Ye haw...RIBS INSTALLED

All six ribs went into place with no trouble whatsoever...yea right!. The honeymoon was over last night! Wow! What a struggle! I had to remove the old broken ribs which means I had to manually pull about 200 nails away from the ribs and planking then beat on the ribs to come loose. Afterwards I had to push, pull, bend, twist, tap and convince the ribs to go into place. All six took about five hours total. The reason it takes so long is if I pushed too hard the ribs would bulge the side. If I pushed too easy there would be a wave going into the side, so I had to spend a lot of time convincing the ribs where to go. (Actually the ribs were trying to convince me where not to put them ...ha ha)
As you can see the new ribs are very light in color while the old planking and ribs are dark. Would you believe that when this canoe was shipped to its owner, it was about the shade of the new planking you can see between the new ribs. Well, next will be STRIPPING THE VARNISH...oh joy!
Here is a bent rib just off the hull ready for installation.