The Keel is On!

After a few months of delay, due to circumstances within my control, I am back to working on the boat. Yesterday, I completed shaping the keel for installation. I was planning on waiting a day or two before attaching the keel but changed my mind and after a couple of dry fit-ups I marked where to drill the last few holes and made sure the keel was centered.

The plans call for a 4" long bolt to be installed through the keel and bottom. This requires that a hole be drilled vertically through the aft section of the keel near its widest point. Monday I fabricated a jig designed to make sure the hole would be properly centered and drilled true and perpendicular. So Tuesday morning I mounted the jig and drilled the hole. Just so no one thinks I'm perfect my jig failed me and the drill came out the side. I drilled another hole, this time just by sight, and got it right. So I mixed up some epoxy and filled the bad hole as can be seen in the photo below. The keel is attached with a bunch of wood screws and 3M 2500 compound. The compound is white as is seen in these photos.

The triangular gray shape is the epoxy filled mistake.

At this point all the assembly is completed (I will have to install the thwarts after the painting is done) so it is time to get serious about varnishing and painting.  I spent some time Monday and Tuesday getting the spars ready for varnishing.  Today I rigged up a place where the three spars can be supported at their ends to allow me to varnish the entire length.  

I still have lots of cleaning to do in the garage to make sure the wet paint/varnish doesn't get dusty which would mar the gloss finish I want.  It will be a few weeks before I will be able to get to the painting but when I do it should go pretty quickly.  The spars will require quite a few coats of varnish starting with a thinned mixture and working up to pure varnish.  I also need to finish all the sanding on the outside of the boat  before the varnishing starts so it can be painted while the spars are drying. 

Now that the Jaguar is gone I have plenty of room in the garage to get the varnishing done.  It is really nice to have the space.