![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
So I've been making good use, so far, of my Fourth of July weekend. Most of it has been spent on boat stuff. I made patterns for thwarts, cut them out (the bandsaw does a much nicer job of that than the jigsaw used to), shaped them (used the router--I am getting a little better at controling it, I think, but will still be picking shavings out of the light fixtures for a week) sanded them with progressively finer grits all the way to 220 grit (wiped them down with water just before the final sanding--boy, I picked out some pretty cherry).
Now I hadn't meant to cut things as fine as I did with the bandsaw, but it turned out that when I rough cut the ends I happened to get them just the right length and almost exactly the right shape for the spots where my calculations said they should go (Note to self; next time leave a bit more room!). And I was in the middle of congratulating myself when I remembered what happened with Constance. One of these days I'm going to fix Constance by moving her seat and back thwart about three inches farther back (maybe even before my Dad and brother visit), but it's a pain in the hind end.
So I elected to do a water test onConstance. [later edit]--I meant Moxie; thanks to Keris for the catch! [/later edit] My last faked up, wingnut clamped thward didn't work all that well (source of the trouble with Constance, in fact) so I came up with another way to do it: I sawed out little plywood "collars" for both ends of each thwart (the hard part was angling the cutout to accept the fact that the thwarts meet the gunwales at a slight angle, not perpendicularly) and then c-clamped the collars to the gunwales to hold the ends of the thwarts in place but allow slight adjustments. Then I played my Invoke Spouse card, which I try to save for special occasions so I'll have one when I really need it, but loading a canoe with four c-clamps on the gunwales on the car without hurting either canoe or car is the sort of thing for which one really needs two people.
So I Invoked Spouse and Kip and I took Moxie gently off to the put in and floated her. I had Kip get in, so I could look at the canoe and see if she floated level.
( Pictures and neepery. )
I think this is going to be a great boat! I can't wait to get her done!
Now I want to work on her, but I had to open both big doors on the woodshop, twice, once to get her in and once to get her out. So it's 85 degrees in there (and more than 90 degrees outside) and I think I better wait until I have recovered a bit of my oomph. I had two big glasses of limeade and I'm thirsty again.
And in other news, I was very pleased to hear that Peter's and my collaboration, Wise Hands (a song about ship building, I would point out), won the Contata Song Contest, despite Ozymandias's trying to steal the stage during Peter's performance. I am sorry I could not be there to hear Peter perform it, but congratulations to him, and I shall sit and gloat a little over this success, on such a boat-y day.
Now I hadn't meant to cut things as fine as I did with the bandsaw, but it turned out that when I rough cut the ends I happened to get them just the right length and almost exactly the right shape for the spots where my calculations said they should go (Note to self; next time leave a bit more room!). And I was in the middle of congratulating myself when I remembered what happened with Constance. One of these days I'm going to fix Constance by moving her seat and back thwart about three inches farther back (maybe even before my Dad and brother visit), but it's a pain in the hind end.
So I elected to do a water test on
So I Invoked Spouse and Kip and I took Moxie gently off to the put in and floated her. I had Kip get in, so I could look at the canoe and see if she floated level.
( Pictures and neepery. )I think this is going to be a great boat! I can't wait to get her done!
Now I want to work on her, but I had to open both big doors on the woodshop, twice, once to get her in and once to get her out. So it's 85 degrees in there (and more than 90 degrees outside) and I think I better wait until I have recovered a bit of my oomph. I had two big glasses of limeade and I'm thirsty again.
And in other news, I was very pleased to hear that Peter's and my collaboration, Wise Hands (a song about ship building, I would point out), won the Contata Song Contest, despite Ozymandias's trying to steal the stage during Peter's performance. I am sorry I could not be there to hear Peter perform it, but congratulations to him, and I shall sit and gloat a little over this success, on such a boat-y day.
