an infrequent repository of mostly new stuff
South hull flipped.
There are only two more strips to go on each side of each boat. Until the boats are christened appropriately, I refer to them as North and South. South has the more difficult finish, since one strip won’t fill the gap. I decided to flip it over and have a look at the inside. If the hull/keel joint looks messy I’ll bail on this tough stuff and run a router down the seam and finish off with a nice accent strip.
Bungie Chords to the rescue, again.
Wow. The last two strips on each side are incredibly difficult. If I’d known how difficult, I surely would have taken another tack.
There’s still a lot of curve in this section, in the direction the strips don’t want to bend. But the strips are short so you can’t get any leverage. Pushing them into place takes both hands, and they still spring out of the slot and pop you in the face. Plus, each strip has to be cut exactly to size, with bevels and long tapers on both ends, which means prying them into place multiple times as you shave and refine the shape. I haven’t broken a single strip until this point, and I broke four on Saturday – one for each strip that went on successfully.
Keels planed to a clean edge
Began piecing in the last sections of the hulls. Considered a couple of quicker ways to do this part – ways that allow you to fill in the strips first and trim them all at once – but each of those only give you once chance to get it right. Doing each piece individually takes more time, but if you mess up you just toss that piece aside and grab another.
Fire Demons
Small flocks of geese meander north, reluctant to leave.
New calves, sheered sheep, and fire in the fields.
Nothing but a wire fence to keep them all in.
Things that make you say “ahhhh.”
Last weekend we got 8 inches of snow, with temps in the single digits.
This weekend we got sunny, breezy, and 80 degrees.
We went from snow boots to sandals in three days.
Shaping the Keel Plank
Gluing up Ash strips for the keels worked really well. Left off the last two strips so the whole blank would fit through the planer, which evened everything out, then planed the remaining strips to the same thickness and glued them on.
Outside looking in. Where’s Spring?
Between doing taxes, borrowing a planer (Thanks G!), snow storms, birthdays, and working late at a real job, a little still gets done on the boats: more sanding and scraping, and some work on the keels.
Most people use a high quality mahogany plywood for this part, and there’s much to recommend that. It’s pretty wood, and easy to use, though you’d still have to scarf two sheets together, and laminate two 1/4” sheets, to get the full length and thickness necessary. In my case, it’s the only place where mahogany would be used, so I think it might seem a bit out of place – if possible, I’m trying to use only woods that would have been available locally.