Butt Strapping!

I know it's juvenile for me to go around saying "butt strapping", but that doesn't make it less fun. I did get a good few hours in the boat shed and am happy to report that my router frame works perfect.The first one I did came out a bit rough. It looked like I gouged out the wood with my teeth.

For the first two cuts I used a level to keep the strap vertical, for the later ones I just made sure that they were lined up to each other.  Bernd calls out for 12 cm wide straps which gives lots of wiggle room. The other Bernd genius move was that 12 cm is perfect to fit my palm sander in the relief with a little extra room for smoothing out the bottom of the cut.

I got faster and better at it as time went on. Here is picture right after using the router with no sanding done yet.

Finally I epoxied the first two straps in their places. I used the polymer brad nailer and have come to love that tool, faster and less fuss than clamps, and way faster than installing then removing and filling screw holes.

Tomorrow I need to finish fairing the bow and keel (not much work). Fair off these butt straps, and epoxy coat the bow planks. I have to do this because I traced the bow plank on the non-epoxy coated side, so I could see the mark. So that means the bare side is facing inside the hull. So I've got two days of epoxy coating before I can install the cut bow planks. Normally I would be annoyed at this, but I've got so much fairing and butt strapping to do that the extra time on the bow planks should not effect me too much,