Shop Notes:

Well, the break in the snow has allowed me to get in to the shop two days in a row... oh boy!

I removed the second cabin beam. I used the first beam as a template for the second one. Ordinarily this shouldn't work because each beam is a different length therefore, the arch will become greater as the beam gets longer or visa versa (which ever).

Anyway, the original beams are so warped and mis-shaped (and I suspect not made correctly either) that as I eyeballed across the top it was obvious to me that it would work out fine. And it did too. I traced out the beam, cut it, shaped the underside on the workbench and then installed it. Eyeballing across the top again I could see that there was plenty of wood that needed to be shaved off across each beam to get the overall arch of the roof to blend as it passes over each beam.

I did run into a small problem. While standing inside the boat using a surform to shave the topsides of the beams, I was looking down the cabin's side across the window (top down) and noticed that the top of each window was protruding out, somewhat twisted. I got out of the boat and looked down the sides of the cabin from the bow and indeed, the tops of the windows were being pushed out by the beams I had just installed. The beams were too long and the angle on the ends was slightly off (maybe 1 degree), just enough that the windows were really messed up. So, I surveyed each side and caculated in my head just how much wood needed to be removed from the ends of each beam and how much to correct the angles so that the windows would fall back into shape, made my marks on the wood and removed the beams. A couple more marks here and there... a few carefull brushes across the disc sander at a 4 1/2 degree angle and wallaa... Reinstall the beams and recheck the windows and... hey ! they don't look half bad...

I spent the rest of the evening carefully shaping each beams topside edge and started to make a template for the new bulkhead that I mentioned in my previous post. To be continued...