Starting the deck

The entire deck of the boat is first covered with 1/4" plywood which is an underlayment for the mahogany and maple boards that will form the final finish.

Before I could start the plywood decking, I had to finish off the carlings, which are the horizontal boards on each side of the cockpits, just under the decking. I used two plies of wood to make these. The first pass was 3/8" plywood which I had attached a long time ago. Now, on top of this I glued 3/8" mahogany that were trimmed to fit tightly under the decking and form a nice mahogany border for the cockpit.  Here is a picture of the mahogany boards being glued into place.

As you can see, you never have enough clamps.

Next came laying out the plywood to cover the deck.  The Glen-L instructions say that if you are careful you can do it with two sheets of 4x8 plywood.   I played with it multiple ways and this was the only layout that worked.  I made templates out of roofing paper so I could adjust where they would be on the panel.

These pieces cover half the boat. I cut an extra inch around some of the edges to ensure I had enough to mark the final cut. Since the pieces are mirror images, I could cut both sides at once by clamping the two sheets together.  I also needed a few extra scraps since my deck has the extra surface between the two cockpits.

Here are all the rough pieces aligned and temporarily screwed into place.  I then could take a pencil and mark the outline of the hull, cockpits and motorwell. I allowed a little overlap into the cockpits so I could craft and add some mahogany moulding for a nice finish.  Then everything was removed and cut to the lines. 

This is the bow sections glued and screwed into place. The radius on the cockpit corners is very scientific, I took a plastic bucket that looked about right and traced around it. 

The Glen-L plans say you should nail the decking down with 1" bronze nails.  However, even with pre-drilled pilot holes it was difficult to use nails, especially in the middle sections. It also hurts to pound on your creation with a hammer. I decided I liked screws, which could be tightened down with the touch of an electric drill.  Much better.  Unfortunately, I ran out of screws and had to order 500 more.  The screws arrived yesterday but the weather turned bitter cold so I won't be able to finish until it warms up a bit.   The epoxy needs about 65 degrees to set up and I can do that with tarps over the boat and the heaters you can see in the picture.  That works when it is 49 degrees out, but not when it is 22.   So, we wait on this and do other things.