No sense letting the momentum go to waste. Back in the shop we extended the lofting table and began drawing up the 17′ Fred Dion Swampscott dory for a friend and client.

Janek and I wasted little time getting the lofting rectified and getting out six molds. I must say, my recent shipment from the Minnesota Icepick Company has certainly been in heavy use for both builds. They don’t replace our lovely lofting ducks but they certainly augment them nicely.

We enjoyed the fully rabbeted stem process on Bernie so much we decided to do it again rather than a simple stem and cap. It involved some brain-burning lofting but was well worth it. I’m certainly glad we just did it a few weeks ago (and that David, who had lofted the rabbet line last year, was able to explain it to me for Bernie). Justin here, is transferring the rabbet line to the stem.

And chiseling in the rabbet.

The fid fits!

Heather is draw-knifing the leading edge of the stem into shape.

And fine tuning with a spokeshave.

Cranking the two halves of the stem together.

It’s a very nice stem. And I do say so myself.

Up goes the strong back, on go the frames. Lora has joined the crew this week.

And on with the transom,

And the very fine stem.

We worked extra hard on precision lofting, frame building, and strongback construction. I was pretty niggly. We caught a few mistakes along the way but they were easily diagnosed and quickly corrected. My god did it pay off. This sucker is strong and straight and true.  I’ve never had one come together this nicely before. Now if we can just keep it together for the build…