Bend it Bend it just a little bit!

I've spent a good part of the Easter weekend fitting the rubbing strips and inwales.

 The rubbing strips and out wales are relatively easy to fit as you can just leave them oversized, glue them on and trim to fit later. Clamping them is easy too. Just one clamp at the sharp end and you can pretty much bend the whole thing round in one go, another clamp at the blunt end, and then gradually add the rest.

Doing the in-wales is a good bit trickier.

They have to be the exact length before they are glued in place so have to be dry- fitted a good few times, as you don't want to take too much off.
There is a fair amount of spring in them and getting them to bend inside the boat, when they and you are covered in slippery Epoxy  is a tricky process. 

This is my method which may be of use to others coming along later.

The inwales are laminated in place from two parts. Here we are fitting the second, innermost layer. The process is exactly the same for the outer layer.

You can use this process while you are trimming them to length, just leave them to lie over the top of the Transom and do your best to work out how much to trim off.

Having got them to the correct length and with the right bevels at each end, get your overalls and gloves on because this is going to get a bit messy.

Mix your epoxy of choice and prime both surfaces, thicken it up and lay a good even layer over the inwale you are going to glue. 

I used three of my newly aquired clamps as guides. These are clamped to the boat so that the piece to be fitted can be slid through the gap between the blue legs on the clamp.  

Slide the inwale through the first two clamps until it is approximately in the right position. 

Now bend the end of the inwale round and slide it into the gap in the third clamp. At this point the new piece will be lying above the sheer line of the boat.

The piece will be held firmly, sprung against the clamps so you can let go, have a slurp of tea and get ready for the next stage.

Go to the sharp end, spring the piece down into place and slide it up to the stem where it should be a close fit. If necessary go to the stern and give it a couple of light taps with a mallet.

Clamp it tight as close to the stem as you can.

The inwale will be well away from the planking at this point so give it a good pull and get a clamp round it. Give this a good tighten but don't close the gap as we've still got some sliding to do.

Add a few more clamps near the bow , and as you draw these up the overhang at the stern will reduce until you can get the aft end of the inwale to spring over into place.

Make sure the piece is correctly positioned vertically as well as horizontally

Clamp up from the bow end fist, you need to work back and forward a bit as each time you tighten a clamp its neighbours will slacken off.

Gradually pull it in and tighten up the clamps.

Clean away as much squeeze-out as you can and use every clamp you have space for.

Try to make sure that all have the same pressure.

Check everything !!

Now I know why I bought so many.

And thanks to Chloe Caitlin for taking the photos and not getting epoxy on my new camera.