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Project Log:  Saturday, January 4, 2014

After consideration, I decided to create a boottop with a 2-1/2" visual height.  To effect this, I raised the horizontal reference beams at stem and stern , which I'd previously set up back at the waterline marks I'd laid out earlier, by this amount, re-leveling them at the new height.

    

Tensioning a string between the two beams, and allowing it to just contact the hull around amidships, I marked the new line, taping the string in place where it touched to hold it, and, after making marks, slowly bringing the string in towards the boat in incremental amounts, taping it, and marking--first towards the stern, then towards the bow.

         

         

         

This left me with a series of tick marks representing a planar line between the two main reference points, one each at stem and stern, which line naturally accounted for the shape of the hull in terms of the actual width of the stripe, though the visual height, when viewed from the side at eye level, was consistent with the measured 2-1/2" height.


Now I masked to this line, keeping the top edge of the tape at the tick marks and fairing by eye as needed.  I masked all around the boat, including at the bow.

         


Afterwards I created a sheered effect to the forward end of the boottop on each side, starting about nine feet aft of the cutwater (a point I determined to be the right point to start just because it seemed right to my eye) and sheering a new line by eye, ending about one inch above the flat, planar line at the stem.   This was not an exaggerated, swoopy curve, but rather a gradual widening to offset the trompe l'oeil created by the shape of bows in general, and this high, dramatic bow in particular:  if I did it right, the actual sheering/curvature wouldn't be noticeable, but without this gentle shaping the stripe would tend to look as if it narrowed towards the bow.  I did not create any sheer at the aft end of the boat.

         


I completed final paint preparations by installing paper below the masking tape to cover the boottop area, which would be painted separately, followed by a final solvent-wash, tack-off, and equipment preparations.

         

 

Total Time Today:  3.75 hours

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