Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Slow Progress Is Still Progress

A week since I worked on the boat? It's not ideal but somehow the days fill up, from strong coffee to dozing on the couch before trundling up to bed.

But today I came home from work, changed into boatbuilding clothes, and spend an hour or so wrestling seemingly spring-loaded strips of fir and noisy clamps that were intent on leaping off the boat and hitting me in the face.

But I DID succeed in clamping, measuring, checking and double-checking, and finally cutting the complex angles at both the bow and stern ends of the first sheer stringer. This wasn't the old fat-grained practice piece. Nope, it was the real thing, though what 16 rings per inch doug fir was doing at the local lumber yard is beyond me. In any case I snatched it up and now it's MINE ALL MINE!

Pictures:

Not all frames have a close fit to the stringer. That's what fillers and epoxy are for.


Others are nice and flush.

Completed stringer clamped in place (starboard side; do not be fooled by the decoy pieces all around. Some are scrap; most are bracing the starboard frames):

I call this one: "Help, I Am About To Be Run Over By A Skeleton Boat":

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I see a potential problem in the last picture. It appears there are some holes in your boat--it may not float. Just my 2 cents.

S R Wood said...

Sir. Those are ventilation holes in the frames, without which the boat would develop an unfavorable mildew smell. Not to mention blown-out bulkheads on hot days.