Hi Ben!
I have one of the two boats documented (so far) on their build. You will see in my postings, when I got to the pillow block, I mocked up a few samples to get a sense of size, strength, looks, etc. So my pillow blocks probably don’t look like the plans. But they work for me and the build route I took. I think the gunwales on my build are much heavier than the plans.
My suggestion, do what you think will look good on your build. Hope you are having fun with the build!
Doug Hermann