Stem Plates

This Saturday was another rough one. Didn't seem like I got enough done...again. I mostly worked on the stem plates. They provide a connection and fair curve between the gunwales and the stem pieces.

As you can see I had to cut into my oh so thought out stem plates and gunwales. It just seemed wrong to cut into something I had spent so much time putting together. But I did it, trying to cut a straight line 10 inches long for the plate to sit into.
The plate has to be carefully pegged into place. I finally hit a snag here when one of the pegs came out the side of the gunwale. It broke the stem plate and a piece out of the gunwale. At first I was really upset, as I was running out of scraps of cedar that were deep enough to fill the area that I had cut out for the stem plates. But then I remembered how well I had done at pegging the deck beams into place. Many people had problems with that step when I didn't.

Here is a side view of the stern with everything in place. Next is to shape the plate to create a nice continuous line between all three pieces.

This is a view of the bow stem plate pegged into place.

Here is Danielle sewing a rim or flange onto her cockpit coaming. This will create a ledge for the sprayskirt to grab onto. The coamings have to be steamed and bent around a frame. Chuck is going to do this for all of us as we don't have a lot of coaming stock. Fine with me, since we only have one more day to work in the shop. I've been working on shaping my masik at home so I can peg it into place next weekend. I also shaped the chines, which run the length of the kayak between the keelson and the gunwales.

So what I have left to do is:

• Place and lash the chines
• Fit & peg the Masik
• Need one more curved deck beam between masik and footrest
• Deck stringers cut, pegged and shaped forward and aft of the cockpit
• Seal the wood frame
• Stretch the nylon
• Sew it onto the kayak
• Add cockpit coaming
• Stain the skin
• Seal the skin

Wow! That's alot to do yet. Wish me luck.