: I had been thinking that the ballistic nylon skin would be adhered
: to the plywood bottom/floor, possibly with a bead of caulk
: around the perimeter to keep the gunkies at bay. Would the ZAR
: poly coating seep through enough to do that, or should I
: consider an adhesive of some sort? Or am I just asking for
: troubles by not letting the skin float? I plan to steam bend the
: frames of 3/8 white oak and like the thought of the same bend
: radius for all as they could be produced in quantity on the same
: jig.

: Love the name BTW.

- haven't done any skinning or steaming yet so can't advise. I used laminating for Rose Lee's ribs because it is highly repeatable and the ribs came out within 1/16" of each other, which made for a perfectly fair hull, but I didn't use stringers which help fairing on a SOF.

The ribs on Rose Lee are 3 lams of white pine, lightly dampened, given a half-hour to absorb the water then glued with Titebond III which tolerates slight moistness; very easy to do once I had a good enough form that would handle several ribs at a time - there's a lot of 'em! I cleaned them up with a bench sander and rounded the edges.

My plan was to use the ply bottom as a floor to sit on so it seemed smart to create a space between it and the skin so I don't have to sit in a puddle! It would also allow the fabric to yield if it contacted a rock. The ribs were going to be on the underside of the ply for the SOF version with a small keel to keep the fabric from contact with the bottom. That was the plan anyway . . .