Cabin
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Work on the cabin started by smoothing out the curve of the deck opening as it did not seem quite fair or symmetrical. This was done by bending and clamping a six inch wide eight foot long strip of eighth inch thick masonite into the deck opening and noting the maximum distance that the opening wobbled away from the natural curve of the masonite. A compass was set to a quarter of this distance and then run along the bend to mark the "high spots" in the curve. A small sure-form rasp knocked down the high spots and the process repeated until the curve was fair.
The curved stringers for the cabin-to-deck joint were cut a quarter inch wider than called for in the plans to make sure the tips of the screws stay inside the stringer. The width of six millimeter Okoume marine plywood plus a three quarter inch wide stringer doesn't quite add up to an inch. And if the countersink holes are not perfect, the very tip of the pointy end of the screw will punch out of the back side of the stringer. Argh. A grinder tip on a Dremel tool makes short work of these, but it is much easier to just make the stringer a tad thicker.
Working alone presents a few extra challenges when positioning larger assemblies on the boat for gluing and screwing. Stops made from short lengths of scrap wood screwed to the bottom of the stringer provided fingers to hold the bottom of the cabin front panel even with the bottom of the stringer. Small bar clamps clamped to the stringer provided stops to keep the ends of the front panel from springing out of place. Using the stops and fingers allowed for the dry fitting of parts for marking glue lines and screw locations.
The red cargo straps with the come-along ratchets kept the sides of the front cabin panel vertical while the glue set up and were thin enough to not interfere with marking the fronts of the cabin side panels.
The cabin rafters were cut from a single six quarters inch thick mahogany plank supplied by Owl Hardwoods and Lumber in DesPlaines IL. A single wider more-expensive plank large enough to allow cutting two nested rafters turned out to be cheaper than buying two narrower planks. The rafters were cut about two inches oversized and will be trimmed to length on the boat for an exact fit.
