Finally, the box was opened on 2 August.
As you can see, there were lots of strips of wood, and they all looked quite flimsy to my admittedly untrained eye. I’ve been in a boat a couple of times in my life, and I'm pretty sure they were more rigid than the contents of that box. Still, I kept my thoughts to myself and trusted in the The Manual.
Ah, The Manual. These guys at Fyne Boat Kits know how to give good instruction. Detailed and specific even by my standards, and they even managed to throw in a joke here and there which was a nice touch. Someone had fun writing that manual, which made the whole process seem a lot less daunting.
Now to start the actual boat building! First we laid out the long panel pieces for the canoe, and glued them together. I found the slotting together of the jigsaw shapes particularly satisfying. I think I'm going to buy myself a jigsaw puzzle for Christmas.
I wasn't allowed to be my usual sloppy self here. All the pieces had to be laid together carefully, and the matching panels laid on top of each other - with extra care being taken to make sure there were plastic bags between the bits that were NOT supposed to be stuck to each other. That epoxy can get everywhere, but nothing went wrong and I considered myself as having achieved my Gluing Stuff to More Stuff badge.
before gluing
After gluing the pieces in a painstaking manner, we then secured them with clamps and pieces of wood, and left the wood to think about the consequences of its actions for at least 24 hours.
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