Making the Molds
More plywood! The plans come with full size drawings of all the molds for each station from stem to stern. (The stem is the front and the stern is the back of the boat where something called a transom will be built and mounted later.)
Now, how do you transfer the drawing to a piece of plywood to cut the molds? Believe it or not you can still buy carbon paper at the big stationery stores so I purchased a package of 50 sheets for less than $5 and put those down on the plywood then with the drawing on top I carefully traced over the lines using a gel pen so it would glide smoothly.
When I lifted the drawing and carbons I had a perfect transfer to the wood and cut along the line with the little jigsaw above. I left a very small amount of wood over the line and then sanded back to it so I'd end up with a smooth surface.
After cutting and sanding each mold you will have one half of the complete mold station so you will need to flip it over and trace along your mold ( the half you just made) and repeat the process until you have both halves of each mold for all the stations.
Since the strip planking will eventually fit tightly to the molds it will be necessary to partially destroy them to get the boat free. This can be facilitated by butting together your two halves and attaching them to a smaller square of plywood with a few screws so you can pull each half out separately later.
In the picture above you will see that I have attached all of the molds to the strong back and I mocked up a strip of wood to get an idea of the shape of the boat.
At this stage it's very important to make sure all of the molds are lined up square and plumb to the strong back to help make constructing the boat easier.
It was so much fun to see something already! This was on my third day.
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