Face Mash, Single Handing, Sweat, Center Guide, Stop Block, Braille Method to Screwing In Eight Screws: Hail The Reign Of The Spring Rain

Here I sit. It's Tuesday and it's raining. I make a feeble attempt at interweb perusal. My Gawd, is everyone involved in the telling of their life discovery process? Are we so entangled in introspection and the documentation of the trivial aspects of our existence that we just might forget to live? Yet, here I involve myself in this hebdomadal missive,  documenting the most trivial of trivialities: the boat building process . Once this boat is finished, the availability of content material dwindles to nil. What then? Philosophy? I'll never sell that to Hollywood. They want action, love affairs and pathos. Speaking of Hollywood, Ben got the new video posted. There are no sword fights, but plenty of screwing, and pathos is my middle name (what about Aramis and Athos?). It carries an R minus minus rating, both for content and quality.

The little bird with the beautiful song came around and sang a bit to me. I guess there are no hard feelings about me kicking him out of the band saw nesting site.

A new announcement. Our readership has increased by 50%. Wuhu! My fame and fortune are secured. We now have 3 (three) followers!!!!!!! Heady stuff, the responsibility is overwhelming. I will shoulder the responsibility and soldier on. Oh wait, the third one is probably just Ben, awwwwwwww.

Now, on to the pathos.

It rained.

Really rained.............. with hail stones!

Huge hail stones!!  We lost a day and a half.

Before he left, Ben rolled up the 1/16" rubber really tight. I sliced it into ribbons of varied widths to use under lids, etc. Each roll is 10' long.

We put the beam for the not-to-plans aft deck in the correct position and drilled the corresponding holes.

And put a couple bolts in each end.

We then turned our attentions to the fore deck. Budge took the blocks Ben made and cut them to the correct top angles, This deck is actually two decks, each running between the center mast case and the hulls. 

I cut the eight beams to the correct angle and length. Each beam slides into the mast case sockets and sits on a block glued to the hulls. Each beam is unique in length and angle.

Like this. They were a but snug in the sockets so I marked them and .....................

Sanded a little off three sides.

Two coats of epoxy.

And a coat of primer.

Then I started doing what I have been dreading for months and months; Beam pin cover plates, twelve of them. Actually, I was only dreading two: forward covers for beam one. In order to place them, I had to somehow position them correctly on a spot that I could barely access.

I drove out the port hull #1 beam pin, mashed my face against the bulkhead and reached up to put the plate in place. We decided to use butyl rubber as a mastic to hold them in place. Budge said to drill a hole in so we would not have to remove them again, just drive the pins out with a punch through the hole. I centered the first one using a plug from a hole saw. You are looking through the pin hole at the hole saw plug.  

I used a one handed push drill with a piece of wood as a stop so I wouldn't drill all the way through the bulkhead. I got one hole drilled. Agonizing! I then removed it and drilled the center holes through the two plates (one for each hull). Of course a couple coats of epoxy in the holes. 

That push drill wasn't going to cut it. I built a ramshackle contraption to support me so I could cram one shoulder and my head in to see what I was doing. I finally used the electric drill with the same wood stop. If I dropped something, I couldn't reach it and had to drag myself  back out, twist my body and retrieve the object. It was hot sweaty work and aggravating.

Picture taken by stuffing my arm through the hole and shooting blind. The drill bit acts as a centering device, sighting through the hole from the opposite side. It took an entire afternoon to put on six end caps. Most of the time was spent laying on the support trying to get the four screws in and cursing.

Mark the edges, center the plate, drill pilot holes, roll beeswax into threads, inset wax into holes, screw in screws. This took about five minutes each no time. The brunt of the time was spent on the forward two plates and their eight screws.

Bugs that died on good Friday on a bed of epoxy not to rise three days later. 

The Music♪: Bruce Langhorne "The Wind"

Bruce has passed. He was one of those guys that was everywhere, but you didn't know him. I suggest the soundtrack from "The Hired Hand". Thanks for the music.

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