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catsittingstillI didn't sleep very well last night. As part of my spirit-lifting attempt Friday evening I bought Diet Mountain Dew as a special treat. I didn't actually have any until yesterday morning but then I had quite a bit, and I think that's the reason I couldn't go to sleep until about three thirty this morning. So if I seem less coherent than usual, that's why.
So, haven't put any strips on the boat since Thursday, though I do have two pre-bent, pre fitted and cut strips that could go on in short order. They are, for what it's worth, the 6th and 5th strips from the centerline. I will hopefully be hearing back today about whether my "show the technique" dinner will be cancelled outright or merely postponed. I can reasonably hope to do two strips a day (at least three for the first day, since bending the strips and cutting the ends are very time-consuming parts of the process.) So I can be done in two or three days I think.
I was planning to put in the whiskey plank today, but have been compensating by fairing the completed side of the boat. However it's kind of disturbing to miss this milestone--I'm not really sure I'm on track to complete the outside fiberglass two weeks from now, because it's hard for me to judge just how much of the fairing I've done.
I've been using my middle-sized plane to do most of the fairing. This works excellently well where the boat is flat or concave, except that in spots where the strips have grain running into the strip I get some tearout. But not a lot, and I'm pretty sure the final sanding will take that right off. In the meantime, it's kind of cool to be fairing the centerline while I can still see the thickness of the hull from the side, because of the missing boards. I notice I get hollows between the stations, and high points at the stations. I would be worried that this is because the wood is flexing away from the plane between the stations except for two things: 1) When I sight along the centerline from bow to stern I can see that it's getting straighter (up and down--it was already reasonably straight side-to-side), and if the wood between the stations was flexing away from the plane, so that the plane was cutting deeper at the stations than between them, I would expect the centerline to get bumpier as the process went on. 2) The foot of the plane is nearly as long as the distance between the stations, which doesn't leave very many inches for the wood to do all that flexing in.
So I think the plane cuts deeper at the stations because I build in hollows between the stations. I see two possible causes for this--first, as I was bending the planks with the heat gun, I had to move the edges past the centerline. This often involved lifting the ends of the boards over the clamps I had left clamped to the stations, and this lifting while heating could have created an unwanted curve bowing the plank in toward the center of the canoe. Second, I clamped the strips to each other between the stations using bar clamps, (before I put on the hot glue beads) and these could have tended to tip the planks in, toward the center of the canoe, in these spots. I have observed the unwanted bowing bends while fitting the ends of strips on the sides I haven't faired yet--I think they are even more pronounced on this side because of the higher centerline owing to having hull on the other side of the boat now. But I think it may be a combination of the two.
At any rate, I should note that the difference is not all that great. When I look at the centerline from the side I can see that the hull is slightly thinner at the stations but only slightly. Being able to see that (owing entirely to the hull being unfinished) is actually pretty reassuring. I will take steps on the next strips I put in to re-heat and remove unwanted bowing as much as possible, but aside from that I think things are going well, and I'm sold on planes as fairing tools, except in places where the curve of the hull is concave (there are a few.) Most of those I've been able to go after with my spokeshave that Dad gave me for Christmas. Which I probably should sharpen, but which actually has been cutting decently well right out of the package.
The down side of fairing with planes is that it's pretty hard work. Sanders only have to be held in place, planes have to be pushed, and pushed consistently, and pushed while being held firmly against the workpiece. On the top this isn't too much of a problem; gravity is helping. On the sides, it is more demanding. And using the spokeshave on the sides (mostly at the ends of the boat) involves bending myself like a C (or has to this point; maybe I can work out a better technique) which is pretty stressful for my back, so I can't do that for too long. I've been alternating this with drilling out the screw holes and cutting plugs for them and gluing the plugs in. There are about three holes I'm going to put screws back in when the fairing on this side is finished, to hold the finished side firmly to the forms at the points where I expect a lot of wedging stress as I put strips on the boat. This is because strips have to fit fairly tightly, and cutting the ends to match the centerlines leaves them wedge shaped; forcing wedge shapes into openings to see if the strip is the right length and shape yet tends to open them farther, which would distort the planned shape of the hull. Holding the hull firmly to the form with screws will, I hope, prevent the possible distortion.
Today I'm going to try to finish the fairing on the finished side, and do some fairing on the lower part of the unfinished side. I can also drill out and plug some of the screw holes on the unfinished side--where the hull around them is finished and unlikely to be disorted by the strip fitting process. I may also try sanding with the longboard to remove the plane tracks (if I have the right sandpaper--I will have to check that) and even a random orbital sander in those areas where even a spokeshave won't fit.
As regards the album, I am working on a couple of new songs, at least one of which I will probably post pretty soon when the melody settles down. It's just a bit of fluff, but hopefully a nice one. I haven't been practicing as much as I should, though I have gotten in at least some practice every day. I feel like I should be working on my mandolin chops more, but am not sure how to do it. I still haven't come up with a harmony for Go Little Penske (I can feel the chorus, at least, calling for one) or Quetico (ditto) but part of that is I haven't been listening to the iPod as much while working on the boat so I will do that today.
I think pretty soon I'll have to pick a handful of songs (three might be a reasonable number) practice them up until I'm actually ready to record, and record them. Because it would be nice to have some more tangible (if that's the word) progress than a fattening songbook. Though the songbook is definitely fattening up nicely.
So, haven't put any strips on the boat since Thursday, though I do have two pre-bent, pre fitted and cut strips that could go on in short order. They are, for what it's worth, the 6th and 5th strips from the centerline. I will hopefully be hearing back today about whether my "show the technique" dinner will be cancelled outright or merely postponed. I can reasonably hope to do two strips a day (at least three for the first day, since bending the strips and cutting the ends are very time-consuming parts of the process.) So I can be done in two or three days I think.
I was planning to put in the whiskey plank today, but have been compensating by fairing the completed side of the boat. However it's kind of disturbing to miss this milestone--I'm not really sure I'm on track to complete the outside fiberglass two weeks from now, because it's hard for me to judge just how much of the fairing I've done.
I've been using my middle-sized plane to do most of the fairing. This works excellently well where the boat is flat or concave, except that in spots where the strips have grain running into the strip I get some tearout. But not a lot, and I'm pretty sure the final sanding will take that right off. In the meantime, it's kind of cool to be fairing the centerline while I can still see the thickness of the hull from the side, because of the missing boards. I notice I get hollows between the stations, and high points at the stations. I would be worried that this is because the wood is flexing away from the plane between the stations except for two things: 1) When I sight along the centerline from bow to stern I can see that it's getting straighter (up and down--it was already reasonably straight side-to-side), and if the wood between the stations was flexing away from the plane, so that the plane was cutting deeper at the stations than between them, I would expect the centerline to get bumpier as the process went on. 2) The foot of the plane is nearly as long as the distance between the stations, which doesn't leave very many inches for the wood to do all that flexing in.
So I think the plane cuts deeper at the stations because I build in hollows between the stations. I see two possible causes for this--first, as I was bending the planks with the heat gun, I had to move the edges past the centerline. This often involved lifting the ends of the boards over the clamps I had left clamped to the stations, and this lifting while heating could have created an unwanted curve bowing the plank in toward the center of the canoe. Second, I clamped the strips to each other between the stations using bar clamps, (before I put on the hot glue beads) and these could have tended to tip the planks in, toward the center of the canoe, in these spots. I have observed the unwanted bowing bends while fitting the ends of strips on the sides I haven't faired yet--I think they are even more pronounced on this side because of the higher centerline owing to having hull on the other side of the boat now. But I think it may be a combination of the two.
At any rate, I should note that the difference is not all that great. When I look at the centerline from the side I can see that the hull is slightly thinner at the stations but only slightly. Being able to see that (owing entirely to the hull being unfinished) is actually pretty reassuring. I will take steps on the next strips I put in to re-heat and remove unwanted bowing as much as possible, but aside from that I think things are going well, and I'm sold on planes as fairing tools, except in places where the curve of the hull is concave (there are a few.) Most of those I've been able to go after with my spokeshave that Dad gave me for Christmas. Which I probably should sharpen, but which actually has been cutting decently well right out of the package.
The down side of fairing with planes is that it's pretty hard work. Sanders only have to be held in place, planes have to be pushed, and pushed consistently, and pushed while being held firmly against the workpiece. On the top this isn't too much of a problem; gravity is helping. On the sides, it is more demanding. And using the spokeshave on the sides (mostly at the ends of the boat) involves bending myself like a C (or has to this point; maybe I can work out a better technique) which is pretty stressful for my back, so I can't do that for too long. I've been alternating this with drilling out the screw holes and cutting plugs for them and gluing the plugs in. There are about three holes I'm going to put screws back in when the fairing on this side is finished, to hold the finished side firmly to the forms at the points where I expect a lot of wedging stress as I put strips on the boat. This is because strips have to fit fairly tightly, and cutting the ends to match the centerlines leaves them wedge shaped; forcing wedge shapes into openings to see if the strip is the right length and shape yet tends to open them farther, which would distort the planned shape of the hull. Holding the hull firmly to the form with screws will, I hope, prevent the possible distortion.
Today I'm going to try to finish the fairing on the finished side, and do some fairing on the lower part of the unfinished side. I can also drill out and plug some of the screw holes on the unfinished side--where the hull around them is finished and unlikely to be disorted by the strip fitting process. I may also try sanding with the longboard to remove the plane tracks (if I have the right sandpaper--I will have to check that) and even a random orbital sander in those areas where even a spokeshave won't fit.
As regards the album, I am working on a couple of new songs, at least one of which I will probably post pretty soon when the melody settles down. It's just a bit of fluff, but hopefully a nice one. I haven't been practicing as much as I should, though I have gotten in at least some practice every day. I feel like I should be working on my mandolin chops more, but am not sure how to do it. I still haven't come up with a harmony for Go Little Penske (I can feel the chorus, at least, calling for one) or Quetico (ditto) but part of that is I haven't been listening to the iPod as much while working on the boat so I will do that today.
I think pretty soon I'll have to pick a handful of songs (three might be a reasonable number) practice them up until I'm actually ready to record, and record them. Because it would be nice to have some more tangible (if that's the word) progress than a fattening songbook. Though the songbook is definitely fattening up nicely.
