The case of the daggerboard trunk

Progress on the model nutshell pram has slowed in the last month because I've come to a stage in the construction that is a real pain, and the instructions are particularly vague. The way I've dealt with the situation is to ignore it, but one of my bleaders e-mailed me and wanted to know what on earth was going on. Is this what a blonde does when the going gets tough? (Yes.) Furthermore, she wanted to see more blonde jokes. (No problemo.)

Here is what I've accomplished in the last four weeks:
1. Installed the forward and stern quarter knees. These are decorative doodads, fore and aft, that on the model are about the size of an eyelash. In fact, everything left to do on this boat involves pieces that are about the size of an eyelash. I am looking forward to building the full-size boat so I can see what I'm doing.

2. Glued guardrails to the top edge of the sheer plank. Pop quiz: What is a sheer plank?

3. Made the seats -- fore, middle, and aft. This part of the project called for all kinds of nonsense involving seat-support blocks, marking the hull, and beveling, which I started to do until I determined that it was completely unnecessary for this miniature version of the boat. The seat-support blocks are the size of matchsticks, and because no one heavier than Stuart Little will be sailing this boat, and no one with x-ray vision will be looking at it, I decided to glue the seats in place sans supports. Let's just hope that Stuart hasn't put on a lot of weight.

4. Started work on the daggerboard case. Whoever wrote the instructions has a great sense of humor. The opening sentence of this section is, "One of the more meticulous parts of your project will be assembly and installation of the daggerboard case." Then he starts talking about the trunk, never letting on that the words "trunk" and "case" are interchangeable. It took a blonde to figure that one out! Typical sentences in this section are, "Notch the endposts below the bedlogs, where they will pass through the model's bottom, about half their width as shown on the construction profile drawing." It sounds like too-much-information regarding a girl's rear-end.