Shoeless Musings: Will the fun never end??

I got back from school today with more parts for the IRH. I have been really pushing to finish up so i can get her into the Wooden Boat Festival here in Port Townsend. Seven days in a row on the IRH made me decide i needed a break. So i'm sitting here with an IPA typing away.

Over the last several days the weather has been great! Fog in the mornings, well most of the day then hot sunny afternoons, perfect.

The IRH gunwale project started with a trip to school. I needed to steam in the complex curve that creates the outwales of the gunwale assembly. As i did not have a steam box at the time a trip to school was in order.

I only got one snap of the IRH at the boat school. I had permission to have her there but the welcome was a little cool. So i steamed the outwales on and loaded her back on the car to finish up at home.

Because i am not using mechanical fasteners i had to back out all the deck screws i used to hold the outwales on for glue up. But as you can see in the cockpit a bunch of clamps, you can never have to many.

Cedar and Sapele look so good together, i can't wait to get this all cleaned up and finished. So i sat thinking about how difficult it was to bend the outwales on, how the hell was i going to get the inwales on?
First i decided to saw the shape into the pieces then i would steam them into place. So i spent a day running around trying to build a cheap steam box.

The parts are as follows. Two sawhorses, old stuff sack, duct tape, meat thermometer, 1 1/2" x 2' of tubing, oil funnel, thrift store pot, and a MSR Dragonfly.

I had my doubts about how hot i could get it. I was hoping for something in the range of 180-220 deg F. She topped out at 185 deg F, not too bad.

While i was waiting for the steam to rise i cut out the holes for the deck plates, the whole character of this project has changed. I think now i can say i am in the finishing stage.