I purchased a sheet of 1/8 inch birch plywood, a book of
tracing paper, a can of spray adhesive and started tracing out the scaled plans
for the Melonseed. I than cut out the station molds, formed the stem and
transom and assembled them to a ‘to scale’ ladder back form. After doing all of
this and recovering from bronchitis I started to put ‘to scale’ planking on the
model. As I was moving along on the planking process I happened to drive up and
see Mike Wick’s new melonseed project and he suggested that I add 3 inches to
the sheer line of the boat. So I decided to experiment with the model. This
worked well, so I thought, why not, and I gave it a try. I thought the extra
height of the hull looked good so I decided to keep it as part of the
boat. Adding the ‘to scale’ station
molds, stem, transom and planks really got me to thinking about the lumber size
and requirement for the real boat. Between work, family and spare time I
finally finished the boat’s hull about the beginning of the Summer of 2011.