Ok, now the rails are all done, the next step is carefully rounding over the front and back. I've opted to leave a bit hanging out (about 1/8-1/4") at the stems rather than filing flush to the stem. Just to make my life easier I started by marking out the shape I wanted using a flexible ruler. Then I used a series of straight cuts with my trusty Japanese dovetail saw to get rid of most of the 'waste'. Then on to the rasp to get it all cleaned up. The process was easy and quite quick...
The hard part started next - get the skeg shaped so it fits the bottom and stem just right. The shape in the kit is nowhere close. The process I used was to fit it as well as I could, then mark out the 'thick' parts using a pencil held against the boat (a compass helps at this point especially for the larger gaps). Then a painstaking process started to slowly file and sand away the big parts. I guess you could use a coping saw to do the bigger cuts but I am always worried about cutting too much or getting the bottom off square.
Cleaning up squeezed out glue and straightening the bottom of the skeg works quite easily at an improvised shooting board with the block plane:
Time: 1 hour
Total: 70 hours
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