Monday, April 13, 2015

Yawn! Is it time to wake up yet?

I feel like Rip Van Winkle. What a lousy spring this has been. I was hoping to get a jump on the boat earlier than last year (April 21st.) but Mother Nature has conspired against me.

The boat shed floor is a quagmire. I've never seen so much water in the ground.

Everywhere I step I sink in at least 2 inches! It'll take awhile for this to dry out.

The boat seems to have survived the long winter without any problems.
Just the way Peter and I left it last fall.

The shed didn't fair as well. As you can see in the pic below some of the blue plastic has ripped. This led to a few small leaks from the melting snow but nothing too concerning. I'll get my buddy Andrew down to fix this up for me soon.
One of the screwy ideas I had for a better filleting tool was to use a billiard ball instead of a shaped scraper. Just happened to pick up a cue ball at Wally World in the states for $3 so I thought I'd give it a shot.
After drilling a 5/8" hole in the ball I stuck in a dowel for a handle. I'll epoxy it in place once it warms up a bit and I get the epoxy supplies out of the basement.
I don't know what the cue ball is made of but likely something like melamine. I intend to wax it with some carnuba wax prior to use. This should keep the epoxy glue from sticking too bad. I'm hoping this will make some nice consistent fillets on the major joins in the hull, bow, transom, side to bottom joints etc.

And, Ladies & Gentlemen here is this years contender for 'Messiest Work Bench' of the year award!
Supposed to warm up this afternoon so it'll be back to the boat shed for some clean up and hopefully some dry up!

Standby...

PS. Welcome back!