Canoe Update
Apr. 1st, 2011 07:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillWell, I spent about 9 hours on it yesterday and got four strips on the boat. Part of that was I had a couple of areas where I had to secure the strips with clamps, and couldn't take the clamps off until the glue dried, thus couldn't add another strip for an hour or so. However I did use some of that time productively, removing some of the blobs of hot glue from the outside of the strips nearer the gunwales, whose carpenters glue has long since dried. That was an hour I *won't* need to spend on that work once I've put in the last strip.
The strips are still bending, but they don't twist nearly as much, which is making the work with the hot gun quicker. Eight more strips, by my calculations, before I can cut the centerline. I hope these will go a bit faster. I *think* I am still on schedule but I am concerned about how long planking the second side of the football will take, because there the strips will need to be trimmed, one by one, to the correct length and angle to match the centerline, which will probably be a slow process.
Plus I discovered that the seal-marked strips are unusable. They have interesting brown flecks throughout--but those brown flecks turn out to be pitch pockets, and if the pitch softens and melts under the fiberglass and epoxy, it may seep out of the pitch pocket and weaken the bond between the epoxy and the wood. This means I can't use the strips without risking delamination of the hull--which is normally repaired by sanding through the fiberglass into the bare wood and putting on a patch, but in the case of the seal-marked strips, this would only postpone the problem until the next time the boat got hot.
This means I have about 60% of the strips I thought I had. I had not gotten around to putting any seal-marked strips in the hull before I started using the heat gun and noticed that brown flecks in other strips often melted, so I don't have to bite my nails over whether to remove them or try to bake the pitch out with the heat gun or what, (there are way too many flecks to handle the way I did it in my last boat--cutting them out with an exacto knife and filling the holes with a mix of epoxy and sawdust). I think I still have enough--if absolutely necessary I could pull out my cedar strips, though I'd rather save those... But I'm down to using leftover strips from the last boat and strips with imperfections I would have left out if possible.
One thing I am being very careful about is setting strips aside to do the other half of the football as I plank this side. If I end up using cedar strips, I would like to include them at the same place on both sides.
I'm trying to keep up on the album front but with the amount of time I'm spending on the boat, it's kind of hard. One trick I have been trying is listening to recording the computer playing new songs and arrangements I want to try to see if I can learn them as I work. Also Peter sent me a melody that he thought needed lyrics about adventure and sailing ships. It turned out to have lyrics about boatbuilding--I'm sure that was a big surprise :-) We are still working on it but once Peter gives me the okay I will post it here.
I haven't quit practicing or anything but it has been kind of lick-and-a-promise practices.
Also I sure wish I had known about this Songwriter-In-Residence program while they were still taking applications. I will check back next September and see if they are going to do it again next year, I guess.
Got to run. Boat is calling me.
The strips are still bending, but they don't twist nearly as much, which is making the work with the hot gun quicker. Eight more strips, by my calculations, before I can cut the centerline. I hope these will go a bit faster. I *think* I am still on schedule but I am concerned about how long planking the second side of the football will take, because there the strips will need to be trimmed, one by one, to the correct length and angle to match the centerline, which will probably be a slow process.
Plus I discovered that the seal-marked strips are unusable. They have interesting brown flecks throughout--but those brown flecks turn out to be pitch pockets, and if the pitch softens and melts under the fiberglass and epoxy, it may seep out of the pitch pocket and weaken the bond between the epoxy and the wood. This means I can't use the strips without risking delamination of the hull--which is normally repaired by sanding through the fiberglass into the bare wood and putting on a patch, but in the case of the seal-marked strips, this would only postpone the problem until the next time the boat got hot.
This means I have about 60% of the strips I thought I had. I had not gotten around to putting any seal-marked strips in the hull before I started using the heat gun and noticed that brown flecks in other strips often melted, so I don't have to bite my nails over whether to remove them or try to bake the pitch out with the heat gun or what, (there are way too many flecks to handle the way I did it in my last boat--cutting them out with an exacto knife and filling the holes with a mix of epoxy and sawdust). I think I still have enough--if absolutely necessary I could pull out my cedar strips, though I'd rather save those... But I'm down to using leftover strips from the last boat and strips with imperfections I would have left out if possible.
One thing I am being very careful about is setting strips aside to do the other half of the football as I plank this side. If I end up using cedar strips, I would like to include them at the same place on both sides.
I'm trying to keep up on the album front but with the amount of time I'm spending on the boat, it's kind of hard. One trick I have been trying is listening to recording the computer playing new songs and arrangements I want to try to see if I can learn them as I work. Also Peter sent me a melody that he thought needed lyrics about adventure and sailing ships. It turned out to have lyrics about boatbuilding--I'm sure that was a big surprise :-) We are still working on it but once Peter gives me the okay I will post it here.
I haven't quit practicing or anything but it has been kind of lick-and-a-promise practices.
Also I sure wish I had known about this Songwriter-In-Residence program while they were still taking applications. I will check back next September and see if they are going to do it again next year, I guess.
Got to run. Boat is calling me.
