catsittingstill

Yesterday I went to a training session for membership recruitment for the League of Women Voters. It was interesting and there were some really good parts but it was also a long, tiring day.

Today I lazed around until nearly 10:00 am, then started working on the canoe. I fitted both inwales, a fairly complicated process that ended up taking basically all day. I managed to do a lot of it with the douzouki saw but it always seemed to come down to chisel and sandpaper work for the ends, and planing for the last couple of spacers before the ends.

I also discovered that the decks that fit perfectly before there was fiberglass and inwales on the inside don't fit anymore (duh.) I also figured out that my seat will probably be six inches farther back than I thought--so the spacer I was planning to use for the main thwart is not in the right place. Fortunately for me the spacer behind it appears to be in a good fallback position, so I think it will be okay. Except my original spacer was extra long to give me more latitude for placing the thwart (since it will be my main back support) and now I will have to make do with an ordinary spacer.

I cannot refit the decks until the inwales are epoxied in. Before I epoxy in the inwales, I need to sand the spots the inwale will be glued to, to make the surface rough so the epoxy will stick properly. While I'm doing that I should sand those parts of the inside of the boat that will be hard to get to when the inwales are in, meaning about half the surface area of the boat.. I see a lot of sanding in my future. I also need to mask off most of the inside of the boat so I don't drip dookie schmutz all over everything when I'm gluing in the inwales. I don't have enough clamps to do both inwales at once so I will have to do them one at a time..

Hopefully I will get through all the sanding and stuff to glue one inwale in tomorrow, but we'll see.