Once the glue had dried properly, I removed the clamps. Thankfully the strips stayed in place the second time around.
From here, it was simply a matter of using the saw, plane and sandpaper to shape the externals stems to fit the hull.
Caption: The bow stem with the clamps removed but before shaping to fit the hull.
While this sounds daunting, it was surprisingly straightforward. The rough work was done with the Ryoba saw and a plane. However, the final finishing was done with a longboard.
The longboard is one of the staple tools of the boatbuilder. It is basically a board about 1 meter long with a handle at each end. Sandpaper is then fixed to the face of the longboard with either velcro or spray glue.
Using a longboard to sand the hull ensures a fair shape. It prevents you from sanding too much in one spot and creating a low area that needs to be filled. It ensures you only hit the high spots.
In this case, I used it to ensure that the angle of the stems matched the angle of the hull sides and created one uniform shape.
Caption: The bow stem after shaping with the longboard.
The longboard is also used on the entire hull to knock off the high edges of the strips before final finish sanding with a random orbital sander.
In effect, the longboard is used to shape or “fair” the hull and the final sanding with the random orbital sander is simply to create a smooth finished surface.
[...] shape the stem to match the shape of the hull and deck. Final shaping will be done later with the longboard. Caption: Rough shaping completed on the [...]
[...] The treatment on the bow stem is the same as has been shown earlier here and here. Cut some thin strips of cedar, soak them in boiling hot water, prebend them on a cheap form made [...]