It's funny how, when building a boat, you can go from being totally lost, to uncomfortable, to finding some tricks that make it fairly easy, to considering yourself fairly confident about something – all in the space of 10 frames.

BRUCE DILLAHUNTYI have reworked my infamous Frame G. You will remember in my previous post that this frame has been put together a couple of times, once backwards. I finally have that straight now. Frame J is also kind of interesting. It fits at the rear of the craft, and is the last "full width" frame before the motor well. After that, it will just be the transom, which is really two small pieces on each side of the motor. All these frames are beginning to add up to quite a pile. I can't wait to get them set up on a strongback and see how it all lines up.

I do still have two frames (E and F, for those keeping track) to glue up. It looks like I have made some manner of measurement mistake on these two. They just don't match up as expected when I lay them out, so I'm going to have a little work to do there.

Putting some temporary crosspieces in place across the top of the frames during layup has helped a lot. I was planning to put them in place for assembly later, but held off for some reason. I shouldn't have. Having them there holds a lot of moving parts still while you glue.

I've been tasked with some other household fix-up stuff, so building had to slow down for a week or so. I have to replace the handrails on the back deck. Although it seems totally unrelated, I have found that it fits well. The project lets me practice my woodworking on something not quite so finicky as a boat. I also found that the work I've been doing on the boat has let me jump right into the deck project and make good progress. In essence, I'm getting more confident with it all.

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For background on the project, read my story: First Time Boat Builder Begins.