Thankfully I am done with glassing the bilge (and 95% of the sanding) and am now on to floorboards. As seems all too frequent, this isn’t quite as straightforward as it seems in the manual.
![Wink ;-)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
But it’s fun trying to figure out. I’m working with timber from a kit and the non-full-length boards seem short to me. It’s hard to tell without started to cut them to shape but it appears that there will be what I feel are substantial gaps between the boards and the hull. I don’t want the boards sitting flush to the hull i don’t think, but I think it’d be nice looking to keep the gap no more than, say, quarter of an inch.
So I’m doing a couple of things…
1. Before I start making significant cuts I’m working on making a cardboard template formed to the shape such that the bottom of the boards would meet flush to the hull. I figure I’ll cut to that and then carefully shave back from there. The template cut will help as the boards will sit better and thus hopefully allow for a better sense of what’s going on.
2. I went out and purchased two full length oak boards to add to my 16 kit boards. Now having 9 boards on each side, this should allow for enough available square footage to eliminate all gaps that the short boards were creating. Plus I think the oak boards will create a nice contrast to the cypress boards included with the kit. Winding up with 9 boards on each side (about an extra 3” each side) I might have to monkey with the widths of the boards so I don’t wind up with too narrow a sliver of board at the most outboard points. We’ll see.