.Well, the old addage "measure twice, cut once" is certainly true, but I think "haste makes waste" is more appropriate to this story. I did actually measure twice, and the cuts i did on the measurements were correct. How, then, did I manage to screw up the the stern portion of the upper chine?

Well, it was because of haste. The plans direct you to only loft the chines once, then cut the plywood close to the mark, flip the other half over and clamp to the lofted side and then do your cuts following your lines so the sides would all be exact. Well that worked for the first ply, but I screwed up the second sheet by cutting just 1/2 inch to wide on my initial cut before clamping the pieces together. Since I am doing a cedar stripped deck, rather than use the offcut triangles (in red from Hannu's diagram below) it was initially no big deal, I flipped the ply again end for end and had enough material to continue, I would just have to remember essentially which side was up when I butt blocked the panels together.

I did manage to remember that issue for my bottom panels, they came out fine. But unfortunately I inverted one of the sides for the stern upper chine. The mistake was completely unnoticeable as the chines lay next to each other when I glued the butt blocks on. the next morning when I laid the supposedly mirror image pieces on top of each other to drill holes for zip ties, I noticed the mistake.

So back to the store for another piece of plywood. Then back home to loft the new chine, and butt block it together. So this weekend it should be able to be stitched together and start looking like a boat!

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