Well, just thought I'd put a few comments on my first go at it. I been working on a small Grebe out of doorskins for my daugthers so I could get a feel for the process before starting mine. After lurking here for quite some time, I still came up with some issues that I missed. The first being that two good pieces of wood may still not make a good boat together.

At this point I have all the panels stiched tight with beam, rocker, and deadrise correct....But, when making the panels I scarfed pieces together from the same doorskin panel to maintain an even grain down both sides. This of course has resulted in the right side from one board and the left from the second board. While each board when judged by themselves is good, putting them together has revealed that one is slightly thicker than the other. This of course results in different bending characteristics so the thinner side is giving way to the force of the thicker side and the stems have a slight curl in them. I'm assuming that the marine grade boards I'll be using later are toleranced much better, but I still plan on orienting the scarf on future panels so that the bottom left rear panel is from the same board as the bottom right rear. That way the bending properties of each side should be the same.

Otherwise, it looks good. The previous void problem turned out to be a very simple fix. I used the table saw to rip one layer of verneer the same thickness as the void off a scrap piece. This was then cut to the void shape(luckily a slight wedge) using a backlight. I slathered some glue on it and shoved it in snug, then cut the ends flush. Just like it was never there.

Thanks again for all the help here. Just need to decide on which plans now...so many good ones to choose from.

Steve