Steve’s Boat Building An amateur’s attempt to build a strip plank dinghy

Assembling the web

At last, a red-letter day! I have epoxy glued the front and rear ply webs to the centreboard case, and mounted the completed web into the mould. I have bonded the transom to the web, and checked the alignment using the reference lines that I printed onto the formers as detailed in the post “Cutting the formers”. I then realised that it would be easier to laminate the external bow section before strip planking, so I just clamped a series of 2 mm thick mahogany strips to the internal bow, making sure that I had covered the latter in wide insulation tape to ensure that the two parts did not bond together. Finally, I bonded the hog to the web and centreboard case, using almost all my clamps.


Like the moulds, the hog and bow need to be planed to shape to follow the curvature of the mould. This was quite energetic, but surprisingly not difficult. The most awkward section was the bow, as planing a bevel of changing angle onto a curved, vertical timber is not the easiest bit of woodwork. I ran a flexible batten over the four front formers to the bow at very short intervals to make sure that I was achieving the correct angle. Two bags of wood shavings later, all was happiness!

The mould with the web and centreboard case fitted. The hog and bow have been planed to accept the strip planks.