| The poop deck (rear deck) gets installed next. It rest on top of the ledge molded into the hull. I used Stabilit Express to glue this piece in. |  |
| The deck must be trimmed at the front end to clearance the hull. The deck must also be flush with the frame support so it is easier if the frame is not glued down till the deck is in place. |  |
| After the glue on the deck dries, a rear bulkhead wall is added. Attached to this bulkhead is a small room that I found difficult to assemble until I modified some pieces as described below. |  |
| The pieces that fit against the bulkhead would not go in. The problem was that the tabs work against themselves. If I inserted the bulkhead tab first, I could not get the deck tab to go and vice versa. |  |
| The solution was simple, trim the tabs at an angle and the pieces just slide in. Some attention must be paid to their position when gluing so that they do not slide toward the rear of the boat but it ended up working nicely. |  |
| Since this little room will be under the front deck, I went ahead and filled any gaps with filler and sanded the whole thing smooth before moving on. |  |
| The front deck also has some supports glued to it. Once again, I am impressed with the quality of the wood supplied and the die cutting. All one has to do to get these large pieces out is to cut a very small tab left behind from the die cutting operation. |  |
| After the glue on the supports have dried, it's time to glue the front deck on. I normally shy away from two step epoxy because I can never get a really strong bond but I needed a glue with a long set time because the joint was so large. I ended up using 30 minute epoxy which seems to have bonded pretty well. The deck sits inside of the hull like the rear deck so I had to put some objects under the rubber bands to push the deck down. |  |
| Once the deck is glued down, it is time to trim the hull flush with the deck. The instructions say to file it down but this would have taken forever so I used a course blade saw and went back with some sandpaper to clean up the joint. You have to be careful that the saw does not mar into the deck. This happen to me in a couple of spots but some putty quickly covered up the scrapes. |  |
| With a decent bit of work, the deck installation is done. For such thin wood, the deck feels strong, must be the braces. All it needs now is some primer/sealer and paint. |  |
| A front bumper is made from two pieces of wood. A step is formed to match the front of the boat. |  |
| The front bumper is then glued to the front of the boat and then sanded flat. |  |
| Well I jumped ahead a little bit and put a coat of paint on the deck and hull to make future painting easier. The bow pieces are made from very flexible plywood. They bend easily to fit the curve of the hull. I thought this part might be difficult but it could not have been easier all I had to do was sand the piece as described in the following frame. |  |
| Before gluing the bow pieces, I sanded the bottom sides at an angle so that they will tilt inwards slightly without creating a gap between the piece and the hull. |  |
| I had to add a bit of filler to the front of the bow pieces. I also filled the small gap between these pieces and the hull. |  |
| The stern deck is assembled on the pre-slotted deck, same as the bow. Since I painted the deck, I had to clean out the paint in the slots so that the tabs would fit. I would recommend holding of painting it until the permanent deck structures are complete. An access hatch is provided so you you can get to the rudder linkage. |  |
| Since the top of the stern deck is curved, I used a number of clamps and rubber bands to hold everything in place. |  |
| The stern hatch is also curved to match the deck. A small piece of wood is inserted in the middle and the sides are held down while the glue dries. |  |
| The stern wall is built out of flexible plywood. I had a small gaps around the bottom but nothing that could not be easily filled in. |  |
| Once the glue dries, the wall is cut down to match the deck. I used a small fine tooth saw to cut it and finished it off with some sand paper. This picture shows the job half done. |  |
| The side rails are glued into place. Notice that I clamped a straight edge to the back of the rails. This was done to make sure that the rails remain straight as they are kind of a floppy fish. |  |
| The top of the rails are covered with wooden strips. There are two layers, the first layer is glued on the side of the rail so that the top of the wood strip is level with the rails. It is cut a little long so that it also goes under the stern deck to add some strength. |  |
| After the bottom wood strip has dried, a slightly larger one is glued to top of it. It should be level with the rear deck. One side of my rear deck was a little high so I cut the glue joint and re glued it to match the wooden strip. |  |
| A wire tow guard is made of of some square brass wire. I drilled a couple of holes into the deck and left the legs of the wire guard a bit long so that they would extend though the deck. |  |
| A couple of hatch covers are glued onto the rear deck. You can also see the rear hatch in place. It's a good tight fit. |  |
| To make these metal hole covers fit flush, I had to file out the holes in the wood a good bit. I then secured them with a couple drops of CA glue. |  |
| The bow of the boat features a couple of small "houses" I have no idea what they are for. I was able to figure out their correct positioning by measuring their location from the full size drawing supplied with the kit. |  |
| With the placement of the anchor guards and rubbing stakes, the hull is now ready for prepping and painting before adding the last few detail items. |  |
