The forms are the basis upon which all else follows, so -- in my world, at least -- they need to be as perfect as I can possibly make them. Because it's just not hard to accomplish. I never trust full form patterns when building anything symmetrical like boats (or aircraft propellers), always start by making doorskin plywood (el cheapo thin stuff) half-patterns, and flipping them about centerline to scribe out full shapes. You may yet have other errors, but symmetry won't be one of them. Plus, thin plywood half-patterns store very easily in case you want to hang on to them.

Get your strongback as perfect as possible in every way. It sucks to have a boat you suspect may be off true, so much better to have total confidence it's dead-nuts on. And remember: the boat's gonna last a whole lot longer than the build project.

: Hello, I am starting to build a Red Fish Spring Run and would like
: to know how precise your form symmetry is. The Red Fish plans
: come with the forms printed on top of each other. So I glued
: them to a piece of 1/4" mdf and cut out the largest form.
: Then I sanded up to the lines. When I thought it was good I used
: a table mounted router and a flush cut pattern bit to duplicate
: it. To check the symmetry I flipped the pattern over and lined
: it up. There are differences that get up to 1/16". Does
: that matter? Has anyone else check this?

: Thanks for any advise.