Making progress with the boat

The boat is finally stripped back to clean wood. I suspect the newest layers of paint were domestic quality  gloss paints and came off quite easily with chemical stripper but the oldest layers proved very stubborn so I think they were probably marine quality. I had to resort to using an electric sander, which I had hoped to avoid. I didn't know what I was going to find beneath the paint but had always hoped it would be a reasonable quality wood with a nice grain that would stain and varnish up nicely. As you can see, I am not disappointed.

I had to remove the dark wood 'trim' around the edge of the hull in order to get all the paint off the deck, and unfortunately it split and broke during the removal, so I'll have to think of how to make some new 'trim'. Another issue is that the electric sander (not me of course  ;)) has left gouges in the surface of the wood, examples of which you can see just below that large knot. I will have to sand those away, probably by hand. Also, the bow is rather battered and uneven, so I think I'll have to fill that out with Wood Filler to restore a smooth and sharp structure.

One big problem going forward is a support for the boat while I'm working on it. Clamping the keel in my workmate is how I've managed so far but the keel has a curved surface so tends to 'wobble' its way loose. 

I decided I needed to fashion some sort of  'jig' to support the boat, possibly along the lines of the real life jigs that we see in the marina's. What I knocked together is certainly not the best bit of woodwork I've ever done but it does the job. 

The story of the boat so far ...

1. A toy that's never been played with

2. An intriguing discovery