Now that the panels were drilled, it was time to wire them together! This step was both hugely satisfying and incredibly tedious, as we spent a good 9 hours twisting together tiny wires.
First we propped the boats up on boxes/crates/buckets while we wired the keel together. Pygmy recommended bending the wires over a scrap of wood to make a "staple," but we found that this made it harder to fit the wires through the holes. It seemed easier to just leave a curve in the wire, then pull it tight with pliers. After the keel was wired together we attached the bow, center, and stern frames to the keel seam. The frames generally flopped around and got in the way for the rest of the wiring process.
First we propped the boats up on boxes/crates/buckets while we wired the keel together. Pygmy recommended bending the wires over a scrap of wood to make a "staple," but we found that this made it harder to fit the wires through the holes. It seemed easier to just leave a curve in the wire, then pull it tight with pliers. After the keel was wired together we attached the bow, center, and stern frames to the keel seam. The frames generally flopped around and got in the way for the rest of the wiring process.
Once the keel was wired, it was time to attach the next panels. Before they could be wired, holes had to be drilled to the bottom of next panel, directly across from the holes that were pre-drilled (the day before) in the outside of the keel panel. We had initially thought that this would be tricky and involve lots of clamping and measuring, but quickly realized that we could just eyeball where the hole should go and (carefully) hold the panel while drilling. Drilling soon became a much less scary process.
After the corresponding holes were drilled, the chines were wired together, (twisted by hand first, then tightened with pliers once all the wires were in). This process was repeated for the rest of the hull panels. The keel and bow stems got extra wires added to help keep everything in place.
Once all panels were added and the chines wired together, it was time to (finally) wire the frames to the panels. This shaped-up the hull and made everything feel really solid. Our boats now looked like boats!! We also wired in the stern and bow wedges. Interestingly, the bow of Mike's boat was really narrow, and the wedge had to really be *wedged* in. My bow was much wider and I had to do a lot of wire tightening to get the panels up to where they needed to be.
We then hot-glued the frames into place, and got ready to flip the boats over and epoxy the seams.
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