Smashing our way through March

So Sunday was another do nothing day what with the rain and all. Ben baked bread.
So Monday was a do nothing day what with the rain and all. Ben baked more bread (help!)
March is disappearing rapidly! Tuesday we had semi OK weather and by Saturday everything was good. We meandered around trying to get back into the swing of things again. We bounced around doing finish up work on a number of things  simultaneously. like finishing up the mast case.

Drizzling epoxy goop into the two bolt reinforcement holes and

Bedding the bolts in batter- better. This was the final thing we has to do here. We now have it half painted. The color: Popcorn Ball! Doesn't smell like popcorn.

Ben said he dreamed about the motor wells. Here's a picture of the dream. So we finished them up.

Filling in what needs filling in (do I really hold my mouth like that when I'm concentrating?). Then we coated with epoxy, waited a bit for it to set, coated it again, waited a bit more, and put three coats of paint (the afore mentioned ball of corn, popped). 

The coating...............

The painting. We did the same damn thing to the motor boxes (popball corn). Who names these colors?????

We then stacked the pack in the back. The mast case goes back there when we finish it. The whole lot in the back lot. Off and on (more off than on) ,Ben worked on the rudder mounting hinge areas. Those of you who know Wharram boats know that the hinges are made of rope laced, quite ingeniously, between the stern and the rudder. Those that don't know Wharram boats now know that the rudders are tied to the stern in a figure eight fashion to the boat (Think shoelaces).

Think big notch, natch! There will be four per stern (two sterns) and four corresponding per rudder (two rudders). At he bottom is a big notch in the base of the rudder and that sits upon a bit of oak screwed to the sterns.

Ben's bit of oak (there are two, two bits, that's twenty- five cents).

It goes here on the stern.

And there on the rudder. Another thing we did (none of this is in order, as we bounced between and around projects) was to cut a whole buncha plywood into strips for the beam webbings. Wrestling 8 sheets of 18mm plywood through the table saw, each sheet 5 times was fun............

Remember, we are making 8 beams. four for my Tiki, and four for Budge's Narai Mk IV (with mods- Mk V?). We started with Budge's boat beams, 24' long. This is the official start of Budge's boat build. We went through the learning curve and made a web on Saturday. The webs are two 18mm strips laminated flat sides together staggering the joints.

Wiping the dust off. Then we coated the mating surfaces.

Spreading glue with notched trowel.

The process went like this. We cut one 8' board in half so the joints would not line up and applied glue. Then we slapped the pieces together and straightened the edges using a couple short bar clamps.

Then we brad nailed the two pieces together so the stayed aligned and stood the web on edge supported only at two points so they stayed relatively straight. And screwed the heck out of it.

Tack nailing it. (note the joint) We were only working with 4 feet of web at a time. You can see the joint here. One side of the web had 3, 8' sections. The other side had 2, 8' sections and a 4' section on each end.

Screwing the pieces together, both us and the board on edge! So a quart of epoxy and 150 screws later, we had this;

The plans called for building a  24 foot long floor out of plywood  and leveling it up. Our table is not flat, not even close to flat. We worked on the basic premise that two points determine a line and supported each glue up at two points. We had the web standing on edge for the screwing process and only laid it flat for the initial alignment. When finished we stood it on edge again and straightened it for the curing of the epoxy.

So we will be working on beams and painting the mast case. The beams will have a lot more stuff on them. They are laminated I-beams.

The Music ♪: John Wright "The Lock Keeper"

Another great sea song written by Stan Rogers! So often the sailing sort look down upon the lubbers of land, or the lobbers of balls, or the luggers of cargo or the loggers of timber or the lager of beer or the lagging of children or the lumbering of bears. As humans we all wish to feel superior in our choices, but we must never forget that the is always an alternative, none better than the other. We build our own cages......................and our fetters.