Getting the hull in shape

With the hull on the table and the sponsons inserted the moment has come to shape the hull. Inflating the sponsons and adding tape quickly brings the shape. Make sure you have the ends clamped really well, otherwise the keel tube jumps out of the ends.

The clamped bow:

Here the small modellers clamp is in place. I made the hull a bit short, so I have not a lot of material left. Next time a bit longer would be better.

With the tape in place the hull looks nice:

And from the other side:

Due to the single piece hull I ended up with some severe wrinkles:

There is just to much material at the deck line, and it goes into three big wrinkles on both sides of the hull. Here the sewn sleeves approach is a disadvantage. The hull already is glued to the sleeves, so I can not just cut the hull and patch it as Tom does on his PVC sleeve version. I have to work loose the sleeve from the skin at the position of the wrinkles to be able to cut the skin. Luckily this goes rather well with enough heat from the heatgun:

After cutting I first glue the skin back in place, then patch the area.
With patch waiting:

And the result:

Next the paper tape has to be replaced by PVC strips. Originally I wanted to go without this step and just use the tape (paper or duct tape) to keep the hull in shape. Regretfully none of the tape I tried could hold the load for an hour or more. As I did not want to have a hull loosing shape while mounting the deck I resorted to the tried PVC strips.

Cutting the strips to length:

The hull with the strips waiting to be glued:

And here one of the strips at its final position:

After this the hull is ready for the deck.