Sole cut

While I was wondering what to do next, I decided I could cut the sole.

Howard had talked about making a foot well between B5 & B6. Since Quincy is rather tall, I wanted to leave that open as a foot well. I even had what I consider a brilliant idea to create a drop down plate. That way you can have your foot well and have a solid sleeping platform for when you needed that.
I had deliberately not filleted in the area between B5 & B6 so that I could put down a hull doubler.

Today, I laid down the sole and took measurements for the cut.

Sole in place

Sole in place

I made the cut. I was a bit nervous here, if I had screwed up, I didn't have a similar piece and would have had to pick up another 4x8 sheet of 9mm.

But I did it correctly and everything looked great.

hull doubler is down, along with second doubler

I even took the tail end of the sole and cut it as a tripler that will lay down in between B5 & B6. (In the picture above, the tripler is raised because there are 2 screws in the doubler that I use as handles.) This will give me 2 locations to put in elvstrom bailers if I want. They should work well in that part of the hull. I'm not sure I'll do that, we'll see how much water I'll collect there.

I took the other large piece of marine plywood that I have and cut the final sole piece. This looks great to me. I no longer have those little spots for mini bailers.

sole is down, no bailer spots!

Also today, I cut out the hatch for above the battery well (nee water ballast well).

Tonight, I hope to go out and glue down the doubler and glue the hatch doublers as well.

I decided not to cut the sole for the aft hatch. It's likely that I'll walk over that quite a bit, so I'll cut it just before I glue it down. I do want to coat and sand the area under there as soon as possible now.

This week if I get some time, I will prime every thing that needs to be primed and maybe fillet in the sole doubler/tripler. I can also get the battery mounted and string the electrical.