Gunwales on

Over the weekend I got the gunwales on both sides screwed and glued on. They are Kahikatea and attached with stainless steel screws, a couple of bolts and epoxy glue. I also took the chance to glue up any cracked boards and wedge them in to bond together and to the gunwale as well. Fixing the gunwales on has stiffened up the sides of the boat greatly, as has the few ribs I have attached so far.

The ribs are going on well and I'm getting better at doing the rivets too. I made a jig to make up some new ribs out of a piece of MDF. I'll have to make about 6 or 7 new ribs as there are a couple that have cracked and so I'll replace them too.

I finally gave up trying to get out the 5 rusty screws holding the port corner brace of the transom on with a screw driver and just chiselled the wood away. After cutting the wood away I could clamp the exposed ends of the screws with vise-grips and work them free. The rust had stuck the screws fast into the surrounding wood, and once this rust was broken away from the threads, the screws were not too hard to get out.
In the end it was a good thing to take that corner brace off because the edge of the transom had a bit of rot that needed to come out. If I hadn't taken it off I probably wouldn't have noticed it.