Working on the sole

Sunday night, I glued up the puzzle joints for the sole between B3 & B5.

I first was going to do it on the boat when I glued it down, but I decided that wouldn't work well when I tried to dry fit it all together.

Amazingly enough, I didn't even know if I could get the entire thing installed. I loosely fit the pieces together and decided that I could actually take it out without disassembly.

I first set it on the garage floor on plastic to paint on the silica thickened epoxy. But that didn't give me flat surface. So then I hung it from the ceiling, but that was too complicated to try and push it all together.

Finally, I decided it was just easiest to set it on the boat. First I laid down the plastic, then put the sole on top of that. I could hammer it with my rubber mallet to get it to fit.

Glued up puzzle joints

This morning, I took it off the boat and scraped it for a little while. The glue was pretty messy from the plastic.
This evening, I snapped some pictures. I'll glue it down tonight.

puzzle joint glued

Close up. It will need sanding and fairing

Even though it looks fragile, it will hold up, I've added enough cleats and there is a lot of doubling on the bottom.