Michael's Boatbuilding Blog: Fairing, Day 496: Frame #4 essentially done

Day 496; a Saturday. We've reached another minuscule milestone in the fairing.

The bottom of Frame #4 is, for all intents and purposes, done. It's done enough to use as a reference point for all the other port-side floor battens, in any case. There may be minor adjustments ahead... but they'll be very minor.

Here's where we're at:

We've finally made contact between the chine and Frame #4. There is a tiny little bit of a gap along the aft section of the joint, but this appears to be caused by the angle of the notch that was cut in the frame. I'm not going to pursue that any further down for an aesthetic that will be immediately filled with epoxy and covered with hull planking, anyway.

(Looks like that last sliver of shim is going to stay, after all!)

Port chine at Frame #4.

It's small, but noticeable progress. In the last post, the same joint looked like this...

Moving on, let's take a look at the keel.

I have been proceeding slowly and cautiously with sanding down the high area in the forward part of the keel. When measured with my 6' level, there is still a gap between the middle area of the level and the keel. I believe this gap is showing a little sign of closing up.

For comparison, here's how the gap looked 4 days ago. Maybe it's just my wishful thinking, but it seems slightly improved to me.

I certainly hope that forward part of the keel is close to being right. Here's why. The port junction between the keel and Frame #4 seems just about right. I don't want to take that keel down any further unless it's absolutely necessary.

Here, you can see that the centerline "ridge" on the keel is moving ever so slightly, but more and more, toward the starboard side. Ideally, I'd like to have the center ridge... well... down the centerline of the keel.

Keel at Frame #4.

This is already something of an issue at Frame #2...

Keel at Frame #2

For the center ridge of the "V" in the keel to be physically dead-center down the full length of the keel, it would require everything to be exactly precise. The keel would have to be perfectly straight, and centered perfectly down the exact centerline of the frames. And, the angle of the floor on each side of the "V" would have to be absolutely identical.

Okay... for an amateur boatbuilder constructing only his 2nd boat in the garage... I think we can all agree that kind of absolute precision isn't too likely.

So, my goal is to keep the center ridge as close to the physical center of the keel as much as I can. As this thing takes shape, it's beginning to look like the center of the "V" will be a little offset to starboard. I can live with that, as long as everything is structurally strong in the end.

My gut instinct is that the port side of the floor is set at a slightly flatter angle than the starboard side. So, I measured it to see. I believe I'm right... although the difference is only about 1 degree.

Port side at Frame #4.

Starboard side at Frame #4.

Now that the fairing at Frame #4 is basically done, I'm turning my attention to the floor battens... and still slowly & cautiously bringing down the port side of the keel.