|
Boat Flipping Epoxy epoxy epoxy - it's always epoxy. Once the Goose went 3D, it's just been epoxy on the bottom ever since. Time to do a wee bit 'o building again - but first:
Dave (on the left) has taken over the care and maintenance of the two Teak Lady sailboats that have been donated to the Boathouse. These are wonderful little sailboats and they require a lot of expert care. Bud (on the right) is the Port Manager, and he was really pleased with what David has been doing.
I looked over the Goose and was disappointed at how long it was taking to fill in the weave on the fiberglass tape. It takes a LOT of epoxy to fill the weave on 12 oz cloth. I started trying to sand down the high spots with an orbital sander, but that wasn't cutting it. Frustrated, I busted out the grinder with a 36 grit pad. Oh, yeah, baby!
Good thing the grinder was speeding things up - Connie dropped by with Hailey, Ashley, Bradon, and Patience and they wanted to do a night paddle.
There is simply nothing better than paddling a canoe at night. There's a boatfull of kids learning how to take advantage of the wonders of their own back yard.
While the kids were gone, I returned to grinding. When they got back, they wanted to see what I was doing - it was starting to look like Christmas in there. "Don't eat that! Don't breath too deeply, either."
There we go - got it mostly flat and then hit it with the Random Orbital Sander to calm down the grinder gouges.
I finished out the night by giving her another coat of epoxy.
This is 6" above 0 tide. Negative tides get skinny, indeed.
Look really closely and you can see 2 things: Some small runs near the top and gouges from the grinder just below the edge of the tape.
The epoxy was still a little soft, so I used a cabinet scraper to flatten out the runs. The gouges? I'll get to them later. I'm tired of working on the bottom of the boat.
Random fiddy bits - this is the pad the leeboard will be rotating on. Still needs some work, and a bolt, and to be fastened to the side of the boat.
I played with the rudder for a bit, too. I want 30" of rudder in the water, so I made a mark for where the rudderhead will end.
Geoff came in, and we had a visitor as well, so I put him to work taking pictures while Geoff and I flipped the boat.
Our photographer was Mike, come to visit from Corvallis.
Aw, crap. I got the cleats for the bulkhead misaligned. Thankfully, I only screwed up one of them. Fixed easily enough.
Remember way back when we went 3D? I made cutouts in the inner bulkhead to provide usable storage space (there's gobs of flotation in the airboxes) It was time to cut out the holes. That's a Detail Pull Saw from Duckworks - it's a little aggressively toothed, but it does work very well.
Ahhh, beautiful.
It's hard to tell what I am doing here, but I am trimming the cutouts of the bulkhead for use as end pieces on the airboxes. Cheap cheap cheap - that's me.
Geoff is a naval engineer for NOAA, so he gets to design the deckbeams. We are doing a 2" arch on the deck for no other reason than we want to see if we can.
There's the arch at the bow. That round thingy is support for the bow eye, in case I need a tow.
David came in to get some paint for Daisy, one of our Lazy Weekend Canoes. The canoes get really well used during the season - eventually, they will just be floating blobs of paint.
Here's David and Daisy after painting. I LOVE those candy colored canoes.
Visitors! Aiden and his father, Mike, were up from Waldport to get a truck fixed, and they were wandering the docks. Time to get those guys into a canoe. Aiden is one of us already - he made that skateboard using purple heart (Peltogyne) and white maple (acer saccharinum.)
Off they go. Gettin' people on the water - that's what we do.
Boathouse friends Chuck and Shaleen (not pictured) dropped by. They have sailed up in the Puget Sound extensively and they heard about out entering the Race to Alaska (Stage One, only - Port Townsend, Wa to Victoria, BC) and wants to help.
The sides were a little wobbly and I wanted to hold them apart the correct distance while I worked on the airbox ends.
Upon inspection, the boat was curving a bit to starboard, so we went with more extensive bracing.
More visitors! Bruce and Lynn brought their granddaughter, Maggie up from Newport. They were very happy to get a chance to go paddling.
Couldn't resist taking another shot of Maggie. She is adorable.
The day was winding down and I had to get on the road. Geoff was smoothing off the tops of the deckbeams with a Shinto Rasp from Duckworks - those things are flat out GREAT rasps. That's it for this week at the Boathouse. Hope you enjoyed it. |
