Backdeck Beam

The first picture shows the 4x4 that was cut with big curves on Georges band saw. I dry fit it yesterday evening and today used Jonathan's curved plane to smooth out.

Tomorrow I will probably epoxy it in. I have worried about making this piece and am happy it seems done.

Thanks Jonathan about remembering that I had stored some of your tools including this useful antique.

I trimmed back the sides of the deck today to receive the combings. Shown in the picture with Marjorie is a scrap redwood plank that I temporarily put in to see how the combing angle was working.

I bought some mahogany boards on Monday to use for the combing. The mahogany plank will be wider.

Trailer

This afternoon we applied brushes, grinders, and a 3M gadget that you put in
a drill and managed to get most of the loose rust and paint off in about two
hours of dirty grinding. I than applied a coat of Rustoleum primer from
Home Depot and by 6:00PM it looked 98% better: see picture.


The picture shows some new lights I bought. Kenyon had them on sale for $29 for two lights on a stand with a spare bulb. Kenyon was sold out, but Simpkins Hallin matched the sale price. Marjorie encourages me to buy two lights and they are handy.

Bottom Paint

We put on some bottom point this afternoon and this is what it looked like at the end of the day. The bottom paint has copper particles in it and the paint dries in a minute. You can't go back and forth with the roller to smooth it out because the roller starts picking up the paint you just put on! You roll a couple of times, in the same direction, and that is it. The good part is that you can put on another coat in 10 minutes and hopefully cover the places you missed the first time. Funny stuff and, about twice the price of single malt Scotch!

The hull now has two coats of the final blue color. It looks beautiful to us even though the surface is not perfectly glossy.

Elliptical ports were recommended by Allan, Steve, and others so what you see is pieces of cardboard stuck to the house with tape to simulate this. What do your think? Looks pretty good to me!

Tomorrow I hope to clean some of the rust and scabby paint from the trailer and start to make it look better.

We don't know how much longer we will be able to use the heated warehouse lent by a neighbor so am trying to quickly do as much painting as we can. Next week the outside temperatures are expected to be around zero F.

The Blues

We sanded the final coat of gray primer on the hull for almost a day and a half. My skin and clothes were gray. This afternoon we put on the first colored paint, a single-part, polyurethane that costs about $25/quart. It took almost a quart to cover the hull. I rolled the paint on with a smooth, foam roller and Marjorie "tipped" with a good brush ($18) we bought from Home Depot. This is the standard way for amateurs to apply this paint and the results look good I think. I will put on at least one more coat of color.

We finished working at 6:00PM. I am eager to look at it in the daylight tomorrow morning.

The deck still looked rough this morning so I did some more filling and delayed the priming.� This "sow's ear" will never be a silk purse. After 71 years I should remember that I am not good at taping sheetrock, smoothing car bodies, smoothing fiberglass, or making fine cabinetry. I seem to have to prove this to myself now and again.

Marjorie brought lunch and came back later to help wipe down the topsides.� I taped the new water line that I had marked with the laser last week and applied a coat of gray primer.

By 4:00PM there was no more red to be seen!!!!! Never did like that red.

This morning we moved some tools, paint, lights, epoxy, tarps, etc. to the boat in her new, temporary, home. Temperatures have gotten too cold to work much more outside in our yard.� Thanks to Russ and Marsha for lending us this warehouse space for a couple of weeks and to the Wells for facilitating this connection. Marjorie went to the store for a few things this morning while I unloaded the van and organized stuff.

I built a light fixture that would put the light from three photo floods on the deck and this was a mixed blessing. I thought I had sanded the deck "pretty good" and planned to put on the first layer of primer this afternoon, but with the new, slanty light new irregularities showed up so I spent the afternoon until 6:00PM sanding and filling. Maybe tomorrow.

The heated shop is WONDERFUL!!!!!!

These pictures show the activities of the last few days. The cuddy cabin is epoxied in and taped and the final layer of fiberglass cloth was put on this afternoon. The weather looked like snow would start falling any moment, but it didn't.

George asked me last weekend "Will you put in ports?"

I had thought about this and one fact is that since the back of the "cabin" is open, there is no need for ports. Still, the picture of the cabin looks "funny" without ports. Maybe I should put in false portholes, just for appearance.

The pictures show the first trial fit of the cabin module. It will need a few adjustments and shims but will eventually work. Gratifying for me to see some of the ideas taking shape.