Every Day You Do Something, Some Things Get Done. Or, Getting Through Today So We Can Get Through Tomorrow..........(?????????)

The important thing is to go out and start. If the weather is too bad to do the project you're working on, find something you can do and do that. It may not be the most pressing thing, but it will have to be done sometime and can be done now. Major tasks require planning and a chain of thought that, if interrupted, may require the re-acquisition of the processes. Small mindless items can fit between. Between weather systems, between cogitations, between thinking and starting, between the hour that your mind quits functioning and work day's end.  
Things are going along amazingly well. You know, you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach when things go right. You say to yourself "aren't we doing something wrong"? Something has to be wrong.........You no longer want to rename the boat the "Phuket Owl" and burn it. ​ No I won't explain the name, you get it or you don't.

Like this. The final motor box slid into place like it belonged. Forgotten were the drilled, filled, and re-drilled holes. Forgotten was the removal and re-gluing of the support ear on the beam. Forgotten were the heartaches, worries, and dread. It had found its place in the universe and its relationship to its kind. Both boxes were level and true to each other and their respective hulls.

We had drilled the boxes on the bench, so we marked the correct position on the ears, lowered the box, and drilled the beams. Click on the thumbnails on the side to see the process. Two things of note. One, due to friction, we had the air hose blowing on the hole saw to cool the bit and clear the debris. Two, you can see the misaligned previous holes that we plugged and the new hole position relative to them.

Once up and in place, what did we do? Why, take them down, of course. Ben started finishing them up. Complex decks next vex and perplex the intellect. There are flappy doors and gap decks to fill in the spaces. Nuthin' is simple. We will return to this as we detour to another project.

The wire pile. Put in boat somewhere (see Budge). For that much money, it should be bigger!

I glued up the top of the battery box. It has a lip on the top for a cushion so we can sit on it. This boat will have places to escape from each other.

I cut scuppers into the top for water to escape.

Huh..................it fits!

I drilled 3 passive water extraction devices (holes) in the bottom rear of the battery box and reamed  them with a rat tail file. 

So I added latch blocks to the ends and coated the whote shebang with two coats of epoxy and a coat of primer. Then Budge says "You should have a vent hole with a clam shell vent cover." Dammit, Budge, why didn't you say that in the first place................grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

What to do......what to do........a-hah!  Cut a couple slots in the ends that are covered by the top lip and cut the top thinner providing a covered breathing space. Of course, epoxy coat and primer coat the new cuts.

Oh, yeah, back to Ben and the motor boxes. Jump around? Yes we are many places at once. like Keyser Söze,  he appears and is gone, like smoke. 

These said motor boxes needed a cross brace upon which the flappy doors flap. Ben summoned the process from the depths of the wells of his skills. and cut two cross braces from white oak. He was feeling pretty cool..............................
    [Amendment by Ben. Father failed to explain why I was so proud of these boards. Placing an exact 9 mm slot, exactly in the center of a board is in no way an easy feat. Or even a necessary one unfortunately. The fact that I made the fit so perfect that the oak could be held up by just friction is a source of pride. I did fail to take into account the tolerances of materials which was humbling and educational. Plus, it made me laugh out loud when they cracked. However, I was able to glue these in place with nothing more than a tight fit. Otherwise I would have had to use tape, nails, or a weight. All of which would have had their own difficulties. All I did was lay glue down, shove them on, clean up the squeeze out, twisted them a little until they were level, and then I walked away. You may wonder why I would care about striving for perfection. I would wonder, why wouldn't you? I may have hated all the jobs I ever had, but I'll be damned if I didn't try to be the best. Little victories are sometimes all we have. Besides, we've had enough mistakes.]

Of course, God punishes arrogance and both of them cracked! 

So he expanded the cracks, filled them with epoxy,and glued them in, We will return to this anon...........

So one of our sanders ate a bearing (again)

And the other has a defective switch.....It eventually works if you turn it on and bang it a few times................. Oops.....not the switch......big chunk of something in the brushes. Blew them out and it works.

I had to put a roundover on a piece of trim for the pod pass-throughs. Router tip number 27: each time you use a router, remove the bit lest it weld itself to the collet.  To remove this aforementioned bit, gently pry between the collet and the bit by twisting a screwdriver between the two. When the bit shank bends, whang away with a hammer while cursing vehemently until the bit is destroyed and the collet releases it. Throw the bit away. Sonavabitch was trying to kill me, Oh, crap, those things are expensive.................

I cut down the pod sides on both sides so that the side would align with the decks. That way there is a smooth transition across the boat.

Once that router bit was removed, I rounded 3 edges of an oak strip and cut a rabbet so it would cover the pod sides. I glued them on. You can see how much I removed by looking at the side of the notch yet to be painted. Of course, I had to take the side decks out to do this.

Ben removed the fore hatches, removed the aluminum strips, primed and painted the aluminum, repaired a crack that developed in the hatch, screwed the aluminum strips back on with aluminum screws, and put the hatches back on. Simple, between-the-thoughts time occupier that took a few days, off and on. More off than on.

We return to the motor wells. Ben glued in the two oak cross pieces and filleted them underneath..................flappy doors, you remember.

We have become most efficient with epoxy utilization. Mixing the correct amount initially and putting remnants to use filling cracks and divots. This shows the remainder from a job. We have discovered that you can throw these remnants into the freezer and slow down the catalyzation process so we can use it later. We just purchased a couple of cheap compression dispensers (ketchup squirters) from the cheap products store so we can control the mixing process. We have been known to mix a couple teaspoons of epoxy at a time. We bought a couple pumps for the epoxy, but our brand of epoxy (Progressive) does not work with the pumps................... they leak! We gave up. Our epoxy ratio is 2:1. 

As soon as you lay down that epoxy coat, the bug comes in for a landing. I get in a foul mood when working with epoxy. I was scrunched up gluing in the oak pod strips cussing the overly stickiness of the epoxy and my cramped position to access under the strip when a bug buzzed my head and landed in the epoxy right under my nose as I was attempting to put a small fillet on the joint. This did not improve the mood.

We return to the motor boxes (again). Ben's secret Krispy Kreme epoxy glaze coating on the right. Normal epoxy coat on the left awaiting the application.

And a coat of primer. So that was our week. It takes 3-4 hours to compose this weekly from my decomposing, weakly mind................(?)

The Music ♫: Arctic Monkeys "Flourescent Adolescent"

Heavy weighs the responsibility of picking the week's song. Ben finally chose this one. His favorite line: "Everything is in order in a black hole".