7. Stitching & Gluing the Deck

Now that the outside of the hull was finished I could start on the top of the boat (what they call the "deck"). It was comprised of four long pieces, each made up of three sections that I had glued together at their joints earlier (you can see the joints because they are the darker areas where I used epoxy and fiberglass).



The first step was assembling and installing the forms (supports for the deck). They acted as guides so that I would glue the deck pieces together at the correct angles and also held it up until it was dry. I put plastic packing tape over the tops of the forms so I wouldn't accidentally glue my deck to them.

I matched the bow and stern tips as best I could.



I drilled the tiny holes and wired the pieces together (just like I had done earlier with the hull pieces.) It went faster this time and I didn't poke my fingers . . . well at least I didn't as often as I had before. ;-) The wood blocks helped elevate the deck while I was inserting wires.



The bow tip was complicated because the holes were so close to the tip edges that I thought I was going to break them. (Actually, you see in this picture that I did break one of the tips when I was moving the piece around in my workshop - it is darker color because I had to glue it and put fiberglass on both sides to strengthen it.)



A close-up of the bow stitching job.



One thing I noticed is that you can't always trust the measurements given in the manual. You can see here how the support forms didn't line up correctly with the 3-person deck holes. I debated whether to move the forms (so they were directly under a seam area) but I had glued them into the inside of the hulls already. The deck seemed to be positioned correctly from an angle perspective, so I let them be.









Next I filled the syringe with epoxy and glued all the seams. I let that cure over night and then turned the deck over and fiberglassed the inside.