Love Me Tender, Volume II



Transferring the plans to plywood.

Contruction of the Eastport Pram is underway.  As was the case with PocketShip, the first step is to lay out the parts on the plywood.  This is done by transferring the full size plans to the plywood using a punch awl, and then playing a giant game of connect-the-dots with a pencil.  The Eastport Pram's plans are fantastic.  Most of the parts are arranged on the plans the same way they are supposed to be arranged on the plywood, so there isn't much jiggering the plans around to get everything to fit required.  Just roll 'em out and mark away.  Kudos to CLC...these are really well thought out.  As a bonus, since this is a much smaller boat, laying out the parts didn't take too much time (compared to the 50+ hours required for PocketShip).

Transom doublers

Some quick jigsaw/circular saw work was all it took to cut all the parts out, bringing me to where I would have started if I had just bought the kit.  Next up, epoxy started flowing as I glued all the transom and take-apart bulkhead doublers together.  Also, taking a lesson learned from building the Pram's 1/2-scale sibling, the CLC Cradle Boat, I've decided to pre-coat interior surfaces with epoxy and sand them prior to stitching....hopefully that will make things easier down the road.



Epoxy flows!