Filling stem gap w/ a fillet

Yesterday I glued the boat together and was stymied at the end with a gap that had appeared between the sides of the ply and the stem. See picture in previous post. My wife came in and suggested using an icing pipe thing-a-ma-jig, much like many people use ziploc bags. I've used ziploc bags in the past and found them somewhat cumbersome to use, but most importantly, I really wanted to get epoxy deep into the crevasse to maximize bonding.

So she jigged up a icing pipe and lined it with packing tape so we could re-use it, and then, using the patient steady hand of a culinary expert, she filled in the voids around the stem and made a nice fillet. Damn! What a woman!


In other news, I crawled underneath the stem to cut away some epoxy and saw this:


When I was dry-fitting the boat last week for the first time I heard some ***crack***ing noises, and since I didnt' see anything, I figured it was some epoxy somewhere settling or what-have-you. NOPE it was the chine logs right where they abut the stem. You'll notice the taper I put in to give them some room to fit together, and you'll also notice where the wood actually separated from itself. The glued face stayed firm to the plywood, which makes me feel like my gluing jobs are satisfactory. I'm bummed the wood split, but again, this whole area will be filled with epoxy and all will be good with the world again.