August 4, 2002 - The Stitch and Glue Method.

A week later the straps were dry, and I could begin to actually start putting the boat together. The method I used is known as the stitch and glue approach. I drilled a small hole 5mm from the edge of the of the bottom panel, every 20cm along or so. Then I matched up the side of the boat, and drilled holes one by one to match the holes in the bottom panel, and looped a short piece of wire through each pair of holes, effectively stitching the boat together.

I started from the middle of the boat, and worked out to the edges, as you can see in this picture. I also made a useful holding tool using two old clamps and a piece of dowling to ensure that the boat was held in shape.

After about an hour the whole boat was in shape. I then glued the fillets for the ends of the punt on. You can see the yellow clamps holding the back filled in place. It was rather tricky to slice the fillet diagonally down the middle with the circular saw - perhaps if I did this again I would take those pieces to a carpenter. The fillets need to be triangular because the boat comes to a point at its ends (when seen from the side).

Having stitched the boat together, I now had to glue it. First I checked that the hull was straight and not twisted. Then I mixed up a big batch of gloopy epoxy and wetted the seams. After that I stirred in some colloidal sillica to thicken the mix, and spread it on the seams generously. In the picture below you can see the expoy drying, and if you look carefully you can see a couple of the stitches.