Not much to update except that last night we got the hull primed, inside and out. Ben has identified the color and we're off to purchase a gallon of Behr Porch Paint soon, probably tomorrow.
Once that's painted, we'll add the foredeck and the afterdeck and the mast step and the rudder hardware. Sounds like a lot, but not really.
Current plan is to launch on Monday, July 7th.
First thing this afternoon was to add the bow panel. The bottom edge of this panel had been beveled during our last work session and now the whole piece was to be added to the side panels and transom.
Since we took the side panel measurements off of the old Box, I knew that these side panels were at least ¼" too tall, maybe more. Cutting the bow and transom panels to size meant that they were at least ¼" too short, so those gunwales will need to be trimmed when this is over.
A couple of long Bessey K-body clamps, a handful of short, abused Bessey LM clamps, some Titebond III and some stainless deck screws took care of getting this panel in and keeping it in.
We next tackled the bottom panel to complete the hull. What was frustrating about this was that the panel we chose a few weeks ago had warped. That's usually fine since the hull shape is effectively a warped rocker, but this time it warped backwards to what I wanted. In this case, the convex side was the "C" side of this BC plywood (with lots of cracks) while the concave side (inside the boat) was smooth. That's why we have a backup sheet of plywood. This one seemed to have two "B" sides (smooth, no cracks) so we oriented the bulge on the right side of the hull, marked it up and used the circular saw to cut it out.
Here's where it got tricky. We got out all the clamps: big ones, small ones, good ones and decrepit ones. We dry fit the hull panel, got things aligned, slathered glue on the transom, sides and bow and got going.
Well we made it. I wish I had used a glue with a longer open time since the Titebond III only has a 20 minute open assembly time. Oh, well, too late now!
We removed the clamps as we added the stainless deck screws. I'm not sure how many are there, but we used quite a few to keep the curve fair.
A block plane cleaned up the side edges and the fore and aft parts will take something a bit stronger.
Tomorrow we hope to get those overlapping parts of the hull trimmed off. Then there's some epoxy on the chine logs (where the hull and sides meet) followed by some fiberglass tape. We'll check the basement for some primer and if we can't find anything external, we'll probably end up at Home Despot looking for some Kilz Exterior. I wonder what mis-mixed porch paint they have there today?
Well, Sunday saw no activity on the Tortoise (although we did get KrazyKat out on LaDue Reservoir).
Monday saw us build another transom and add some framing to both. We also traced out the hull bottom but didn't cut it yet.
Tuesday saw some action. We gang-clamped the two side panels together and got out the belt sander which made short work of the inconsistencies between the two panels. The table saw made short work of the two bevels we needed for the fore and aft transoms. (Bolger calls both transoms.)
We set up the saw horses in the back yard and extended them with 2x4s to be wider than the three feet beam of this boat. The longest Bessey K-body clamps in the shop had to be called upon for the clamping action. Got some Titebond III and some 1¼" stainless deck screws helped coax the side panels to stay attached to the bow stern transom.
We ran out of time before bedtime had to be respected. There are now three panels attached and it is starting to look like its predecessor.
We'll next add the stern bow transom to the mix and then add the bottom. We've decided to fiberglass the joints, partly to add to the waterproofing but also to add some wear resistance (this boat sees a lot of abuse). When that's done we'll flip her over (she's turtle now) and add an afterdeck (per plans) and a foredeck (per my heart's desire), both with coamings. Oh and a mast step, possible from the original Box.
No work on Wednesday (swim meet) and none likely on Thursday (Microsoft taking us to see Up). Perhaps more on Friday. We had planned a hull test at Shadow Lake on Saturday. I doubt she'll have paint by then.
Phil Bolger (1927-2009) designed the "Tortoise", a sandbox-looking sailboat with a lot of room for passengers and a fairly-decent sailing ability.
Ben and I took the lines off an existing Tortoise this past week and transferred the hull side shapes to a piece of ¼" BC exterior plywood. Then we took a long, straight piece of pine and turned it into gunwales. Two more long, straight pieces of clear pine made chine logs and the remaining plywood became bow and stern transoms.*
So far, we've probably spent 90 minutes on the project, cutting and gluing. That doesn't take into account waiting for the glue to dry; that's what beer (root and GLBC) is for.
Next we'll need to bevel the framing on the bow and stern transoms—should be quick work with a circular saw. Then we'll need some 3'-long stringers to keep the hull square while we install the bottom. It would be nice to get some of that started today, perhaps after dinner.
Why not start now? Well, I've got scones and breakfast to make for six, then church, then sailing KrazyKat at LaDue, then cleanup and dinner. I'll be lucky if there's any energy for beveling framing at 7pm!
Oh, and the children are insisting on a bike ride. Since summer started four hours ago (1:45 am EDT), we'll have more sunlight, just perhaps not more energy.
*Update 20090622: Payson calls both the forward end of this boat a "transom" as well as the aft end. Wikipedia says only the stern is a transom. Hmmmm.
So, I have this really old house. Built in 1917, so it's really old. And I hate most things about it.
The plumbing hasn't given us too much trouble. The shower drains fairly well, especially after we use a quart of Drano in it. Monthly.
The kitchen sink drains fairly efficiently. Well, the left side leaks. Someone broke off almost all the threads on the drain before we moved in and wedged the coupling on just tight enough not to fall off but not tight enough to not leak. Oh, well, we'll replace that when we redo the kitchen someday.
The kitchen faucet leaks where it connects to the base. We'll replace that when we redo the kitchen.
The third floor toilet used to leak but then I replaced everything. Those quarter-turn shutoff valves are nice. They sure beat the turn-forever valves that seem to leak unless they're tightly open or tightly closed.
The faucet on the basement slop sink used to leak. Then I replaced the washers. Now they don't leak.
OK, so maybe I don't like the plumbing in this house, either.
The sink in the 2nd-floor bathroom used to drain quickly. Until the 1½" drain pipe fills up and some leak in the upper portion of the pipe causes water to spill over into the kitchen. Seriously.
We've tried snaking it out, using Drano and nothing seems to help except letting it slowly dry out until we fill it up again. Crazy; no way to live in a house.
So this upper picture is what I pulled out of my wall this weekend. I think there's just about every type of plumbing in this. Galvanized iron, cast iron, bronze, PVC. About the only thing missing is copper. Or maybe stainless.
The PVC on the left is a compression fitting that connects to the P-trap for the sink. The white thingy on the right is a plug of unknown purpose that stuck out into the room on the other side of the wall. The "thing" on the top wasn't totally attached—when I cut through the lower pipe, this just fell off. Hence the leak. Never mind the fact that there is nothing in the upper part of this pipe, just air. Yes, that's correct, my drain vents right into the space between the walls.
So I replaced it with $6 and change of Home Despot parts (second picture).
Oh, and I snaked out the drain; you should have seen the hairball!
It's funny to watch the kids use the sink. They've been conditioned to only use a few drops of water at a time so as not to fill up this drain and leak into the kitchen. I wonder how long it will take for them to get used to being able to run the faucet forever.
Now it drains slowly. But it doesn't drain into my kitchen. That's nice. But it drains slowly. That's not nice. I guess that leaky drain was letting air into or out of my drain system.
If it was letting air into my system, then I have a gadget (an Air Admittance Valve) for that problem. If it was letting air out of my system, well, then I guess we'll deal with a slow drain.
It will be nice to shave in the sink tomorrow. And not in a bucket.
I still have a hole in my wall, though. That's nothing compared to the hole in that room's ceiling. Yeah, the third-floor toilet caused that hole.
Sigh.
I hate my house.
When I was in Middle School, I bought a red Schwinn with my own money. A Made-in-America Schwinn 10-speed with a steel frame and toe clips and racing handle-bars.
I loved that bike. I used to wax it. I rode it everywhere. Fishing trips, around campus, to town for that museum job, that radio job and eventually that other summer job.
In High School, I traded it in for a black Schwinn 10-speed. Lighter and nicer, but not red.
It helped me run away from home once and helped me compete in the triathlon in college.
I used to put on my pink shirt, fill up my white water bottle with the blue top and get on my bike. Cinch up the red leather straps on my toe clips and get going. Fifty miles was nothing in those days. Neither was eating a pound of M&M's, a loaf of bread and starting on a six-pack of Cherry Coke.
Yeah, strange habits back then.
The last two years I rode my bike consistently I got hit by two different cars. OK, I hit them. Turning right, right in front of me so that I hit the rear, passenger-side door—what is that? Me hitting them or them hitting me?
Once I moved out of the country, I stopped riding the bike. Too many ways to get killed.
Too many stop signs.
Not enough open road.
So I gave away the bike.
Well, I still have the open road and stop sign problem. But as of today, I don't have a bike problem.
Today I purchased a brand-new, FCR-3, road-ready bike.
I got a new helmet and a tag-along, third-wheel for the youngest boy to ride. So far it's been a lot of fun.
The oldest boy and I have been putting on the miles exploring here. Quite fun.
More later!
One of the nice things about my current employer is the privilege of working from home on occasion. (Right now my work PC is crunching item 79 of a 3900-long list, so I have a few moments to take a break.) Working from home (WFH) is nice largely because of the flexibility—for example, if you "leave for work" at the normal time, you get all that commute time as work time and can spend it during other parts of the day. Same thing at the other end of the day. And getting a cup of coffee can be a lot quicker at home than at the office.
Of course, there are dozens of other reasons WFH is awesome. And of course, there are are drawbacks, too.
One of my personal frustrations is how it exposes my well-oiled house as a creaky wreck. Before starting this 3900-long list, I went downstairs for a coffee refill to find that two of the five are still in their PJs (9:30 am), breakfast had been a free-for-all (eat what you find), people were walking over and through a pile of clean laundry, one kid had thrown something at the other and was now crying on the couch, one kid was making bread, one was devising a meal-plan for this weekend's campout and the smallest was running around yelling "I not the bucket girl!"
Before you go and blame the other adult in the house, please note that all of this rests on my shoulders. When all is said and done at the end of the ages, it will be I who is asked to account for this. It is my responsibility to see that the right things are done. It's my job. And when Corporate America takes me out of my home, I am not able to accomplish my job* as effectively as I should.
So, what's the plan? Well, some things are not important, while others are. Learning to get up early, get dressed, prepare and eat breakfast and start tackling the challenges of the day—learning these things has long-term temporal significance. Having my house look like those "museum" homes with no children in them: that's not important.
Well, we're at 97% (3819 of 3900), so I'd better get back to the stuff that pays the bills. Things are running again downstairs and I think I can look forward to a clear floor and fresh bread around lunchtime. Your prayers are appreciated.
More on the important but non-temporal (i.e., eternal and spiritual) items later.
*Note: "job" in this instance is my real job, the one with eternal consequences, not this silly nine-to-five one that I have taken on to pay the bills.
Neither of my dear readers have written to complain about the dearth of writings on these pages, so perhaps explaining the silence doesn't really matter. However, in case it does, there are projects and rationale currently sapping my keystrokes. In no particular order:
Undoubtedly there are other projects and rationale, but these will suffice for the moment.
Oh, and this domain got moved to another server this month to take advantage of the smoking deal my service provider made me on multiple domain hostings.
Just when I was narrowing in on eating all of East 4th Street, I hear that another challenge has arisen: the Erie Island Coffee Company is finally opening in mid-February!
I was asked recently to explain how we converted all my wife's AppleWorks files to formats used by OpenOffice. We used DataViz Conversions Plus, a Windows-based tool, and it worked extremely well.
We don't have any Windows machines in the house so we used another useful tool to run the Conversions Plus software, CodeWeaver's CrossOver Mac.
First we installed the CrossOver Mac tool, then used it to install Conversions Plus. (If you have a Windows PC, skip the CrossOver Mac step and install the Conversions Plus on your Windows PC.) I assume you have knowledge for how to make your AppleWorks files accessible to the Conversions Plus software. (You can create a shared folder, burn them to a CD or any other mechanism for file transport.) Quickly read the Conversions Plus documentation (you'll be performing a batch conversion) and start converting your files!
You may want to consider what you're going to do with the originals and the converted files. Will you keep the originals? Archive them? How will you merge the converted files into your document hierarchy? Things like that.
For more information, you can find the software referenced in this article here:
The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily represent my employer's positions, strategies or opinions.
