued temporarily to molds on strongback

Another view that shows the panel shape better

Once I adjusted the shape, I made up a spreadsheet of numbers and calculations to convert these to 1:12 scale specified in 1/8ths of an inch. Probably working in metric and using millimeters would have been easier, but we buy our lumber in mostly imperial measurements. I cut a set of molds to the reciprocal of the heights of the bottom so that I could lay the bottom out upside down in order to glass it and add the skeg/keel. These molds were hot-glued onto the strongback and checked for fairness. Working with such small dimensions, it is tricky to get each station height just right. It took about an hour to adjust things and even then the bottom misses one of the molds because it is a bit low. I hot glued the bottom panel temporarily to the molds to get the shape right. Then I made up a small batch of epoxy and cut some light fiberglass cloth to cover the panel. This should help it hold its shape and is what I will do also with the real boat. I will wait for the epoxy to dry and in the meantime design the skeg and deadwood (keel) that will be attached after I cut the slit for the centerboard.

Bottom panel with fiberglass cloth offered up

Epoxy soaked cloth