Getting going on the keel and skeg

Welcome back!  This installment finds me marking and painting the water line and getting started on the skeg/keel.  Once that's done, I'll do a bit more painting, then flip her over and see what the inside looks like right-side-up.  In theory, I could put off ALL the painting until the boat is right-side-up, but it is so easy to paint this way, with the boat at a convenient height, that I couldn't resist getting going with that part of the project too.

I used a laser level (cheating, I know) to set the water line, then mixed up a slightly paler batch of primer to see what that looked like.   I think I'm liking this grey-green, or is it green-grey.  It looks pretty glossy in the photo, I think I'll go with a semi-gloss in the finish coats.

I was fortunate enough to find a very nice piece of white oak, perfect for the whole keel/skeg structure, with some left over for other stuff!  (A piece of Douglas fir would work fine for the skeg--or a stack of Doug fir pieces glued together--but I couldn't resist using the oak.)  So here I've made a simple support (scrap ply) to hold the board in place for marking.  First I leveled the top of the board, since I knew the top of the final skeg would also be level...

Then I used another piece of scrap as a marking stick.  Running this along the bottom of the boat (held roughly plumb, NOT perpendicular to the bottom) gets me my bottom line, which I then cut on a bandsaw....

Voila, a pretty good fit.  A bit of tuning with a hand plane and it will be fine.  I'll cup the edge of the boad slightly too, to make sure that plenty of goo can glue the skeg to the bottom.  Note how the painted waterline curves around the stern end of the bottom...I'm hoping that looks good out on the water.     

After drilling the skeg for its two 1/4" bronze bolts, I made my own using a piece of bronze rod and a die to cut the threads.  Probably not worth it to buy a set of dies just for one boat, but they are mighty handy to have around if you plan to build a few boats.  Three dies in the 1/4"-5/16"-3/8" range should cover you for just about any small boat...and will save you quite a bit of money over store-bought bronze bolts. (Sorry, the photo is a bit out of focus.)

Here I've cut the aft edge of the skeg (and coated with epoxy) and test-fitted the long, 11-1/2" bolt.  It goes through the skeg, then through the 5/8" bottom, and finally through the transom knee.  This should add tremendous strength and stiffness to the stern of the boat, tying the skeg to the bottom to the transom.   Note that I used a level clamped to the skeg to make sure it was nice and plumb while I drilled through the bottom and transom knee.  You can see one of the screw holes for the transom knee in the transom.  Once the knee is installed and these holes are bunged, I'll be able to do final sanding of the transom and get on at least a couple of coats of varnish. The end-grain of the plywood planking will be painted, which will help to give the boat a traditional appearance.

Here I've added the forward part of the keel, gluing and back-screwing it to the bottom.  When the glue dries I'll do the final shaping to the intersection between the outer stem and the keel, to make it a nice curve.   

Next up:  using more nice white oak to finish the keel/skeg. That means making the two pieces that run on either side of the centerboard slot, stiffening the bottom and protecting the slot area.  Since I've got some extra oak, I may also make a couple of "runners" about 18" long around 'midships to further protect the bottom from bumps and scrapes on launch ramps and rocky shores.  Then a bit more paint and over she goes.