Progress today

What a day, and the day's only halfway done.
Started out working hard on the Samurai costume. This is for a project at school, in which all of the sixth graders are to dress up like someone from medieval times. They can pick one of several cultures: Western Europe, Asia, India, etc.
It's going to be black, with red highlights, but this is a pretty good half-day's work, I think:

After getting that done, we needed a break from the samurai, so I went to Menards to get some boat-building supplies.
Of course, I left the directions at home. But why would I need them? I just needed two sheets of 4x8 plywood, and then some rub rails. What's hard about that?

Well, for one thing, THIS:
That was the 4x8 plywood selection at Menards. From 1/4" to 3/4", and out of materials from knotty pine to red oak, cherry, maple, birch, baltic birch, plus construction-grade pine and luan.

I went through agonies, debating if I wanted to get red oak (all the best ships are made of heart of oak, right?) . . . all down the list. I was determined to get 1/2 inch, because 3/4" seemed like it would be a little too heavy.

Then I got the brilliant idea of actually checking out the pirogue plans online (you can see the exact plans I'm working from here.)

It very clearly says 1/4" plywood. Yikes. That's really, really thin.
But it answered my question. So I looked at the various options, and the baltic birch was the nicest, smoothest, least knotholed, and flattest selection. (I've heard of problems butt-jointing because the luan is warped and it's hard to get the edges to align.)

I got my two sheets, I got some nice red oak for the rub rails (it comes in 10' and 12' lengths, so I fear I'm going to have to do a scarf joint after all. Two, actually, One for each side. Grrrr.)

I managed to get everything to fit inside the car, but it wasn't easy. The plywood was basically the width of the interior, and the depth, too. So it was basically where my head needed to be. No worries. I opened the window, and leaned out the window to drive home.

Fortunately, I didn't pass any cops.

The build starts tomorrow.