Build a Dinghy Part 20: Ripping Spar stock and inwales.

Ripped the stock for boom and yard (square pieces) and for inwales. I use a skilsaw and a scrap aluminum fence tacked in place to guide the cuts.

Build a Dinghy: Part 19 Spar Stock

Here's a beautiful piece of CVG (clear vertical grain) Doug Fir from which I'll get out my inwales, as well as the mast partner, spar, boom and mast. This board is a nominal 2" x 12" x 14' and I picked through the pile to find the tightest grain and the least knots and pitch pockets.

Build A Dinghy Part 19: Fastening inwale blocks and quarter knees

Here, I spaced the inwale blocks evenely alongside each side of the boat--taking into account the eventual position of my oarlock pads. To make sure they were even on each side (remember, these are curved surfaces) I used a technique called "horning." This entailed affixing a length of string at the bow and running the other end to a block, then swinging the string across the boat and placing the other block at the same length of string. Sounds weird, but if you visualize it, its simply creating a "virtual" isosceles triangle (Thats the one with at least two equal sides.) I clamped the spacer blocks in position, remeasured, the set back and eyeballed everything. Looked good, so I taped off the mounting line. If your sharp eyed, you'll note that the blocks are set a hair higher than the sheer of the boat. This is to create some flare or camber. Once the rails are installed, everything will be planed down flush, creating a slight outboard crown. I applied straight epoxy to both the boat and the blocks. Then I overcoated with thickened epoxy and clamped the blocks in position. Since the temps were to drop into the 30's overnight, and epoxy likes at least 50 degrees to cure, I created a tent over the boat with a blue tarp. I then placed a pair of 100 W worklamps in the boat. This kept the temp on my glue-up at 61-degrees F in my unheated boatshop --er, garage.(LOL)

Build a Dinghy Part 18: Inwales

I've got 61 Hours in my Summerbreeze design skiff, though I started a year ago to date. Such is life. Here, I've cut 1 x2 lumber into 3-inch long pieces to use as the spacer blocks for my inwales ( rails that run along the sheer inside the boat, creating a sort of truss). Twenty blocks, all three inches long but for the two that support the mast partner: Those are 6-inches long. Cuts were made with precision using a simple stop on my bench saw. Rather than sand the end grain of each block one at a time, I clamped up a rack on my bench that secured the blocks end up. I then sanded the end grain of all of them simultaneously using a palm sander. Having no bottom, I simply flipped the rack to sand the other side.