Ding.............................Dang! Crate Jamming, Sack Cramming, Epoxy Mush, Window Wrap And The Kiss of The Forklift.

​First a thankya to Mic for his comments on last week's blog suggesting Seasick Steve as this week's music. Seasick Steve makes his own guitars and, coincidentally, last week's music was originally going to be Bo Diddley, who also made his own guitars. If you say "Bo Diddley Guitar" a picture immediately pops into your head,

We need music, and to find a song that blows you out into the stratosphere is a wonderful experience. The songs in this blog were an attempt to give you, my two readers, a gift. Hopefully in those 400 odd songs You found one or two that shook your soul. One that you had to play again. One where you had to know more about the artist.

Mike made a comment and thanx for it. He thinks I accurately portray the process of mental decay of a boat builder, or something like that.  I hope he doesn't decide to build a boat.

And a hidey hay to Toby, who has decided to build one of these. It's harder than you think. I guess he hasn't read enough of this blog. Much sympathy in advance for him. I hope he doesn't use West System.

I guess I don't fit in the general scheme of things. I am not good about chasing fads. By the time I figure out what they are, they've passed. Oop, there goes another one! 

I feel like the lost tribe of Israel, destined to wander the earth in search of some sort of mythic state that may be physical or mental. Like the Israelites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Crudites, the Luddites and the Ammonites, I am destined to find my niche in this world, but the search is long and tedious. You too, my faithful followers must search for the meaning of my meanderings. I surmise they are unfathomable to all of us.

Miss Marple said "It's a mystery. Then, we all are, even to ourselves, especially to ourselves."

Oh my. I did stuff again this week. I am trying to make the boat livable and lovable, not laughable or lamentable. It's negotiable whether I am capable of succeeding.

Hey!?! Is that a green one? Dammit! I am pretty sick of everything being called "Extreme". Give it a rest and find a new word.

Like the astrophysicists, I struggle with the definition of space. Boat folk know this. Me, I'm dim. I thought that the organization of all my stuff would be facilitated by the use of milk crates. They were the perfect size to hold stuff and move around. In reality, they're not. They define a hard space with strict dimensions that are inflexible whether they're chucky jam full of stuff or not. Boats do not accommodate a twelve inch cube very well, what with all that angular stuff going on.  I then started cramming things in sacks. Now sacks also define a consolidated, more flexible space that still limits the storage capacity. Case in point: I have been ignoring the clamps. They had to go somewhere. Do I need them? I dunno, but I like to build things and cannot see throwing stuff out yet. As the sage said "Keep it and you'll always have it" (??). I stuffed them into various things (sacks, buckets, bags) only to store them loose. I sat down and coated them with Boeshield  T-9 and fitted them around under the  forward cabin bunk along with the electrical stuff. I packed and re-packed all the electrical stuff, too. It's all in there, except for the stuff that isn't. (huh?)

The car window up button broke. It only goes down. A new one will be here Tuesday. That stretchy packing wrap stuff will have to do.

So. I'm walking around under the boat and I discover that the aft under deck light was connected to nothing. Budge had a switch for it in the cockpit. It was just one of those things that got overlooked in those final days. I dug out the 18 Gauge wire and started feeding it down through the tube in the cockpit. That damn flexible stranded wire wouldn't feed. I dug out some 6 gauge and wiggled the heck out of everything until I got the bigger wire through the pipe. This took half a day. I had some wire loom (The wire Looms! Is that an old radio show?) and fed the wire through it. I modified some cable clamps that were for 1" wire by cutting them down and re-drilling the hole. I mounted everything and got the light connected. I then went up to the cockpit and connected the wires to the terminal blocks. It worked!

I screwed the seat snaps back in.

I assembled the dry deck tiles and put them on the cockpit floor. I only had to trim four tiles to make them fit. I think I will leave them like this. I do not want to attempt to fit them around all those cockpit tubes and such. It looks neat this way. So far, I like them.

So, I'm happily working away on the aft deck light and yard guy, Jim stops by and says "I hope that that's just bird poop on the hull". I went over and checked the green paint and told him it was just dirt streaks. I should have looked down not up. Dim ol' me finally noticed the forklift ding in the hull a day later. I told yard boss, Gary about it. It bothered him more than it bothered me. He got his crew out and chastised them. Of course, the other guy did it. He offered to fix it but I decided to do the work myself. We boat builders want to screw it up ourselves rather than have some hired help do it. That way we forgive the craftsman more easily. I sanded down the spot, I mixed 21 drops of low viscosity epoxy and applied it so it would soak in. Next I took a small piece of glass cloth and cut the fringes off to make some chop strand. I mixed another small batch of epoxy and mixed the chopped cloth into the epoxy to make an epoxy/glass mush and worked it into the spot. I talked to Jim, Ben and emailed Budge. I got their 3 opinions. After the glass mush hardened, there were a couple pits. I mixed a tiny 6 drop mix and thickened it with silica and skim coated the pits. It rained and I took a break. This was really a two day process. I Cut a small piece of glass cloth to fit the area. I mixed three teaspoons of epoxy (too much!) and coated the area, applied the cloth and wetted it, I stuffed the residual epoxy into the yard freezer to slow it down while the cloth set up. The yard guys had to leave after 15 minutes, so I had to get the epoxy out of the freezer. It turns out that it bought just enough time for the cloth to barely set up enough. I mixed some white micro balloons into the epoxy and skim coated the glass weave. I tiptoed away. We shall see on Monday

I take Sundays off now. I think I'll sit around and pop acetaminophen.

The Music​♪: Seasick Steve "Walkin' Man"

Ol' Steve don't look too sick to me.