O.K.- the title is a groaner but I needed something that worked with cradle. I built the cradle out of cheap wood due to its short life. I had my 19 yr. old son help me hoist the keel into place, but the square slots on the cradle were a bit tight and the keel did not fit. We lifted it out, I widened the openings and it then fit fairly well. I decided to check its plumbness (if that's a word). With a level I determined that the center trunk was tilting slightly starboard. I was using the cement garage floor as my horizontal. After measuring from all angles and directions I determined that the keelson was not exactly perpendicular to the keel and trunk. Very close but not exact. But worse was the way it was seated in the slot for the keel. This allowed too much play and threw the vertical slightly more off plumb. My solution was to drive a flat wedge (a left over scarf joint!) between the keel and the cradle slot to tilt it back to almost plumb.
So far so good but when I placed the hull pieces in the cradle for a trial fit it was less than satisfactory. 3 of 4 cradle arms were too narrow to accept the hull. Do they all need to be recut? Yikes!
Here are some trial fits. I did a few stitches aft on the port side to steady the boards and then I need to do a series of measurements from different surfaces to determine the symmetry of port and starboard. I believe I was very careful transferring the plans of the cradle arms. It doesn't yet make sense why some fit and some did not.
Stay tuned for my decision of how to best move forward. I am assuming at this point that it's a good idea to
have symmetrical hull halves.
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