The Hog and Stem.

Sounds like a pub on the Thames somewhere, in fact it probably is.

Time for some more technical stuff.

We shaped and glued the Deadwood, as you all should know having read my previous post. Next step was the shaping and gluing of the stem, followed by the outer hog. For those who haven't built a boat before, which includes Chris and I, the outer stem is the bit at the front and the outer hog is the bit at the bottom.

That wasn't hard now was it?

Having decided to paint the hull, we decided that we could save ourselves the painful process of shaping the outer stem and mold the stem out of bits of off-cut ply. The trick being to build up the shape by laminating the strips of ply until we had enough depth.

Gluey Mess

Here's the first few strips of off-cut ply, it's pretty messy isn't it. The next picture is a bit of a close up of the mess, it serves to show that we are now confident we can make a bloody big mess and still get it looking good again.  By the way, we stuck about the same number of strips of ply to double the width.

Close up mess.

We set to the planks with our second hand planes, having established that Brendan's electric plane was far too dangerous - we risked "shaping" the boat through to the inner stem, otherwise known as creating an "hole in the boat" (Sorry for using all these technical nautical terms). I agonised over an upgrade to my $25 Stanley No 4 plane. They do this natty 170 mm plane that fits snugly into the palm of your hand. It also removes $120 from the palm of your hand. It would have been perfect, but having spent a whole blog renovating my plane, I was determined that we could do it. We also used Chris's wooden block plane, that I suspect was stolen from the early settlers museum.

Anyway, plane we did, and sand, and plane, and sand. You get the message. I have the results on another photo. But I am thinking I might go and see if my home brew has matured sufficiently for me to drink without nausea.

Piccies tomorrow.