Second Coat

Boy, I needed a second coat in my shop today. It was 9º outside. Makes one very thankful that my school shop and ISM's shop have heat. I put a second coat of paint on URCHIN after letting her warm up a bit. Earlier this week past I finished scraping her transom down to the original mahogany. It looks a lot better.

Yesterday, I put a second coat of epoxy and glass inside the new fridge on SILENT MAID. It started snowing like crazy. Took me about an hour to get home.

Reefer

Filleted and glassed the top half of the refrigerator on SILENT MAID today. Doc got an inline sander up and running. It worked really well. It was Max's (GFS intern) last day in the shop. Monday Calvin will start.

Carpenters at Work

TORCH is continuing to get her box beams. SILENT MAID is coming along. Her fridge is all insulated. Her nav station is solidly framed out. FISH STIX got a toerail, and coaming.

Tuck Up Pleasure Rig

Here is ARTEMIS sprit rig with improvement potentials.


How the sail sets now. Note baggy leech. Sprit angle is too high, more like a gaff. A sprit rig is preferred over gaff because of ease of set up and strike down, fits in boat, and easy to ditch. Boom folds up against mast.

What the rig would look like with a longer sprit set lower to the deck.

Where the chock for the snotter should be.

Where forward end of sprit should be.
Thanks to John Brady, Independence Seaport Museum.

URCHINs Pink Bottom

Finished scraping bottom paint off URCHIN, sanded her topsides, and transom. She got a coat of Hatteras off-white on her topsides. Looking better than ever.

Monday Mast Workshop

URCHIN has a pink bottom mostly. Under all the bottom paint, I found she is coated with glass. It extends only to the garboard plank. I got half sanded this morning. There is one place near the bow where there is a lot of green staining . It extends from where the beach shoe was screwed and nailed on. Each place where a fastener pierced the glass coat water got in. I imagine that 20 years ago that shoe was epoxied on and sealed, but oak doesn't stick to resin well and swelled/ shrunk, etc. and came loose.

Spent the pm. working on mast math. Hollow spruce masts have 20% wall thickness. The octagon gives you the strake side width. I think these two numbers are a function of diameter. There's an algebra problem for you. Ths would make a great science fair project.




SILENT MAID got fridge work and the GPS mounted in the bulkhead. The back has nice heat transfer fins to warm the head. Add a magazine rack and we'd be in trouble.
TORCHs box beam sections went in.







This evening was the TSCA work night. Paul & Pete milled down spruce for spars and one oak flitch for the starboard coaming for FISH STIX. Mike and Ron worked on fore & aft toerails, bungs and some sanding. Peter(2) helped me sand, Paul(2) fit the port coaming and got it partially screwed on. Carl finished fitting the outer stem and rounded over the gunwale. We didn't get to paint or fit the rubrails. The starboard coaming needs to be cut out and the flitch is under the boat.

It was raining crazy hard today. The sun peeked out for a min and then more hard rain. It had stopped by 10pm.

Sharpie Rudder

Completed URCHINs interior planking scraping. Flipped her with Pete's help. She sits on her trailer nicely with 2 x 4 crossbars. Will sand topsides and paint. Her stem and transom need scraping. Discovered her bottom is pine laid longways. That was a bit of a surprise. I thought she might be of the vintage where they started using plywood for the bottoms at Lowell. Have to fair her bow skid plate and and add a bit to her skeg. I'd like to put a piece of brass oval there too. (I put some 'round her rudder blade last year.) She sails off a cobble beach most days and her oak skeg is showing wear.


Laminated the oak shoe for the sharpie's rudder. Will fair it in with core tomorrow and laminate with carbon fiber cloth. You can see the difference in the new design profile, you can't see that the plywood core is faired to a hydrodynamic foil. The older version is oak planks drifted together.

URCHIN and shop

URCHIN is almost complete inside. Another day or so and I can flip her over to paint the topsides and bottom.

Shop notes: MAIDs fridge is coming along and designs are drawn up for head improvements, a nav station, and the best galley ever. TORCHs new cabinets are trimmed out. Made a template for FISH STIX coaming. Had to make adjustments for the thwarts.

Deck

Deck laid.

TSCA Redeemed

WOW had a busy night. Ed worked on the false stem. Tahiti John, Tom, Mike B, and Paul G. worked on the side planking. MikeW. and Pete worked on bunging knots, Carl made a shim for deckbeam 13.
Paul and I worked on the center planks forward.

We stopped for an hour or so to do the math for the spars.
I got 19/32, 14/32, and 9/32 for the taper for the FISH STIXs mast between the truck and partners. More fuzzy pictures at facebook


Put fondant on both hives. Colonies still going so far. Tom brought me some pollen substitute.

Composite Rudder

The Sharpie Rudder has a core cut from fir plywood. It was shaped to a foil profile , first with a plane, and then with a long board (36 grit). Surface imperfections were filled with epoxy with phenolic microballoons.
Next, each side will get a lamination of carbon fiber & Kevlar, and the leading edge will be banded with glass fiber.

Painted the front room today and made fondant (sugar cake) for the hungry bees. Fondant is just sugar and water, cooked to 238ºF, poured out on stone to cool quick and then scraped and kneaded like taffy. Then chunks are rolled out between wax paper so it can be placed on top of the inner cover. The SJBA Beekeepers association has two other boat building/sailing friends in it. The winter meeting was about making home beeswax and honey cosmetics.

Spruce Stax

The sitka spruce for spars came in and was stacked and restacked under SILENT MAID. MISLEADING LADY was restacked overhead to make room for the boatbuilding class this weekend and the shop shined up.

Spar Design

and other stuff. Check back, I am off to a beekeeper mtg. and was too tired to post last night. The fireside is just too inviting.