The Boater fambly informed us that they spotted a coyote in the area. We have not seen it. We haven't seen any signs of coyote activity. The roadrunner is still in the yard and we haven't seen any empty Acme boxes around. Come to think of it the yard rabbit hasn't been around lately. We'll keep an eye out...... nice doggy, nice doggy. Weather hotish and rainyish. OK progress pictures before I dither my way into your transformation into the walking dread.
We worked on the beam fitment. Fussing with the side cheeks. Note fat side thin side so the beam sits snugly and doesn't slide around. We did our best to alleviate the sliding of the beams into the troughs.
Like sanding some side cheeks when the top is narrower than the bottom. The reverse would work, but the beam cannot slide into the slot if it wedges at the top.
This helps but we still have to have the ptfe sides on the beam loose so they will pivot into place.
I affixed the ptfe pieces to the beams. No, you don't just screw them on. You position them to align with the side cheeks in the beam troughs, Then you screw them in. Then you unscrew them.
Then you take a teeny bristle dental cleaning brush and you work epoxy into the holes. Let it cure a bit.
Then spray the screws wit WD-40 so (maybe) they won't stick and be permanently glued into place. Why do they call it WD 40? Because the previous 39 water displacement formulas didn't work. Why should I gripe about our failures when confronted with that?
Oops.....had to move a couple over. The screws broke off and we had to fill them. But we maintain our chipper attitude. Ok, Ok, chipper means we only cursed for a minute or so.
I hope you're not lost here. Me? I'm wandering through the wilderness trying to find a direction, some tablets, and mana. Ok, we coated all the side cheeks with epoxy and waited a bit. Then we coated the tacky epoxy with primer. The wood protects the beam trough sides. The epoxy protects the wood. The primer protects the epoxy. The paint protects the primer. The ptfe protects the paint. God protects idiots and fools. Another sip of God's nectar. I am protected!
Now ya gots primer coated beam pads. We just got the primer painted on and it rained. So what next?
Sand off the primer and glue on 1/4" shore 70 rubber to seat the beams. The rubber protects the paint. We had a colony of ands set up shop under the pads of beam 3 port hull. A blast of air evicted the squatters.
Now, rubber pads glued in place, it was time to grab cojones and drill holes. Each beam is pinned in the center of each beam trough so it mostly stays in place. We drilled the pilot holes. Budge inside the hulls drilled.
Me 'n Ben outside in the beam troughs keeping the drill bit level across the trough.
Then we slid the beams into the troughs. Not an easy task. Blame it on my tight tolerances.
a lot of wiggling, side sliding and loss of one piece of ptfe produced a fit of beams into troughs.
We'll have to screw this one back on if the screw hole hasn't ovaled too much.
I marked the beam where the hole lines up with the trough. We're gonna hafta move all the holes up. We have become accustomed to the intricacy of the process. Then we cut each beam to length,
We immediately coated the ends with low viscosity epoxy thinned with alcohol. We cut one bean 1/2" too short. Who cares???? Ben cares! That's who.
Sometimes you draw the line in the sand........................and glue on a piece of plywood to make it right.
If you leave a rag on the ground and it rains and the humidity is just right, life prevails. Plants grow anywhere.
And if you leave some idiots around a pile of plywood and doug fir, boats prevail. It's the natural order: life finds a way.
We bought some springy thingies.
This was a difficult blog post to write. It involved too much detail and we seemingly did nothing. To sum it up. We made sure the beams fit in the troughs and we cut them to length, If you two blog followers persevered, that's what we did. It's midnight. I have to stop. my brain locked up! I do not expect anyone to comprehend this amalgam of disjointed thoughts......I sure don't!
The Music ♫: Ray Wylie Hubbard "Screw You, We're From Texas"
Do all Texas songwriters have three names?
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