Top Secret no more!

Lori's away working in San Antonio for six weeks so decided to overhaul her sewing room as a surprise. I had watched her work her magic on this double size double sided quilt. She struggled with working space in her cluttered sewing room and that's when I decided to put boat building on hold for awhile and do something about it.

Double sided she figures she had over 80 hrs into it. So thinking what can I do to help her out. Here's her workspace before.

I think it was Einstein said; "Only the greatest minds have the messiest desks!" :-)  Well cramped workspace seems a slight under exaggeration! I have no idea how she managed to turn out a double size two sided quilt in this space.

When we bought the boat kit it came with 18 extra sheets of 1/2 Meranti marine plywood. I sacrificed one piece for a table top. ( 8' x 3' ) Red mahogany stain and 4 coats of polyurathane.

The plan was to just build her a good & solid work bench with plenty of space to spread out. All the edges were radius'd over smooth so she can lap fabric over the edge without it catching. The frame is standard 2 X 3 construction grade lumber. I radius'd the edges with the router and sanded them smooth as well.

The color came from 'found paint' from some previous unknown project! It was one of the few cans in the basement that hadn't turned into a solid lump! :-)  It took me the better part of an hour to clear out the space (see before picture above). I probably picked up over 200 pins & needles from the carpet as I went!

Assembling the base only took a few minutes. The frame is just a tad under 7' long by 32" wide.

I brought the table top up the stairs easy enough but had a heck of a time getting it into this small room. Had to back it up into the bathroom and bend it a bit to get it through the door. Had a little run in with the ceiling fan and marked up the top. Blew one blade off the ceiling fan! *lol* Fixed that and can fix the table top easy 'nuff later.

The next task was to make some shelves to go on the wall behind the work table. Again I used some leftover marine plywood, radius'd the corners and painted them with a different color 'found paint' from the basement. This time a yellowish buff color!

I painted the shelf brackets the same color as the table base for a little visual variety. This isn't 'fine furniture' so it's all a bit rustic but it's functional.

When everything was installed it looked pretty good. I was trying to keep this a secret till she gets home from San Antonio but I just couldn't. I'm horrible at keeping secrets so I let the cat out of the bag and showed her what I did. I was a little afraid she'd be pee oh'd at me for messing with 'her inventory system' but she's Ok with it. I'm sure it'll help increase productivity!  :-)

I have to cut a slot in the table top for all her power cords & foot pedals and install a power bar where it's easy to reach without having to climb under the table. I do plan to put plywood shelves under the table to keep stuff off the floor. The next task is to work on the other side of the room. I plan to build floor to ceiling shelves in the same style as the shelves above the sewing table.

Everything I used I had except the poly, stain and 2 x 3's. Total cost was about $50 and 3 days of puttering around. 

I know it wasn't a huge project but I enjoyed it all the same. Thanks for looking in and standby....

What's Bluer than Blue?

Super Blue!

Ok, these pics aren't blue because I used my iPhone. They're blue because I tinted the epoxy blue!

Why would I do that you may ask? Well I was working on a recipe for a light filler to pre-coat the hull before I lay on the next layer of fiberglass. The underlying glass, 12 oz biax, leaves a pretty deep void in the weave. I believe this is what caused the bubbles on the transom. I don't want any bubbles on the sides so I decided to try to fill the weave first. I mixed up two batches w/o tint and couldn't really see if it was working. The light in the shed is really low contrast. So the next batch I tinted it blue and could see that my third recipe works well.

This will get a light sanding prior to applying the next layer of 10 oz satin weave fiberglass. Likely sometime next week. Temps are on the rise again and I only have medium hardener so not taking any chances. Till then there'll be some sanding and fairing going on. Standby.....

I apologize....

for the blue tinted pictures. I forgot to take my GoPro out to the shed today so relied on the iPhone for pics. Anywho, it was a short morning in the shed so all I got done was the first layer of fabric laid out on the keel and trimmed.

This is the 12 oz biax 0/90, second last layer on the keel. Another layer of 10 oz satin weave will go over top of that. I hope to do both layers at the same time. We'll see how it goes.

I'm just keeping my eye on the weather for slightly cooler temps. The medium hardener I have works pretty quick and I'm just a little uncomfortable using it when I have to climb up and down from the top of the boat to mix it up. If I can find an extra set of hands I'd do it no problemo. Tomorrow I'll lay out the last layer and get it trimmed up. Standby...

I hope I never have to do that again

Pretty much four complete days of sanding to do the sides, transom and bottom panels! Almost 300 sq ft of fiberglass. I hope for my sake I never have to do that again! But.......... you know? it's likely I will but not hard sanding like this was. Once the last layer of fiberglass is on and the fairing done a light sanding will be required prior to primer.

Port side (aka The Bowling Lane) sanded ready for fairing. Starboard side (aka The Landing Strip) is done as well. Finished that up just a few minutes ago. All in all it was a hard slog with pretty much every sander I have except the 4" grinder with the 36 grit flapper thingy! That thing scares me! ;-)

Tomorrow might be a few adjustments with the sander before I wipe it down and lay out the fabric for the keel. I think I'm going to try to do both layers at the same time. We'll see how that goes. Shower time...  Standby.....

There's a lot I don't know

There's a lot I don't know about building this boat and the Internet is a wealth of information. There's also quite a few fella's out there that kindly contribute their time and expertise to help us ijjits get past the lil' learning hurdles that we have to jump in order to 'not make too big a mess' of our projects. To them I tip my hat and send huge thanks!

Anywho that being said today's task was to clean up the transom and lay on the last layer of fiberglass. I decided to do the transom in case I mess it up. I'll be putting on a layer of 10 oz satin weave fiberglass. I've never worked with this fabric before and if I totally mess it up it'll be in a less conspicuous place (I hope).

939 grams (33oz) of 10 oz fiberglass (so just a tad over 3 sq yds) weighted out prior to putting it on the transom. This will give me an idea of how much epoxy I'll need. Update: I used just a tad over a litre of epoxy (1000 grams).

The rest of the morning's activities were recorded as another epic home movie! Enjoy!

I'm not totally enthused with the results. As much as I rolled and squeegeed I still ended up with a few small bubbles likely caused by the deep weave of the fabric.

I'm hoping this won't be too much of an issue. I'm glad I started on the transom and learned a bit about this fabric and how it reacts before I start on the sides. I'm thinking two coats of epoxy with some cabosil before I lay on the fabric might fill the weave and help eliminate some of these bubbles.

Today's tune from the Boat Shed is Mötley Crüe - Same Old Situation (which kind of applies to my current situation!)

Standby....