I try to work six hours a day. Eight hours is a bit much. It's probably the national average of productive work time per day what with paid breaks and goof off time. I take only Sundays off and do mostly nothing. I work at a leisurely pace now, mostly because the jobs to do are leisurely type jobs. I work mostly smaller tasks, not constructing anything. Some tasks are frustrating, so I sit under the boat for a bit to dissipate the heebie-jeebies. Oh hell, it's hot. I sit under the boat a lot.
My body parts ache. Budge said "Pain is weakness leaving the body". This is a phrase used by the military to get young dumb guys to work, Right now I have weakness leaving my knee and shoulder. I should have run out of weakness by now, but it continues, This whole boat building thing is a colossal weakness leaving my butt!
Hey.....'Nother video. Please no comments on the tawdry quality of the production. If I want to make good videos, I need a 12 year old introvert video savant and that skinny girl in the bikini. All you get is me.
Oh well, to the blog!
My body parts ache. Budge said "Pain is weakness leaving the body". This is a phrase used by the military to get young dumb guys to work, Right now I have weakness leaving my knee and shoulder. I should have run out of weakness by now, but it continues, This whole boat building thing is a colossal weakness leaving my butt!
Hey.....'Nother video. Please no comments on the tawdry quality of the production. If I want to make good videos, I need a 12 year old introvert video savant and that skinny girl in the bikini. All you get is me.
Oh well, to the blog!
So bright and early Monday morning, I decided to install the windlass. That is a pretty tight fit. There were 4 studs on the windlass. The motor had to mount from below and the tolerances around it were tight. I threaded a lock washer and nut onto the first stud. I had to use mostly a single finger to get the nut in place and feel my way through the process. The adjacent finger slowly provided the barest minimum of rotational force. Much cursing, dropping of nuts and washers and heebie-jeebie breaks later, I had 3 studs threaded.
I started on the final stud, I dropped the nut but it only fell on the motor housing. I stuck my finger in to retrieve it and it disappeared. Huh? I reached around with my pinky finger and discovered a hole in the side of the motor housing. I stuck my finger in and only managed to push the nut further into the hole. I got a bent pointy tool to scoot it back out. Nope. Much bowelship language ensued. I had to take the motor back out. I unscrewed the 3 hard earned nuts off the studs and took everything apart. There was the nut inside the housing nestled near the shaft. I took it out and put a piece of tape over the hole to prevent a recurrence. I started again in the over 90 degree heat in the sun. I managed to fight two more nuts and lock washers on two of the studs. I then checked the fit and the motor was not sitting flush against the bottom of the mast case. I bent over held up the motor and looked into the mast case. There was a fillet in the way preventing the motor from sitting flush. I removed the motor and windlass. I took a lunch break.
In the afternoon I attacked the portion of the fillet that was in the way. I chiseled and used the multitool saw and removed that portion of the fillet that was interfering with the process. I decided to make a video of the final assembly (See: Videos). I fumbled around again in the heat and the frustration was mounting, I started two nuts. I finally gave up for the day after I dropped my final nut into the mast case. The entire day consisted or getting two nuts threaded!
Tuesday I was back at it. I finally got smart enough to hold the nut and washer together with a bit of sticky butyl rubber. I threaded the two final nuts and started tightening the nuts on the studs. I got the front and back studs pretty secure, But I could not access the port and starboard nuts with the wrench. I had to cut two side access holes anyway to get the wrench in. If I would have done this in the first place, everything would have been easier. Of course, I then had to make two cover plates, coat the bare wood surfaces with a couple coats of epoxy, paint and primer, the dreaded epoxy two-step (3-step). This of course wasn't finished for another day.
Finally, on to the wiring. I found some short lengths of 2 gauge wire and the control box. I was going to finish. I dug out the lugs for the ends of the wires. There only was one. I needed six. On to the way too expensive marine store. They had two, way too expensive. The interweb! They will be here Monday. Mission Unaccomplished! Nothing goes right.
I started on the final stud, I dropped the nut but it only fell on the motor housing. I stuck my finger in to retrieve it and it disappeared. Huh? I reached around with my pinky finger and discovered a hole in the side of the motor housing. I stuck my finger in and only managed to push the nut further into the hole. I got a bent pointy tool to scoot it back out. Nope. Much bowelship language ensued. I had to take the motor back out. I unscrewed the 3 hard earned nuts off the studs and took everything apart. There was the nut inside the housing nestled near the shaft. I took it out and put a piece of tape over the hole to prevent a recurrence. I started again in the over 90 degree heat in the sun. I managed to fight two more nuts and lock washers on two of the studs. I then checked the fit and the motor was not sitting flush against the bottom of the mast case. I bent over held up the motor and looked into the mast case. There was a fillet in the way preventing the motor from sitting flush. I removed the motor and windlass. I took a lunch break.
In the afternoon I attacked the portion of the fillet that was in the way. I chiseled and used the multitool saw and removed that portion of the fillet that was interfering with the process. I decided to make a video of the final assembly (See: Videos). I fumbled around again in the heat and the frustration was mounting, I started two nuts. I finally gave up for the day after I dropped my final nut into the mast case. The entire day consisted or getting two nuts threaded!
Tuesday I was back at it. I finally got smart enough to hold the nut and washer together with a bit of sticky butyl rubber. I threaded the two final nuts and started tightening the nuts on the studs. I got the front and back studs pretty secure, But I could not access the port and starboard nuts with the wrench. I had to cut two side access holes anyway to get the wrench in. If I would have done this in the first place, everything would have been easier. Of course, I then had to make two cover plates, coat the bare wood surfaces with a couple coats of epoxy, paint and primer, the dreaded epoxy two-step (3-step). This of course wasn't finished for another day.
Finally, on to the wiring. I found some short lengths of 2 gauge wire and the control box. I was going to finish. I dug out the lugs for the ends of the wires. There only was one. I needed six. On to the way too expensive marine store. They had two, way too expensive. The interweb! They will be here Monday. Mission Unaccomplished! Nothing goes right.
So I get this email from Budge all the way from Canoodia. He sez. "Ya know that forestay, eh? It needs to be tightened a lot, ya know, eh. Use a tool or somthin', eh". When I put the furler on I didn't work too hard at tightening it at the time as I wanted to complete the furler. I made a tool like I used to tighten the swim platform. I loosened the ropes and started tightening them inserting them in the notch and twisting them. This did not work so well as the rope tended to slip off with great force. Luckily my face was there to stop the stick. I abandoned that method after having the sense pounded into me by said stick. On to phase two. I contacted Fernando and asked to borrow his refuse compaction device, also known as the dumpster trasher- masher-smasher, also known as the big rock. He utilizes it to get the most out of the twice weekly dumpster dump, jamming every corner to the maximum. He hauled it over with a forklift and put it mostly in line with the forestay. I attached a ratchet strap: forestay to masher-smasher and ratcheted until the strap was taut. I then tightened each hull rope and clamped them to hold them, port and starboard as tight as I could. I waited a while, allowing the rope to stretch, then clicked another click on the ratchet strap and pulled each side as tight as I could and clamped them off again. Each time I managed to get another half inch (12 anemometers in metric) of rope pulled through. I waited a bit then ratcheted and pulled the ropes again. I left everything under tension and took a long lunch. When I came back I clicked the ratchet strap as tight as I could and pulled the ropes one final time as tight as I could, then frapped the lines and pulled the frappings as tight as possible and tied it off. I think it's pretty tight. My hands were really sore, as well as my stick slapped upper lip. I'm maintaining a stiff upper lip for now and pressing on.
I ordered a 600' spool of nylon rope. That's a lot! I had to cut it. I have 3 anchors, 2, 50' sections of chain and the 600' of rope. What to do, what to do? After soliciting opinions from several people (man, don't to that!), I had several options (and opinions): cut 3 200' sections, cut 2 250" sections and a 100" section, or do what I finally decided: cut 2 300" section for the main anchors and get some stuff later for the third anchor.
I keep spending time staring at stuff in the cockpit. I reorganized the epoxy stuff again for the third or fourth time. I got everything into two storage bins and got them put into the starboard aft cabin. Of course, I found more stuff to go into the containers and will have to pull them back out and put that stuff in if there's room.
I guess that the hatch was locked, but they managed.
Moon and star. OK, that's it.
The Music♪: Harbors Over Highways "Easy Way Out"
Galveston Band.
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