Stems shaped - Roughly!

Whilst it was forecast for 35 degrees today, it was the first free day for a while so I got going early finishing beveling the second side of the keelson. That went OK so why not have a go at shaping the stems.  Tom Hill had suggested using a range of tools due to the grain changes around keelson/stem join - draw knife, spoke shave and some planing. Maybe it was the heat , but I don't have a drawknife and my spoke shave has not been a happy experience for me so far so I got out the electric plane, installed new blades and took a deep breath.   Managed to get through it OK without demolishing my beautiful ash stems. It's a rough shaping so far and I will do fine tuning with a hand plane and a short piece of planking stock to get flat lands for the glue joints.

I first used some spraky feeding battens to give me a line on the plank edge lands on the stem and punched a mark on the centre line of the stem so I don't lose sight of this through the stem shaping process.

 And here;s the stems from front and side after teh rough shaping with the electric plane.....