First one is a lovely little Veritas crosscut saw, which cuts through the ply very easily and makes a lovely cut. Here it is having just cut the inner gunwale notch on bulkhead 4.
I also bought supplies (only half of which have arrived thus far) for sharpening my tools. I figured a 300 grit, 1200 grit and 6000 grit Japanese waterstone would do the job, along with a flat steel plate for dressing. Alas only the 300 grit stone and plate showed up, so after some thought I dug out some aluminium oxide and cerium oxide grit I had left over from making a telescope mirror (long story) and had a play.
I find that if I'm patient and methodical, and work tools with the 300 grit stone, then the 25um, 15um, 9um aluminium oxide on the plate, then strop with an old belt loaded up with cerium oxide, I get a blade that I can see my own reflection in and that's sharp enough to do surgery with. When that blade meets a bit of timber, it just cuts through it like it's butter.
A few wipes on the 300 grit stone then five minutes with 25um and 15um aluminium oxide gets me most of the way there in a tiny fraction of the time. No reflection, alas, but I can still make lovely cuts easily. It'll be interesting to see how the 1200 and 6000 grit waterstones compare.
While blowing money, I also splurged on some bronze. I bought rowlocks and some cleats, just because they were shiny. I may have stuffed up a bit with the rowlocks though. These are ones that fold over so they're below the gunwale. I had it in mind that they go on the outer gunwale and fold onto the outside of the boat, but all the pictures I've seen since buying them show them mounted to the inner gunwale of a boat without a deck and folding down inside. Hmmm. I figure I can either just stick them on the outside and be damned (it is after all my boat), put them on the inside of the coaming, or just build a whole extra boat around them with no deck, and buy some more conventional (not to mention cheaper) deck mount ones for this boat. Anyway, they're plenty shiny, but I can see how to make them much shinier.
Meanwhile I continue to cut pieces of wood up and glue them to other pieces. I've epoxied the floor ply to the keel plank (making the whole thing now too heavy to lift) and added the lower cockpit seat stringers, plus both sides of bulkhead 5. I've also started cutting notches in all the bulkheads for the inner gunwale. I figure once all the bulkheads are mounted I'll put the inner gunwale in next, which will give everything much needed stiffness and make the job of cutting notches a lot easier.