Nitnoy at 95, Horrible at 101, Mulling of Minutia, Blog Bother, Serenity Someday: The Year of the Spider.

When I'm working out a real or imagined problem I slide into the depths of a blue funk and wallow around the depths for a while feeling sorry for myself until I figure out what the hell is happening. Beam 3 trough was an example of this. I had shaved off 3/8" (9mm) off the interior pads and I was expecting to have to add a bit to bring it level, but one pad was where it should be. Huh?? I mulled, I mulled a lot. Finally, all mulled out, we dragged out the levels (water, line, and bubble) to see the actual situation. Our conclusion: the hulls are level, beam 1 is weird the other beams are relatively level. This assuaged my fears and allowed me to believe again in what I was doing (Uhhhhhhhhh............building a boat?). I feared something was amiss with the hulls. They seem to be just fine, whatever that is. 

Under the public service announcement phase of this blog, I reverted to my weebly domain name: www.acatnameddog.weebly.com. The other domain name folks (Go Daddy) wanted $25.00 a year (Go Away, Daddy) and this one always was here anyway. So you two followers take note: same thing only different (?)!

The Blog maybe a good thing for all boat builders. When you start a blog you announce to the universe your intentions (and that you're a damn fool). The blog posts continue to reiterate your goal and the aforementioned supposition. Now you cannot stop and then announce to the universe that you have failed (damn universe!). You must go on. Either way, you're still the same damn fool you were when you started but, maybe, at the end, you got a boat . So each day we awaken and chant out mantra "Fore is towards the road, aft is towards the shop".

So the temperature broke a hundred. We are working in the sun, this reading is in the shade. Our braggadacio and swagger is substantially subdued and supressed by the crew next door, building a metal building 20 feet up in the air holding on to hot metal beams in the direct sun and welding! I did a tiny bit of epoxy work inside one hull. Ben stuck the thermometer in while I was working: 106.5°. OK so it's hot, so what.

We feel like wusses! This year we see a lot of spider varieties. The big ol' barn spiders, the one's with the face webs, are not as  present as before. Instead we have a bazillion smaller varieties that seem to be everywhere. If we set something down for a period of time, some spider will sling a web across it.

Plain ol' house spider. A house is not a home until it has spiders.

I read Neil again. He's happy on the Spain/Portugal border taking pictures of flora and fauna (yay!). Oh yeah, the boat, we must have done something.

Beam 3 levelers, side blocks and ptfe in place. insert block here. There was a lot of fitting, sanding, measuring, sweating, cursing. I had 3 bottom blocks to shape to fit. Lots of trips to the belt sander.

Fat one

Thin one. Take beam out. Apply glue to pad. Put beam back in. The weight of the beam will self level the blocks and fill in the voids with the thickened oakpoxy. Finally beam 3 was level and centered. At the same time we did the mast beam.

The instructions say to glue in blocks to the sides of the beam troughs. They do not say how in the hell to do it. How do you apply pressure on the sides of a 6 inch wide trough? This method above was almost semi-satisfactory. Not great, but it worked. We'll have to do something better on the others, if I can figure it out.

One side of the mast beam required a block.......

As I was slowly driving myself crazy with the blocks, Ben finished up the ptfe side support blocks on the aft beam. He measured,

Sanded.......

Thinned.......

Shaped........

And screwed them on................................Simple!

Ben also fussed with the small ventilation hatches of the forward cabins. Lots of small stuff to do.

Once the mast beam and beam 3 had their leveling blocks in place, I moved to beam 2. First make the blocks level.

Like this. Nit Noi projects at 95°. It was only 38° Celsius, much cooler. So all this block shaping and fussing produced.........

Beam 3 level.

Mast beam level.

Beam 2 level. All this athwart ship. Mast beam and beam 3 are level to each other fore and aft. This is good. The pod sits there. When we head to the front of the boat, the beams start to lower. Beam 2 is slightly lower and beam 1 is lower still. If we leveled them to the mast beam, the beams would be way too high. What to do, what to do. I'll strike an average, bring beam 1 up a bit, pray to the gods (Ehecatl, Quetzelcoatl) and see if the mast case will sit level. In terms of how all this fits on the final boat, I haven't a clue!

Ben, cool in the heat, getting the beam trough ready for final painting. We got a coat of epoxy on the blox and cheex. Paint soon.

Combine sanding, sweating, swearing and you get.............side block..........bottom blocks...........block head tarred and feathered.

I shaved one edge of beam 2 down a mite so I could cram a piece of 1/16" ptfe along the side. Beam 2 is horrible in relation to the trough. I'm wedging 1/16" ptfe on one side and 1" block and ptfe on the opposite side. No you cannot center it because on the other hull, it's the opposite! Hand built boats, my ass!

American colloquialisms aside, we also drilled the eight dorade box holes in the hulls, lots of small stuff from now on.

Ben took this last week and just sent it to me.

The weather is drying up all but the toughest wildflowers. Black eyed susans and coneflowers persist.

This is how much sweat came out of Ben's nitrile gloves after an epoxy session! The sludge on the bottom is talcum powder.

So, stay level my friends. Keep breathing air. I keep getting the same question "Chuck, really, when will the boat be finished"? They think I know something. Today I worked. That's all I know................................... and supper.......I like supper..........and beer!

The Music♪: Lucinda Williams "Change the Locks"

You need nothing more than Lucinda.