When I was younger, I didn't have a clue as to how life and such worked. Now that I have matured, I know for certain that I still haven't a clue. No one does, but we delude ourselves. The best answer to the meaning of life I have ever heard was "42", thanks to Douglas Adams. I strive to achieve 42 in every aspect of my life. It is our pursuit of perfection that makes us work. So we chant our daily mantra: starboard is toward the storage rental place next door, port is toward the house.
Just pick something and run with it until it or you runs out of whatever propels the process. Our propellant is running low. The refueling process is simple, stop and do something else for a bit. That said, we need a vacation, so we're heading back to Ohio for a couple weeks. Sometimes you have to stop and breathe. I like the fireworks in my village on the Fourth of July. They're pretty. We need to do something different. Projects, both creative and mindless, will re-energize our motivation. Our friends and family won't know we're coming because they do not read this blog. We hear "I read your blog once but there are too many words" or "I read your blog once but there are too many pictures" or "It's hard to read on my phone". So I figure that you two blog followers must have a computer and a lot of time to waste. None of my friends does.
Just pick something and run with it until it or you runs out of whatever propels the process. Our propellant is running low. The refueling process is simple, stop and do something else for a bit. That said, we need a vacation, so we're heading back to Ohio for a couple weeks. Sometimes you have to stop and breathe. I like the fireworks in my village on the Fourth of July. They're pretty. We need to do something different. Projects, both creative and mindless, will re-energize our motivation. Our friends and family won't know we're coming because they do not read this blog. We hear "I read your blog once but there are too many words" or "I read your blog once but there are too many pictures" or "It's hard to read on my phone". So I figure that you two blog followers must have a computer and a lot of time to waste. None of my friends does.
Ben as Larry the Arab, Dorkus of Arabia. His technique: fill a dish towel with ice cubes, stuff in hat, put hat on head thus maintaining your cool. This is not the technique of the week. The definitive temperature seems to be 93° in the shade. I'll look up from something I'm doing and say "It's hot". I'll then check the thermometer. It's 93 (not 42). At 93 the paint cans and oil cans start popping from air/fluid expansion. At 93, drive melts out of your brain and puddles on the ground. At 93 and anything beyond, the pace of work moves at the rate of refrigerated molasses, or frozen epoxy. At 93...................... you feel like you're 93.
The spider of the week. It's abdomen is a bright silver color. Sorry..................no flowers. I'm just stalling for time. Once we decided to take a break, our desire to work faded like the wildflowers. We pressed on barely .
I'm still doing this. What's this? The white stuff is the ptfe, what gets glued to the beams. The brown stuff is the oak, what gets glued to the beam troughs. Together they form the spacers that take up the slack between the two surfaces and keep the beams (somewhat) centered between the troughs. There are 26 such surfaces that must be individually cut and sanded to fit.
Here is the ptfe screwed to the mast beam. The two extra holes are wrong (the other side of the line, stupid). The big slog.
Two trough cheek pieces glued and primed in the mast beam trough. Note the wedge shape necessary to make the beam fit properly in the trough. I did this over and over and over and over........... Yes, I know you don't understand this picture. Maybe you'll understand this : Do Not Build Boats!
I dragged from beam trough to beam trough leveling the pads with chisel,
and sander to get the bottom pads level in relationship to the beam. Again, each beam pad was leveled and each beam required 2-3 shim pads to glue on top the leveled pads to the beam. One pad ended up being only about 1/16 inch. We would put the beam in, measure and shape the required shim pads, pull the beam out, glue the shim pads to the pads, put the beam back into the trough on the pads so the pads would self level. This is not the technique of the week. This is crazy people doing crazy things.
After doing this with three beams, we came down to the final beam, beam one. What's that big lump in the center forward of the boat??????/
Oh, yeah, the mast case, set in place so we could see what the hell is happening to beam one. The designers (I'll try not to say what I was thinking) do not mention a thing about the relationship between beam one and two. The mast case does not sit level. Should it? No one bothers to say ($2K, money spent on inadequate plans). Their attitude seems to say "don't bother your pretty little head about such matters, we're the pros" Near as we can tell, the mast rake is different in the mast case to accommodate the difference in beam height between beam one and beam two. The aft mast rake is different. Hopefully this works, I'll never hear from the designers. I'll try not to bother my pretty little head.
Meanwhilst, we drilled the holes in the cabin tops for the dorade box tubes. I could explain this, but your pretty little head would be bothered. Ben fumed and flustered over cutting the tubes square, finally settling on a band saw, and miter gauge with a stop.
Finally achieving the concept of semi square. This required the requisite sweating, cursing, fluster, and stewing. This is not the technique of the week. What is?
This is. I was working on this and Budge came up to me and said "What's with the scrap lumber?" I said "a miracle of modern engineering; what does it look like?" He said "a pile of scrap lumber". I said "no, it's a miracle of modern engineering!" Now, you remember last week's picture of gluing in the mast beam side cheeks? The one with the shims and such?? Aww, never mind. The problem is applying side pressure to the side cheeks in the narrow space (6") of the beam troughs. Aww, never mind (your pretty little head), here's a picture.
Ta Da!!!!!!!!! The boat building technique of the week. Side pressure applied to glue in the side cheeks.
Sometimes I had to use an extra one to get it right. Sometimes I had to apply a couple extra shims to apply an even pressure.
Like this, but mostly it worked.
Ben worked with helpers Grin and Bear It to do a couple projects this week. A new mast support for the Crown (Ben's boat) . We are taking it to Ohio and do some lake sailing there. The boat will be for sale there. We need fewer distractions here.
And sanding up the dorade tubes. Somehow these tasks took a lot longer than expected. So now, my two faithful followers, do not forget to keep in touch for the next few weeks in spite of my posts of limited stimulation. No wait, they're All like that...............
The Music♪: Ron Hynes "No Change in Me"
Small change for a while makes big change in attitude.
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