:Hi Rob;

: I tried it your way, and I tried it the "plane" way, and the plane won. The reason cleaning the interior sections is the most dreaded is because one HAS to use a scraper and ROS strictly

Well let’s concentrate on that dreaded interior.

The scraper is not used like a plane. If you try to pull it slowly over a surface it will catch and gouge. For boats I would never use a scraper with less than a 10” long handle. With one hand on the handle and the other hand resting on top of the blade area, stroke the scraper over the surface with a quick motion like pulling the starter rope on an old lawn mower. A low handle angle (relative to the hull surface) will cut less and a high handle angle will cut more. And depth of cut is controlled by the pressure of the hand on the blade back.

I don’t try to level the surface with a scraper, just remove all traces of glue. The ROS with 60 grit fairs it quickly once all glue is gone.

Nick kindly commented on the skill and experience I have to create a high quality finished boat.

Some of that skill is experience of use of a wide variety of tools. But skill in tool handing is only a part of any project. Raising the quality of your work is done by learning where and how to focus your time and energy to climb that next step up in quality.

If you and everyone on this bulletin board will take the all the extra time you need to align you strips and make certain the joints between strips are tight, you will have less work to do in planing sanding and fairing, period. And your boat will look great.

I focus my time on stripping. It’s the part I enjoy most. I take a couple days to strip a hull or deck. I could do it in half that time. Then I scrape and sand because I don’t need to fair much.

If you dread doing some aspect of building it’s because you’re dealing with a problem. If I had to level irregular strips inside my hull I’d dread it too. But I don’t because I spent my time aligning the strips.

So on matter whether you use a plane, a ROS, or broken bits of shells to fair your hull, if you want to raise the quality of your boat and have less work down the road, take the time to fit your strips.

All the best,
Rob