Well, I made the deck beams using the wrong lumber. I was supposed to use 5/4 and instead used 4/4. This would have better utilized the lumber and lowered effort by one glue joint (1/3rd). Stupid is as stupid does and I is. What is it, December? I said that we'd be done by a Christmas. I guess it isn't this one. I moved autonomically and glued up the beams. I could manage four joints in a morning, four joints in an afternoon. It was just mix epoxy, coat, mix glue for one joint, glue, repeat. There were 28 joints. You figure it out.
In the past, the young warrior would go on a vision quest, embarking on an arduous journey to discover his inner being and his purpose in life. It involved hardship, depravation and stripping the mind of convention in order to find a direction. For Ben, boat building has become his vision quest. Fed up with all the things his life had become, he threw his lot in with mine. The tasks are arduous. The journey is convoluted. The hazards are daunting. He has seen the possibility of failure. His journey involved emotional depths previously unplumbed: rage, disappointment, accomplishment, happiness. He should glean the inner peace of proving to yourself that you can do something. He will realize that there is a difference between talking and doing. When his friends ask "what have you been doing". he will simply answer "Building a boat.....and how was your day?" He will not seek their approval or acclaim. He should realize that this is a solo journey and not to be discussed. If one should look into his medicine bag, he would see only meaningless (to them) bits of dried epoxy, slivers of wood, paint chips, a bent nail, dried sweat and blood. Powerful medicine.......................
Well, I made the deck beams using the wrong lumber. I was supposed to use 5/4 and instead used 4/4. This would have better utilized the lumber and lowered effort by one glue joint (1/3rd). Stupid is as stupid does and I is. What is it, December? I said that we'd be done by a Christmas. I guess it isn't this one. I moved autonomically and glued up the beams. I could manage four joints in a morning, four joints in an afternoon. It was just mix epoxy, coat, mix glue for one joint, glue, repeat. There were 28 joints. You figure it out.
This took up the brunt of my week. By the end, I had the requisite 14 beams glued up. These are the beams that run athwartship and support the deck slats, which run fore to aft.
Ben worked the side decks between the pod and the hulls. Of course, he had to tweak a block so things would fit.
So it all gets complicated by the time of the year. Hard frosts that don't burn off until late morning. Complicated also by increasingly shortening daylight hours.
So ya just can't slap some Doug fir onto the deck beams. You have to soften the edges and calculate the space you have with the width of the boards and the gap between the boards and account for the curvature of the hull.
necessitating fussing around with dowels because the wedge-shaped pieces do not necessisarily rest on two deck beams.
We kicked around the discussion of finish or not finish the doug fir decking. We finally decided to give a shot to a penetrating oil finish using Penofin, which contains oils from Brazilian rosewood tree nuts (and pixie dust). We will give it a shot. The general rule for a linseed oil finish is apply once a day for a week, once a week for a month, once a month for a year, and once a year for the rest of your life. This is a simple enough process: wipe on, let soak a bit, wipe off (wax on, wax off). We'll see what happens.
Meanwhilst, I ended my week back on the deck beams. I cut them to a usable size and started sanding, softening the edges. I find that the greatest fault with doug. fir is it's propensity to split along the grain. It causes great splinters. I sanded the surfaces and softened the knife-edged corners to minimize them.
Ben is spoiling the rescue cactus with gemstones and treasure from the wreck dive. As soon as we decided that we would take a break for the cold weather/holidays, things became more difficult. Everything pisses us off easier. We still have to wrestle with a few things: motor boxes that won't line up, thus pissing us off, shorter work days pissing us off, deck beams pissing us off, breathing in pissing us off, breathing out pissing us off..... And to top it all off, Budge calculating the electrical system which is digging deeply into our reserve cash and pissing us off. Inverter: $650????????? Special marine tinned wire??????? Maybe we do need a break.
Some days ya just wanna..........................
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December 2022
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