You need something to hold the frames in perfect alignment as you assemble the parts of your boat–something strong that will hold the shape you want over the period you’re building the boat. It has to be rigid and easy to attach pieces to. The answer is a Strongback. And I want to be able to move the boat around the shop if I need to as well. At some point, we’ll have to flip this hull over to work on the inside. It will be nice to be able roll the strongback around the shop to get the gantry cranes over the hull when that time comes.
I was able to re-use the strongback I used in a previous project, the restoration of a 17 foot 1949 Chris Craft runabout. You can see the original incarnation of it in the last picture of this post. It had to be extended a few feet, but that was pretty straightforward.
