A few days later and there is now some paint, only primer at this stage, in the fore and aft compartments. I have shaped the ply deck panels and have been priming these at the same time. I tried to make the deck panels in one piece but gave up the struggle. The foredeck was particularly difficult because the deck is wider than the space between the gunwales so it had to bend quite a lot before it would go past the gunwales (and this is still without the inner gunwale in place). So I cut the deck panels in half arranging the join over one of the supporting beams. This will be OK but I would have preferred the panels to be in one piece.
I have also been working on the seat tops and, sad to say, I ran out of plywood with one panel to go! The photo below shows 5 out of six panels in place.. I had enough square millimetres of ply to make the last panel but it was in 3 pieces. I made the first of the scarph joints today and will make the second tomorrow. Not because I am too mean to buy another sheet of ply, but because I would spend 2 hours on the road buying the ply versus 30 minutes for the two scarf joints.
As an aside, it is winter here in Brisbane and so epoxy doesn't go off as quickly as in summer and paint doesn't dry as fast. This makes gluing more tedious because the epoxy doesn't want to be pumped up out of the containers (I put it in an old esky with a light bulb to warm it) but painting is easier because there is more time to lay off the finish coats.
Here are four photos showing the state of paly from different angles. The white inspection hatches in the front ballast tank tops will be replaced with new black ones. The white ones are there to keep the dust, dirt and shavings out for the time being.
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