Hotter 'n

It's so hot the dairy cows are only giving evaporated milk! ;-)

It's so hot I saw a funeral procession in the Dairy Queen drive through! ;-)

It's so hot I saw two fire hydrants fighting over a dog! ;-)

It's so hot my ice cream cone melted before anybody had a chance to mug me for it! ;-)

So I'm guessin' you're seein' a theme here eh? Yeah it's been hot. Well over 100 on the Queensway coming home on Thursday. Friday wasn't as bad but still warm. We haven't made much progress because of the heat but one job I wanted to get done was splice the main cabin roof panels together. We accomplished that Wednesday when it was only 95 degs in the shed.

I first had to goop the seams to fill some fairly large cracks. This meant mixing up some pecan flour and epoxy. Had to work extremely quickly to get it done before it kicked off in the cup. Just managed to get it on. Next was taping the joint and we (Lori - Professional Epoxy Mixologist) did it in about 5 mins. What a rush but it worked.

On a brighter note Ray and Carlos were here last night looking over the old boat to buy it. I hope they show up today with some cash in hand. That'll help expedite this lil' building project. Standby.....

All that drama and

worry for nuttin'! Pulled the clamps and ratchet straps off the transom tonight and walla! It only sprung back about 3/4" on each side.

I guess that's good 'nuff for the girls I go with! ;-)

Lori, Robert (my good neighbor) and I move the roof panels in and laid them on the long table. The next task is to join the two halves and glass the underside. Then it'll have to be put back outside. All 16' 4" x 8' of it! *shudder*

The whole time we were well supervised by the Project Manager (aka Lazy Lard Butt Ring Tail Tabby Cat!).

Hotter 'n hell so I'm on my last drop of Cap'n Morgan's Private Stock Daniel got me for Father's day. *sob* It normally takes me a couple years to kill a bottle but this is smooooooooooooth stuff! ;-)

It was so hot today my blood test this morning showed high concentrations of Cap'n Morgan's and Coke on ice instead of blood sugar! ;-)

That's it for now.

Starting to get really

philosophical now!

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." - Archimedes, Greek Mathematician, 287 - 212 BC

"Give me enough clamps and ratchet straps which to place on it, and I shall stop the world from moving." - Rick Laporte, Amateur Boat Builder, 1960 -

One of the more interesting challenges to this project is laminating two sheets of 1/2" marine plywood together to form the curved transom. That's the reason for the funky transom mold I showed you earlier.

I tried a few different approaches to getting one sheet to conform to the mold. There's a tremendous amount of energy stored up in a sheet of plywood when you try to torture it into a shape it doesn't want to go into! I found that out when I tried to release the ratchet straps after the first trial! Yikes!

Anyhow, I quickly realized (in my dream last night, yeah exciting I know) that I need more grip to wrangle this part into shape. Adding some cleats in the right places are the ticket.

This gave me the advantage I was looking for. Places to put plenty of clamps.

As you can see the plywood now follows the mold pretty well. A few minor adjustments and it'll be perfect.

That's it for now. Off to clean up the old boat. Got a prospective buyer coming to look at it today. ;-)

Update: Bugger never showed up. Figures. Plenty of fender kickers but everybody wants a nice shiny Sea Ray to impress their friends at the Yacht Club. Yeah, right, like you're gonna do that for 8500 bucks.

Anyhow. After much consternation (not constipation) I weighed my options and selected the brute force method to whip the transom panels into shape.

We'll see how we did tomorrow when I pop the clamps and straps off of it.

Do you ever find

yourself sitting in your workshop or boat or whatever just admiring your handiwork? I do that occasionally. I think it's just a guy thing. A couple hundred thousand years of evolution has programmed us to get an extreme sense of satisfaction from building things with our own two hands. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

"He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist." - St. Francis of Assis (1181-1226)

Anyhow, 'nuff of that naval gazin' stuff. This morning I got back to assembling the forms that'll go on the strongback. Three more done this morning, A, B & C. Only D and the duplicate F to do and they're done then I can seriously start thinking about setting up the strongback. I do have to decide if we're going to glass the cabin roof while the long table is set up. The only other thing that's standing in my way after that decision is made is to laminate the two transom panels.

Frame A gluing up.

Same goes for frame D.

Picked up one of two rolls of fiberglass (1708 38" at bargain price) that'll be used to cover the bottom and side panels. I'm still looking for some double bias 10 oz. 0/90 in 50" width.

That's 'bout it for now. It's hotter 'n hell outside so I think a boat ride is in order. Have a good weekend.

Just a brief update

More strongback forms being assembled. E & F on the table gluing up and G & H standing up behind all ready to go.

Still a lot to do yet.