Oar Collars
I originally thought I could get away with just wrapping the loom up over the shoulder from round to square:
Trouble is, the oarlocks tended to get jammed on the corners of that ramp-up from round to square. Not a big issue, but I wanted rowing to be a smoother process.
So I ground off the wrapping of nylon twine coated in epoxy and changed the transition between round and square from a ramp to an abrupt step. I did the grinding at the shop.
Above: In my apartment, the step was cut in using my pen knife and some 40-grit sandpaper.
The top oar above has had the wrapping ground off. The bottom one has now had a shoulder cut into it, to butt the plastic collar against.
The re-worked area was then given three coats of paint, and the new collars fitted. The collars had to be cut down some, to fit snugly on the oars, since the oars are so slender. Otherwise, the plastic overlaps and that's not good!
Hatch Cover
I found that the foam I'd glued into the forward hatch cover was coming unglued. This is because foam has very little interlocking structure between its grains, so the layer that the glue stuck to just separated from the rest.
I wanted the foam to stay put in case the cover fell overboard, since without it, the thing would just sink. So I carved some slots in the foam and stuck in two slats that fit under the lip:
I happened to have some offcuts that were bendy enough to insert, yet stiff enough to hold the pieces of foam in. The slats had to fit under the lip on opposite sides, thus were too long to insert without bending them up in the middle first, to shorten them.
I made the cross-cuts with a saw, and took out the part in-between with a long, sharp kitchen knife.
Below, oars and hatch cover await return to the boat:
