Continuing Progress

Travis:

It's hard to get going again after all of snow and ice and cold weather, but it has finally warmed up a bit so it's time to get back to work. I have a pretty long list of things I am hoping to accomplish on our two beautiful boats this winter, but so far very little of it has actually gotten done. Let's face it, winter sucks. This one has been extra cold and has come with a few other unique situations that have been major blocks to progress. But, you can only do what you can do. So now we have to deal with the scientific matter of inertia. This is the universal law that states that an object (or person) at rest tends to stay at rest. We haven't been completely useless, but we have by no means, been up to our usual git-r-dunn pace. So now we are slowly but surely easing back to the old routine.

We decided to start small, and tackle the stern rain on Lucy Maru. I milled the Mahogany about a week ago in anticipation of the favorable weather to come, and stacked the boards neatly under cover by the helm. It may sound like after milling the wood sticking them into place would be easy, but of course, this is a boat, and almost nothing is easy on a boat. the situation is that there are two one inch stainless posts holding up the roof on each side that need to go through the wood railing. The challenge was to bore the holes in exactly the right places, then cut the boards apart at the holes so the wood could be fit around the posts and glued back together to look as if it was never cut apart. I do love a challenge, and this gave me a good chance to use the Lee Valley rip cut back saw I got myself for my birthday last year. It was a very expensive hand saw but it paid for itself on this job.The cuts were super clean and after a bit of reaming on the holes, they fit together without any trouble.

Maggie lined up the joints and epoxied them together while I did the joinery for the other side. It was really nice to be working on the boat together again. We are a great team.

After all was said and done, it looked as if the rail had always been there. Not bad for a couple of hippies in the dead of winter. Just a little sanding and varnish work and that will be that. Well, maybe we'll save that for next week-end. Don't want to over do it.