The Utilitys keel is made from a 1" x 3" x 8 board, laminated on the inner surface with an additional 1/4" x 3" x 8 plywood backing piece. Optionally, the builder can substitute a 1-1/4" thick solid board. I chose the standard laminating method.

This is where I ran into a little trouble. 

Firstly, I had cut the frame notches as precisely as possible, as-drawn on the plans. For the keel notch, it was 1-1/4" deep. 

Secondly, the "1-inch" mahogany board Id bought for the keel was in fact only 3/4" thick. (I touched on this in my last post.) So, after laminating on the 1/4" plywood keel backing, the keel was at this point only 1" thick overall.

I briefly considered scrapping the keel and buying a full 1-inch mahogany board to re-build it. The problem there is that mahogany is quite expensive. Also, as youll read in other boatbuilding blogs (and certainly this one), problems arise. Its a given. If you re-start every time a problem arises, it will take you forever to get the boat built. What Ive found is that boat construction, particularly for the first-time builder, involves a lot of troubleshooting. Frankly, thats part of the fun. At least, I think so.

I decided to simply add a second lamination of plywood in order to make up the needed thickness to match the 1-1/4" notch. I did still have some left-over 1/4" marine plywood, but not enough to cut a full 8 length. So, I decided to try my hand at a scarf joint.

Instructions for making scarf joints were included in the plans. Basically, to scarf two sections of 1/4" material, you bevel the ends of each piece along a 3" span. Then, you flip one piece over, fit one diagonal bevel over the other, and glue the two together with epoxy. Creating the bevel is probably best done with a plane, but I didnt have one at the time. So, I used a small Black and Decker sander.

Scarf joint before being glued.

Scarf joint after gluing.

I glued the scarf joint together and added the second keel backing with Poxy-Shield thickened with #2 Silica. The end result wasnt exactly pretty, but it was functional and felt very solid along the full length of the keel.

As with the Squirt, the Utilitys transom is raked backward at a 12 degree angle. Notches in the transom frame members must be cut before fastening all the transom parts together. This is because the keel and floor battens do not pass through the transom. Instead, they butt up against the transom. Ideally, the transom frame notches should be cut in such a way so as to match the fitted angle of the transom.

I did not do this. Instead, I simply made perpendicular cuts into the transom frame members. As a result, when the assembled transom was fitted to the construction form, my notches turned "downward" 12 degrees. This meant that for proper fitting, I would need to bevel the ends of the keel and floor battens. I did this using a circular mitre saw cutting on a bias, in addition to using a rasp, file and sander.

In the end, it worked out fine. However, Id recommend cutting the frame notches at an angle if possible. I believe the final joint would be stronger.

Aft end of keel after beveling.

Beveled keel fit into its transom frame notch.

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August 21

Took the boat back to Wareham.  It was a glorious day with winds 10-15 kts and crystal clear skies.

We sailed out to the middle of Buzzards Bay and then went back to the sand spit for lunch.

I cant say enough of how well this boat sails and the ease of launch and retrieval.

Lunch on the sand spit.  It doesnt get any better than this.

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For the premise of this post, go back one post.  This post is about yet another instance of a paint job gone wrong.  Not functionally wrong, just esthetically wrong, though not entirely, not in my estimation anyway.

 I took these pictures just before repainting the hull of my favorite Unangan kayak, (baidarka).  The reason I was repainting was not that the finish looked spotty. I actually liked the look, sort of organic, but rather that there was wear in the base coat that was letting water leak in.

The original sealer on this boat was varnish which gives the boat a vaguely rawhide colored look.  But I wanted something darker like rawhide thats sat in a museum for 200 years.  I was able to achieve that look, or so I thought until I questioned other people what it looked like and they said it looked like tree bark.  What I had done was mix oil color with varnish and I painted that over the original varnish coat. 
If I had read the label on the varnish I would have found out that once the varnish is fully cured, you need to sand it before you try to paint over it.  As you might guess, I just painted without sanding and so after about a year or so the new paint turned brittle and on exposure to sun started flaking off a little at a time.  As I said, I liked the look - kind of like lichen on a rock or a seal with the mange, but I finally had to throw in the towel on this paint job and scraped and sanded and then covered it over with a coat of gray latex paint.

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