(9) First thing we did was fit the bow shapes. Now if you look up close you'll see they fit horrendously poorly. They certainly don't overlap the edges of the gunwales as implied in the instructions - not even close. Given everything else is sort of shaped around pre-shaped parts, we actually don't think this is our fault for once. Undeterred, with the usual 'we'll fix it later' gusto, we positioned them as centrally as we could, marked the spots, epoxy/403 glued, then tacked them into place. On went the ever useful clamps to hold everything down flat.

The thing about bowshapes is they seem to have been a bit of an after-thought in the Mirror design. You'll find a million references on how to 'blend' them and the front of the boat into some kind of a sleek shape if you look about. Our technique will be a combination of shaving, filling with epoxy/405 (the brown filler), and sanding till it looks like it was meant to be done this way. A coat of varnish or two on top and it'll look like we knew what we were doing. 

Having said all that, looking at Rich Larson's pictures, his are within 7-10mm of ours so perhaps things have changed over the years. http://semlab5.sbs.sunysb.edu/~rlarson/DSCF0181.JPG.

Very worthy of note is that Rich is so much tidier building these things than us. Obviously we plan on tidying up later...   

(12) Now comes fitting the battens. These have to be spaced exactly where the footrest will be (12" forward of the rear buckhead). We dry fitted the inner pieces using this as a guide rather than trusting the measurements which, oddly, yielded the same results. It refers to the inner batten being 127mm from the center line - seeing as we have metric/imperial confusion all over the place in our instructions, why couldn't they just say 5"? Anyway, we marked the position of the battens and pencilled an outline, then did the same for the outer battens, once again checking where we planned to fit it cleared the footrest. 

At this point you'll find you have to drill some holes as the battens are screwed down from the underside of the boat (glue too). Once you've drawn the batten outlines, it's easy enough to see where you need to drill.

(13) Slop some glue (we used the 403 mix again) on the battens and one of you hold it in place and the other drive the screws home from the other side. Actually went quite smoothly and before you know it we had floor battens - though we must admit we had to tweak the fitting a little when we put the footrest on as we'd crept a tiny bit but no big deal. A good idea here - don't fix the battens then walk away before the footrest goes on - it's easy to adjust wet epoxy. Once it hardens the game is over.. 

So that's it for this exciting section. On to other things. But before that, off to the pub - today's choice is Jupiter Brewery in Berkeley. Go there - http://www.jupiterbeer.com/jupiter/

So, with every day that passes, we're getting closer to the exciting part - will it actually come out of workshop without incident. Edge of your seat stuff. Stay tuned for further news...

(2) We also took the time to fill any major gaps around the various wood joints. Now this wasn't anything elaborate - just a stout mix of epoxy/405 (the brown stuff) that we piped in with a ziplock with the corner cut off, and cut in flat with a plastic putty knife. Note that this isn't the way to do fillets if that's your fancy - it's being done by us as a filler and to add strength for assured transportation. Proper fillets, and/or old school tape/epoxy will come when it's moved across to Petaluma and the inside finish stages really start.

In our case, we took a plane/rasp to about the first foot or so, to trim off the excess height so things lay flat. Basically we kept reducing the wood until the bow shape, allowing for a little bending, would obviously fit in place. More shaping in general at the front will be needed but this seems a good approach. 

As usual, final finish sanding and shaping will get done later. The careful reader may have noticed we seem to defer everything to later. This is because of a technique we specially developed for this project called laziness.

(6) Similarly, after the rear of the boat was smoothed flat ready for the quarter knees (now what sort of a term is that?), you'll find that it's unlikely that the quarter knee (the triangular bit) will fit exactly so a bit of rasping and 50 grit sanding to get a close fit was called for. This takes a bit of patience but seems to work. Once done, we drilled the holes for the screws that secure the quarter knees, even remembering to countersink (yay) as the final finish epoxy will fill the countersink holes and hide them.

(7) On to finishing up fitting the bow shape braces we started earlier(it's an odd angle so fine tuning to fit tightly does take patience and some gentle sander use, but bear in mind most of it doesn't show so don't sweat it too much), followed by some pre-drilling and counter sinking the screws for a neat appearance. All in all, these fiddly bits take longer to do than you'd think. 

You'll also notice that we did a little sanding to ready the hull for the floor battens and the mast steps. We got a bit carried away. Next step was the shop vac to remove much of this dust but the camera batteries died so couldn't capture that particular magic moment - you'll just have to wait till the next installment.

We'll wipe it down next time to remove what dust remains before we stick anything else to it.     

(8) Today's lunch recommendation, which we're sure most of you read this site for anyway, since it's certainly not for the technical competence, is good old Triple Rock brewery in Berkeley. They say they're the oldest in the USA. http://www.triplerock.com/

Now, in typical fashion, things have ground to a bit of a halt over the holidays (which included a quick trip to England) so there's not much progress to report. Over there though, it was difficult not to trip over Mirrors which seem to live in every marina.

Also tripped over Mirror #1 (yes, the first Mirror, yes, the original..) in the Falmouth Maritime Museum. It sits in an elevated cradle in pride of place as you go into the museum, has a display going on behind it, and is viewed from a walkway running alongside. How about that for an accidental discovery?

Here's one working on becoming a decorative planter in Mylor.

Latest news is things have slowed to a halt due to a rotator cuff repair on Mark. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible :-) Keep watching and hoping for updates...

Stop the presses - work has resumed, albeit in a limited way after a couple of months of being unable to do anything. OK, so it's not much as things are still a bit tough to do one handed (though it's a skill toss-up pretty much between Mark and one arm and Shawn with both) but shows a good effort. Below Mark prepares for battle with the next stage of construction. 

(10) Next up was fitting the mast steps. Fairly easy to do (or so it seems) and there seems to be a decent bit of tolerance (well 15mm) on where these go. They were glued and screwed in place (we actually did pilot holes and counter sunk for a decent fit). One observation though - the measurement to the center of the rear mast step is taken from the front face of the rear transom (2160mm to center) at deck level. We did this, even double checking. The end result was a mast step that was about 1" forward of the one on the old boat (OK, it does say there's a tolerance of +/- 15mm which this would be in) - in fact checking the 1960's build pictures the center of the rear mast step is taken off the rear of the forward compartment (2"). Well, isn't this an interesting quandary as the preshaped decking etc wasn't shaved in any way and we didn't expect such a difference. Still, at the end of the day, it measures as the instructions say it should. We shall see in due course... 

It's not so easy to see in the picture above but we decided to round our cabin corners. While those sleek, crisp, and sharp edges might look cool, the 'grand feats of sailing' to date have convinced us that a rounded edge has considerable advantages over a sharp corner. Don't care if it's violating Mirror etiquette and offending millions of purists - we're doing it - so there.  

Now onto fitting the floor battens (which the avid reader will have noticed we delayed doing when the sections were flat so it would be easier to get the hull curve right, which it was, at the cost of complicating this bit a little), and the foot rest. With that, the interior will be 'sort of' finished.

(11) First step is to round off the battens so there are no sharp corners anywhere. This is where our experience with 36332, and a few sharp edges over there, has taught us building for comfort is a good thing. Seeing as we decided we wouldn't bother with any eloborate curves, this involved rounding off the corners, by hand, with a sanding block, but keeping the shape rectangular. Quite easy.

Next comes actually fitting them. That's a bit awkward and you need two people. Using our powers of deduction, we decided to tip the boat on its side to allow access to both sides. We propped it up with a long bit of wood, nothing secure of course, and, once again, put our lives on the line if there was to be an eathquake. It did slip once but we caught it. Nobody died this time. Don't do this at home kids - we're trained professionals. 

(14) Once the battens are on, and tweaked as needed to make sure everything will go on as it should, it's time to fit the footrest. Measure out the correct position, drill the holes you'll need as this is screwed in from the underside too, slop on some glue and fix in place using the same approach as the battens. Dead easy. Final things to do include moving the boat to a less lethal position, and wiping off any excess epoxy and removing any obvious pencil marks. Probably didn't get them all but it's easier to wipe now than to sand later if you can.