Steaming and Riveting

Yesterday I had the day off so i tried out the steamer.
It worked really well, but i think I should have steamed the gunwales for a bit longer as they still had a bit of resistance to bending.
The new ribs were not great, I had some Kwila and some old wood from the boat (probably mahogany)and they didn't like to bend at all and broke. I was thinking about maybe getting a different wood, but in the end I decided to make up some laminated ribs which will be easier and stronger.
The PVC pipe of the steamer did bend a bit with the heat, but it wasn't too bad. It was mainly around the corner joint and some longitudinal bending, but it can definitely be used again.

My first effort at riveting the ribs was much better. It went really well. I put a coat of paint on the lower surface of the rib and on the hull under the ribs to protect the wood here. It is amazing how much stiffer the hull is already with just a few ribs in. I had a bit of trial and error in cutting the nail to the right length for peening over the rove, but got there in the end. I will paint the inside of the boat so I'm not too worried about making beautiful ribs, I think laminated ones will take the stresses better and hold everything in place a bit better.
It was quite hard to hold the hammer underneath, so I put a concrete block with various thicknesses of wood there to rest the hammer on its side. it worked really well and made it much easier to do on my own. Later on I used an axe head which was great because the wedge shape fitted in so well with the curvature of the hull.