Hi Scott;

: I'm guessing tht perhaps you are building one of the designs from Ted Moores

Yup - the Endeavour.

: I built the Reliance double last winter. adjusting the fairness of the
: shear clamp should be just a matter of changing the depth of the notches
: in the area the clamp is unfair either add shims to raise or file larger
: to lower it

That's what I did. On closer inspection, I found that a couple of the notches were not deep enough, and the next two were a bit too deep. I took the screws out, and with the clamp in place made a narrow cut with the dozuki saw to deepen the notches that needed it. This way I didn't have to remove the clamp to get a file in. It worked great. The others I shimmed with plane shavings.

: if its not that far out and making it fair seems like to much
: trouble then trans fer the edge of the shear to the outside of the shear
: clamp and use the reference mark for making the first strip fair. As I
: remember on the reliance the better part of the first strip gets planed
: away when you do the deck anyway.

After the notch adjustments, the clamp is now "fair enough". Still, I plan to eyeball the position of the first strip independently of the clamp position to make sure its fair. You're right - much of this first strip does get planed away before starting on the deck, but what I was concerned about was the strip edges carrying a wobble through that side of the hull.

Anyway, I believe I'm now ready to move on to the next phase. As Chip said in his response, "Part of the trick is looking at what would be ideal versus what you're willing to do and spend a little time working it out. You do get to a point when you have to just move on."

Thanks for the input;
Ken