Building the Bouchie Dory Part 14 – Installing the bottom

This is a big day. Technically our first plank!

On a hard chine hull, such as this, the bottom is a big deal. it takes 90% of the abuse. It is under more strain than any other part of the boat. If there is one place that it pays to put on a belt and suspenders it’s here.

Now if there was a larger budget on this project I would have fibreglassed the inside of the panel before installing the bottom. That said, this boat will live in a shed and it will also get duckboards to stand on so the bottom in this case will see a little less abuse.

Bevelling the chine, which in this case is just the plywood edge is a little faster than the video would suggest. If it seems like a long process it’s mostly because I wanted to convey a maximum amount of detail.

The part about finding the angle of that bevel at the frames is very similar to the method I use when doing lapstrake planking.

The photos below show the use of the marking tool on a plank lap instead of the bottom and it also shows how I beveled off the plank at each station location, leaving a rather scalloped edge. Just as I demonstrated in the video I would feel out the rolling bevel by picking up my reference angle at the stations and work that bevel down, searching for the happy medium between those differing angles.

Lastly, as with all critical elements of construction. Don’t work with dull tools. You need to focus on the task at hand not on the struggle.