Purple goop (and whiskey)

Planking is complete, hurrah!  The "whiskey plank" went on about a week ago, and I took a little break from the project to catch up on some other things...and recover from the Dickel ha ha.  But I'm back at it, and here's the latest:

Nice sunset coming through the side windows...ahh the romance of boat building.

The last plank going on.  By the way, the splotches you see all over the hull is putty for filling various holes, dings, etc.

With the planking done,  I've taken out about half the molds to make it easier to work on the inside of the boat.  

Mea Culpa!  The purple patches that you see is fairing putty made from epoxy and West 407 filler.  These two planks have flat spots that, unfortunately, I didn't notice during planking.  So I'm using a little "liquid  carpenter" to take care of the problem.  The starboard garboard is shiny because I also coated that with epoxy.   Once all holes and dings are filled and the hull sanded, I'll give a coat to the rest of the planks.  

I also added a coat of epoxy to the bottom/garboard on the starboard side.  In theory I could just start painting, but coating with epoxy helps keep water out of the wood, provides some scratch/ding resistance, and acts like a primer in that it fills the grain of the plywood.  In theory, the boat should last longer and the paint job will be nice and smooth.  So I'll be coating the outside of the boat, and at least the bilge area of the inside.

With the planking done, I figure I'm about one-third done with the boat.  There's still LOTS to go, including the outer stem and skeg before flipping the boat over.  Then deck beams, bulkheads, deck, seats.  Then lots and lots of sanding, painting, and varnishing.  Not to forget the spars, which I haven't gotten around to start yet!  So stay tuned.