As you can see, I have the seat tops cut out and installed! Now the boat is really coming together and it doesn't look like just a bunch of plywood.
In order to install the seat tops I had to glue some cleats along the hull that would serve as supports for the seat tops. This was pretty easy, just had to make the marks, cut the blocks the mix some putty and stick them where they needed to go. I am really glad that the putty was sticky enough to hold the blocks in place so that I didn't have to worry about holding each one up while they dried. After they dried, I gave them all a good coat of epoxy.
I knew that cutting out the seat tops would be difficult because of the odd angles and the weird curves. So I went to Walmart and bought a few peices of posterboard to use as patterns. It didn't take me long to get the correct shape and cut out the seat tops. Once they were cut out I gave the underside of each seat two coats of epoxy so that I wouldn't have to coat the underside when they were installed on the boat.
Then I mixed up some more putty and just glued the tops in place, no big deal. I did have to put some heavy weights on top of the boards to hold them in place while the epoxy set up. (a vice and large chain work well for this)
I left a spot in the rear seat for a lid so that I could use that compartment for storage. I built the lid out of some scrap antique heart pine I had laying around from some of my furniture projects. It worked well and should look beautiful on the boat.
I also installed the mast step, it was no big deal....
The thing sure is coming along! I plan on being finished some time next week.
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