About a month ago I bought the materials I would need to fiberglass the bottom... and found myself in a epoxy nightmare.. I laid the fiberglass with a first coat of epoxy and had no problems .. a few days later I applied the second coat but the epoxy never cured fully ...after several days I realized that I had to scrape off the second coat , this took several hours with the back of a 1.5 inch chisel.... I think my mistake was in counting squirts ... good advice  was given to me on the John Welsford forum to alternate your squirt from resin to hardener .I do this now and always start with the resin and now it dos not matter if I loose count ,I know if I squirt a shot of hardener I have done equal amounts.... very simple trick that is so easy and eliminates bad ratios...

For those of you thinking of building a welsford designed boat ,.the Jw builders forum is very valuable resource

Anyway I am back on track again ....I fiber glassed the bottom and the did the keel over the fiberglass, I am gluing the pieces of the keel that surrounds the centerboard opening up, in this photo... Tomorrow I will glue the keel to the hull
I took a picture from my shop towards the house because I can't remember when I have ever seen such a green august .... usually everything is straw colored by this time of year and my lawn mower collects dust
I glued  the keel down to the hull using epoxy and added a generous fillet at the base..... I have discovered how easy cabo-sil    is to fillet as compared to west systems fillet blend and about 10 times cheaper... I still need to do lots of shaping and sanding...
I added the false stem with a half lap to the keel ... I planned on making a fancy jig to bend and laminate the  1/8th strips of fir . and then  fasten the whole assembly to the boat but in the end I got real lazy and  just laminated and fastened it on all at once with no clamps... and although I was covered in epoxy when I was finished and pretty much ruined my cordless drill (very old and cheap ) totally covered in glue..  I was able to do this by doing 4 strips at a time , screwing them into place and then doing the next 3 and fastening them over and through the first set.... it worked great just messy...

 

 
all I have left to do on the bottom now is shape the keel and the stem , add some rub rails near the stern , a bunch more fairing and paint to the sheer plank... I also am going to add some bronze as a shoe to the stem and keel
I shaped the keel / stem today ... I used my trusty angle grinder ,hand plan and orbital sander to finish
hopefully I will have the boat right side up in a week.... but then again I thought I would be finished building the boat last year
a bunch more faring.. am I ever thank full for a open sided shop
For a change I started the rudder assemble ...
This is a picture of shaping the rudder with my angle grinder.. The rudder consists of 15 pieces of 30mm x 20 mm x 1000 mm mahogany strips... I am not sure if I need drifts with that type of laminating I will ask the forum..
gluing and screwing the cheek pieces to the inside bit...
the rudder has been foiled
My shop is out of control messy ... I have a hard time stopping to clean but I think I am at a point where I have no choice
not such a good picture but the rudder assembly is finished except to add drifts and pivot bolt
I decided along time ago that I couldn't live with a plywood transom, I was not sure what I would do but I knew I was going to laminate mahogany to it.... I happened to have some  2 inch thick,  face grain African mahogany so when it is cut on edge it has that really nice ribbony look. .I was worried that my idea would end up looking real bad and to busy with all the strips but I went for it and simply glued and stapled the strips to the transom
As you can see I was a little worried when I finished.. 
but in the end after I sanded and removed the staples I was more then pleased .. I sanded to 320 grit and added tung oil.  I will varnish later.
I spent a few hours and found the water line and taped it up for bottom paint ..I am using Neptune epoxy cop .A Interlux product that was recommended to me for my application..
I got my helper to do some final faring before I paint......

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