With the passage of time, I feel blessed on the ability to reflect upon it. Musicians greater than I that I admired and respected have died young or younger than I of overdoses ( the correct and proper way for musicians to die), or prostrate cancer (awwwwww, Frank). Now, Bob receives the Nobel Prize for literature. He deserves it. Chuck Berry releases his first album in 38 years announced on his 90th birthday. Me? Here I sit, lauded by no one, with a half finished boat and no prize! That pretty much sums it up. I feel grateful that my adoring (ignoring, rather) public (two guys) continue to glimpse into my affairs and glean meaning in their lives................."Hey, look at these idiots: I'm sure glad I'm not them!"
I know why nobody reads my blog. Nobody reads at all! It's too hard. Everyone wants vicarious videos- no work involved. Ben spent the week trying to get his computer to work after Budge gave him a video in a different format and he lunched his laptop trying to find a program to convert it. His computer is currently stuck in a perpetual boot loop thanks to loup-garou software. He is at wit's end, a regular boot scoot, fruit loop, loup-garou trouble shoot, and is ready to seek professional help for him and the machine. He had a video close to being ready.
To begin the week, I fell off the short stepladder. I placed the 3 step ladder too close to the beam and went up with epoxy in one hand and a brush in the other. I leaned back and started to lose my balance. It's a short duration of time to decide what to do. Try to put the epoxy down? Drop everything and stabilize yourself? Aw, too late, just fall. It was just two steps on the ladder. I'm OK. All of us have fallen at one point or another. It is dangerous stuff, this catamaran construction. Be careful out there.
I have four of these things that go there↓.
The holes in the beam I started last week. The small pieces fit in these holes and soften the edge so we can run polyester straps under the pod as support redundancy. Enough of this, now on to the really boring stuff.
We glued rubber pads to cushion the beam-to-pod interface. Remember the 2 foot wedges we made last week? You don't???/ Aww, anyway, we glued them into the forward side of the pod supports. Then we glued the rubber fore and aft. We used contact cement. With contact cement, ya got one shot. Coat each surface (beam top, pod bottom) with cement, let dry. Put blocks between the two surfaces because you have one shot at this. Once they touch, it's permanent. Remove blocks one at a time and align. They stick immediately and re-positioning is out of the question.
The Monarch butterflies are passing through. This one had a torn wing and wasn't going to make it. I considered driving it to Mexico, but I doubt if it would chip in for the gas. Another thing humanity is screwing up. We better get to the water while there's still time!
The side decks, between the pod and the hulls required a glue-up of materials, both for short beams and blocks( (chocks.......whatever).
These blocks support the short beams for the pod side decks. Without being too technical, the notch (what notch? see below) should have been at an angle.
That notch!
No, never mind. Too difficult to cut in the white oak at a correct angle. We'll cut them square and fill it in with flowed epoxy.
Me cutting the notches, Ben cleaning and softening the edges of the chock-a-blocks.
Position the blocks. Measure the distance using a ruler that even I do not know the name of.
It's designed to measure interior dimensions. I bought it a few years ago and finally have a chance to use it. Man. nothing beats the right tool!
So we measured where each hull side block goes and marked a screw position.
Drilled two holes to secure the blocks for gluing.
Dry fit the blocks. Mark the holes on the blocks for the screws to hold them in place while gluing. Screw in place and adjust if necessary.
Take the blocks off and scrape an area free from paint to glue the blocks.............. Done run out of time........continued next week....................................
The Music♪: First Aid Kit "America"
If you cover a song, make it your own! Mission accomplished. If you care, check them out. I have always been fond of First Aid Kit.
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