Cutting out the canoe panels

Thanks to a suggestion on the bateau forums (on another boat to another person) by a poster whose name I cannot remember, I decided to cut out all of the panels at the same time. Did I say thanks for that suggestion? It worked great. To do that, I had to nest the panels differently (sorry Jacques), and use four sheets of plywood instead of three. It won't go to waste, but if I were using $50 okoume instead of $11 lauan, I might stick with the original nesting.

The original nesting had two upper panels and a center panel on two sheets, and all four chine panels on the other sheet. I drew one upper panel, a center panel, and a chine panel on one sheet. I clamped four sheets of plywood in a stack, and cut all four of the chine panels and all four of the upper panels at once. Then I removed the bottom two sheets of plywood, and cut out the two center panels. As I cut the panels out, I kept the sets clamped together, and smoothed my rough spots with a belt sander. Ten panels for the price of three cuts. That's great, but the real benefit came next, when I glued up the 16' long panels.

The butt joints between panels were easy. All went just as the directions said, except that some of the pieces developed a twist or lift and did not want to mate willingly. I learned to hold the pieces flat the best I can, force a little putty between the ends, apply the fiberglass (which wet out very easily with the Marinepoxy), cover the joint with polyethelene sheeting, and weight with a 20 pound rock on top of a piece of 1/2" plywood to evenly distribute the weight. Wait 12 hours, flip the panels carefully, and repeat on the other side, no weight necessary.

After gluing I checked for symmetry by stacking the two upper panels and the two chine panels. I could not feel a difference with my fingertips. Once again, thanks to whoever made the suggestion to cut mirror image panels at the same time.