: What are the relative merits of using an internal strongback

I found I needed to move the partly constructed boat
a) outside to take photos in daylight
b) to a place I could heat, (as opposed to the huge barn
where I started off)

An internal strongback on my 4.2m 5/6 scale Great Auk meant I
could pick it up myself without risking too much body damage.

: versus using an external strongback

I found it much more difficult than I expected to align the forms
on my internal strongback. Once I take the forms off the 2x4, it
is too short to reuse it for my next boat, so I have to start
completely from scratch.

I'm planning to build a strongback which comes in three eight-foot
sections of plywood, supported by three pairs of 3 metre sections
of 64mm square PVC pipe which will bolt together with a considerable
overlap. The overlaps will also bolt firmly down to a sawhorse at
each join, making it easy to get everything levelled up. This should
be reusable for several boats (up to a long double) and not too much
of a pain to store between projects. For short boats, I can just use
two of the sections (which gives me more flexibility about where I
work). I'm hoping that this construction will be light enough to mean
that I can move the strongback plus boat on my own once it is rendered
fairly rigid by being more than half stripped...

I'll let you know how this worked in a few months' time !

There are two boats I'm planning to use this for - one of my own
design, and a double, probably Nick's Guillemot double from the book.
Not quite sure yet which to build first. After that, probably an open
boat ...

I suspect that if you are only building one boat, the best plan is to
follow the designer's instructions almost to the letter. If you are
building several (and who can resist building another one after the
first ?), something more permanent is possibly a good idea.

Andy