Fitting the battens

The next step is attaching the plywood, recently scarf joined, to the sides of the boat frame.  However, the weather has been too cold for epoxy, so I used the time to fit the battens.  The battens are long strips inserted into the frames on the bottom to support the bottom planking.  They need to be set into the frame so that they are flush with the frame allowing the plywood bottom planking rest evenly on the frames and battens.

I marked the locations from the plans and rough cut them out with a reciprocating saw.  To finish them to the correct depth and square the sides, I used a jig that I set on the frame to guide a small, hand-held router.  Well, that is were things went awry.  The cheap Harbor Freight router lost its grip on the router bit and it start sliding out, but still tight enough to continue cutting.  Before I knew it, I had several cuts that were too deep.  I tightened it up and it slipped again.  Not sure how to fix that.

Here's a picture of the routed slots for the battens.  The slots with waxed paper were the ones I had to repair.  What I did was mix up some epoxy thickened with wood flour (fine powdered sawdust).  I smeared this into the areas that were too deep, then lined it with waxpaper and pushed down into the slot with small jig to set the depth correctly.  Here is a picture of the jig and a really messed up frame being corrected.  The jig is a small piece of batten material with a piece of scrap on the top to stop it at the right depth.  

After the glue dried, I cleaned the excess epoxy and sanded the slots to fit the battens.   It still took a little trimming and sanding to get them to fit. 
At the transom, the battens needed to be cut at 13 degrees to fit into the notches of the frame that is attached to the transom.   Here is picture of the battens in place.  I plan to remove them so they won't get in the way of attaching the side planking.  When I'm ready for the bottom planking, I'll attach the battens.

Sorry for the picture quality, but my camera is acting up.