RG,

If I remember correctly (it's been a few years), we used a rasp for final fitting of the cockpit seats on my Peeler. Take it slowly and remove as little wood as possible. Also, be careful to make sure that the forward edge of the seat stays perpendicular to the centerline of the boat.

Regards,

Dick

  Thanks Dick,

The manual gives the impression that fitting requires the usual work around the fillets and corners but not that the seat itself may be too wide to fit within the hull. So I may just be over cautious here. I do have to make it fit one way or another  

RG

RG,

The aft seats were ther only thing that required any trimming on my Peeler.  3/16 from each side seems about right.  I found it easier to trim the two halves independently before gluing them together. There are big fillets where the sides meet the seats, so I dont think that the fit is that fussy.

Jeff

   I found this to be about the only fiddley bit in the build. I used the joint of the bottom panels as a centering guide as I trimmed the seat panels until the seat puzzle joints could engage. I used a compass to scribe the inside profile of the sides on the seats as a guide and planed a bevel to that line a bit at a time. 

Overall I had more than an inch to remove and had to deepen the cutouts for the bulkheads all around. Don't worry if there is a bit of a gap between the seat and the sides. The "peanut butter" fillet does a great job of filling this and it will be reenforced with glass tape.

RG,

As you can see from the photos of About Time, we assembled the seats before fitting and trimming them. We also put a layer of glass on the top of the seats. We believed it would be easier to fit the completed seats than to juggle two parts, especially because there are other parts to be epoxied to the underside.

The completed seats aren't that heavy and they drop straight down into place. We took about an hour to rasp our way to a good fit.

Regards,

Dick

RG,

I suspect that the plywood for the cockpit seats was cut to dimensions that assume a little more curve to the bottom than many of us have. We learned during the stitching process that things fit better when the bottom was supported at the ends so it could sag a little. The flatter the bottom, the less the sides will flare and the narrower the space for the cockpit seats. Anyway, it's easier to remove wood than to add it.

Regards,

Dick

 I had an issue with getting the sides of my peeler to line up properly at both bow and stern with the bottom.  Dick came to my resuce with the same advice about letting the boat "sag" in the middle.  I was using three large sawhorses (8'by12")-when I took out the middle one, everything lined up perfectly.  I'm currently fitting the seats and I've only had to remove about 1/16" between the seat and the transom.  I've been very grateful to have found Dick-his knowledge base is extensive and he's always willing to help.

art

Thanks everyone for the advice. I had started out with trying to fit the individual pieces, which would have been easier for my single handed building, but assembled the complete seat figuring it would only need minor adjustments at the fillets. I have been running a Sharpie along the outside edge to use as a guide to maintain the shape as I remove about an 1/8 at a time and it looks like I'll have a great fit in the end. 

Thanks 

RG