Since my last post, I've received my shipment of fasteners from Clark Craft and I've been able to complete the building and assembling of my keel. I have not glued anything at this point. Everything has just been dry fit together. As I continued further up the keep, assembling the formers into place, I used a number of different ratchet clamps to hold the keel sides and bottom in its bent/formed position. My sides were already pre-drilled using a 1/8 brad point drill bit. When in place I used my tapered #8 bit to finish the hole through into the keel bottom followed by a SB fastener. I think Todd mentioned in one of his posts that a valuable yet inexpensive tool that came in very handy when measuring angles was a t-bevel. This stands as one of the most used tools aside from my straight edge and rulers at this point.
When it came to mounting my bow stem, I did not taper the keel sides to sit flat on the stem. Instead, I cut them off flush with the front of the keel bottom. I made sure that the vertical front edge of the keel sides were cut and sanded 90 degrees to the rear keel bottom planing surface. I used my jigsaw to rough cut the notch in the stem bottom, and followed that with careful chiseling to get the precise fit. Once the stem was set into place, I clamped the keel sides tight against it and used plywood shims on either side of the stem inside the keel (visible in photo) to hold it from shifting. I also used a long 1 1/4 inch square steel tube run along the keel center to keep the horizontal plane of the stem 90 degrees to the keel back. (Malcolm Newbiggin used this method in his Candu Junior build). Once I felt the stem was square and in place, I drilled my holes using the 1/8 brad point bit followed by the #8 taper.
Just yesterday I started to number my pieces and disassemble the keel. I also set up my router table and put a 1/2 inch round over on my stem edges. The photos included below show the mentioned progress along with a few shots of my formers once disassembled from the keel. I hope to start epoxying this week.
