I think I’ve managed to figure out the problems with the mast box - more to come on that in a bit. But suffice to say that the dry fit worked out pretty well (not that I have photos of that) and so it was time to disassemble everything and start gluing stuff up.
First up? The footwell.
In the kit I was able to find what I’m pretty sure was the rear bulkhead for the footwell, and I also found two separate pieces that were labelled as “Ballast Tank Dbl”. This was a bit weird - the pieces weren’t labelled on the list of part sheets that came in the build manual (add to that list the Scamp ramp part for the mast box - also not listed in the parts list or plans anywhere) but if you laid them down side to side you’d come up with something that was roughly the size of what the footwell bottom should be, just with a seam down the middle of it where the two pieces were butt joined.
I thought that would look ugly and require too much fussing with epoxy to hide the seam, so I just cut a new bottom doubler for the footwell out of a spare piece of marine ply I bought. Fits perfectly, glued it in. It’s hard to tell because of course the parts aren’t listed in the build manual, but I guess they were separate pieces to try and save plywood?
The moss on the concrete block provides extra weight
Next up was the bulkhead. As it turned out, the bulkhead that came with the kit was a bit too tall. If I took a straightedge (in this case my long level) between the existing bulkheads 4/5/6/7, the tops of them were all lined up nicely. When I put in the stock footwell bulkhead, it was obviously a high spot.
So take a straightedge and mark a line where the top of the bulkhead should be in order to line up with bulkheads 6 and 5. Then put in the footwell bulkhead and make sure it’s vertical before you mark against the line to figure out how much you need to trim it down by.
vertical bulkhead, and you can see how much needs to be trimmed
After trimming, the bulkhead lines up nicely against the mark as well as in line with the surrounding bulkheads.
Looking closely at the level I did note that the top level of the bulkheads isn’t actually level. This caused me to freak out a bit and doublecheck that my build jig was level (which it is), so I’m going to ignore this as just a byproduct of how the boat sits on the jig as it’s built.
tops of bulkheads aren't level, but the jig is, so no big deal?
After the footwell doubler and the footwell bulkhead are glued in, next up was to glue in the bushings on each side of the centerboard trunk. I keyed the bushings themselves with a file to provide something for the epoxy to dig into, and then lined them up with the bolt through both once they were installed in the centerboard case. This wasn’t perfect, but I hope I got them aligned. I inserted the bolt through both to make sure they were aligned, but then removing the bolt (to make sure it doesn’t get glued in there by accident) there’s alwyas a chance I might have moved them slightly out of alignment. Hopefully not the case. Ideally I would have liked to have also put the centerboard in to make sure the bolt fit nicely between both sides of the case as well as the centerboard itself, but decided that’d be too difficult. When I glue the bushing into the centerboard itself however I will try to put the whole centerboard into the trunk and put the bolt through the whole assembly to ensure everything is lined up while the last bushing is glued up.
Next up was gluing the stem itself. I had assumed I’d need a wire stitch or two, but after judicious use of some shims in appropriate spots between the hull bottom and the jig, I wound up getting really good contact between the stem and the hull bottom along it’s entire length. So no wire stitch used. Seriously, if you’re thinking about building a scamp, go buy a pack of shims for a stupidly small amount of cash at your local home improvement store.
Final set of gluing up today was to glue in the backing for the hatch covers in bulkhead 3. I had custom cut these to be as large as I was comfortable making them and still allow me to get substantial parts of my body through them in case I really needed to reach the inside of the bow of the boat for some reason. So this was lining them up to not interfere with the mast box (and yet still provide perhaps a doubled up gluing surface for the edge of the mast box) and then gluing them up and clamping them in place.
Next up will be gluing in bulkheads 1 through 3 and the mast box itself.