Oh, hell. you figure out the pun. Ben went to budgetboater and asked him "what is the next thing to work on?" Budge said "Start the mast case". Now, as you of Wharram buildification know, the Mast case is the beginning of the end of making one of these double hulled canoes: It is the construction of something that goes between the hulls. The mast case in a Tiki 38 is a contraption that spans the gap between beams one and two and supports the forward mast and is pretty damn critical. Of course, as originally designed, it failed. Thanks to Neil Hawksford The failure was publicized and James Wharram design published a modification of the design, a "mod". When Ben asked Budge how to build it, Budge replied "according to plans". I then asked Budge about our discussion previously of the design. Namely, the windlass mounting system and anchor rode/chain storage that we discussed many months ago. Then Budge's designing skills kicked in and he worked on the mod to the mods of the whole contraption. Now, the creative process involves pinging the idea around your brain until something comes out, Budge redesigned the project the project about three times until he came out with the final design. Ben's entire Monday production is thus:
Budge worked on hatch design. We scrapped the old hatch design and went back to simplicity. When three minds come together, sometimes we get overexcited. The saying is that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. He also programmed the router to cut the mast case parts,
He managed to cut the case out of two sheets of 18mm plywood. This is thicker than the plans so we can add anchor chain stowage in and attach the windlass. This extra configuration was what caused Budge to rethink the design a few times. Finally, it looks like this.
And the three of us glued one side together
Doubled ply and white oak reinforcements nailed with stainless steel brads. That should do it.
Oh, yeah, the Mirror dinghy................ after all that sanding and sanding, I discovered that I shouldn't finish boats. Boat people talk about "five f0ot" or "ten foot" boats. This means that the boat looks good from that distance. When we started out we wanted a one foot boat, but as the building process progresses, our standards slacken more and more to get it finished. We are currently at 15 feet and stepping back each day. Ben and I slopped a coat of primer on the Mirror and Budge said we had to wet sand it again so the high gloss paint would look OK. Sand?? Again??
Primer goes on.................................
Sand primer smooth................................our standards on the big boat just plummeted! Then we were ready for paint. My preparation on the Mirror was crap. I am not skilled in this, so the application of the high gloss paint showed off my incompetence. Baaaack up, Baaaack up .............there.
We didn't paint the bottom so we have room for bottom paint (I didn't buy enough paint). All the imperfections show.
Next we sand and paint the interior (satin house paint). Next weekend Ben and I will take off for the Port Aransas wooden boat show to look at ply boats and goof off. We'll bring the Mirror. Next week's posting may be late..................
The Music ♪: Incredible String Band
I was going to put on "Maya" by the Incredible String Band, but can't get it on yewtewb. Maybe this...
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