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May. 30th, 2006 05:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstill(note: I actually wrote this about 8 days ago, but it disappeared when I tried to post it. I gave up in disgust that night and didn't have internet access for some time after (see next entry). I was about to post today, and a helpful little javascript I never saw before offered to give me my old post back, so here it is, somewhat out of date.)
Patience now has gunwales. I'd originally intended to put them on the boat on Thursday of last week. Instead I found myself doing a number of preliminary things that I'd thought wouldn't take long:
1) rounding off the bottom edges of the gunwales (router broke, had to research new ones, call a dozen places to finally find one that had my second choice; first choice not available anywhere within 30 miles as best I can tell, though they'd have been happy to order one for me that would only take 10 days to come (!)), whole day shot.
2) cutting the tapers on the outwales (planned to use my friend's table saw; it broke back in February and she still hasn't gotten it fixed, used my jigsaw instead, spent about 45 minutes per outwale end cleaning up the tapers with a plane borrowed from another friend, which not being a power tool, was in good working order)
3) chamfering (cutting the bottom outside corner off) the outwales--(hey, all I had to do was drive into Morristown for a router bit; cool beans!),
4) cutting the outwale scuppers (yes, I know outwales don't have scuppers--they're my own invention; two scupper-like holes in the outwales that will theoretically make it much easier to strap the canoe to a car rack; and they'd have added very little time to the project except that I forgot I wanted to do them until I already had two coats of varnish on the hull sides of the outwales, thus had to put two extra coats of varnish on the little slots to get them "caught up" for an extra 4 hours (to dry) per coat)
5) finshing sanding the inside of the canoe (I don't much like sanding so I'd been letting it slide, but it's much easier to sand before the inwales go on).
6) sanding off the varnish I put on the hull sides of the inwales because I changed my mind and decided to epoxy the inwales to the boat (better support) but attach the outwales with screws only (outwales can thus be removed for refinishing or replacement if they get too dinged up). Gunwales attached with screws must be thoroughly varnished (I did 5 coats) on the hull side before attachment to keep the water from eating them out from the back. Gunwales attached with epoxy should not be varnished--that way the epoxy can penetrate the pores of the wood for the best possible bond. Trust me to change my mind in the middle and go with a hybrid style for maximum mess and inconvenience.
7) attending Launch Day for the shop class that helped cut my planks and gunwales--I loaded up Gussie the solo canoe (borrowed) and followed them out to Tellico Lake where they launched a shiny new cedar strip canoe and a venerable old redwood-strip canoe. A fun day for me and the kids, and a wake up call for my canoing muscles, but a whole day when I didn't work on the boat, except for making a thwart pattern and cutting it out with the jigsaw. Unfortunately I was so worried about making the thwarts too short that I made them too long, so now I will need to make a new set. Fortunately, they don't take nearly as long to make as most of this stuff, and the router and random orbital sander are real treasures for this
8) finding an appropriate drill bit to install wood screws. Wood screws don't have threads all the way down, and a constant diameter like regular sane screws. No, they have threads about 3/4 of the way down from the tip, then the shaft of the screw becomes threadless, and the same diameter as the outside edge of the threads. This means you need a special combination bit that is narrow enough at the end for the threads to bite into the wood, but wide enough at the top that the shaft can fit (I think this is called counterboring). And it needs to cut a countersink at the top for the head of the screw. These bits exist, and only cost about 4$ once you find them. I bought one and went triumphantly home, only to discover that I needed to use slightly shorter brass screws at the ends of the gunwales, (so the sharp end of the screw wouldn't pop out where I'd made the gunwale thinner for the taper). Which meant I needed to move the counterbore/countersink part of the combination bit farther up the drill bit--which is possible; it's quite a clever little design, with a little stop tightened by an allen wrench--which I didn't have. Another trip out to Morristown; I now have a thing like a pocket knife, only with allen wrenches instead of blades. It's a clever little dohickey and it cost me only 6$--and another third of a day or so.
These ate up all my time till Sunday. I tried to install the gunwales Sunday and got the port set installed, but discovered that I really couldn't drive the slot-headed brass screws reliably; the screwdriver kept twisting out and scarring the heads. So I installed the port set with my philips headed screws and figured I'd pick up the extra 35 philips screws on Monday and do the starboard gunwales. I'd already brushed the first coat of (unthickened) epoxy on the hull side of the starboard inwale before I figured this out, of course. However, it takes 3 days to cure (at 60 degrees) past forming a chemical bond with a new layer of epoxy, so even at 75 degrees 16 hours should be no problem between the unthickened epoxy and the sawdust-enhanced epoxy that goes on in the second layer.
This morning I went and got the rest of the screws, and another 20 latex gloves, and installed the starboard gunwale. It took 2 1/2 hours. Somehow I thought installing the gunwales would be reasonably easy and quick. I don't know where I got that idea.
The whole project has been like this. This is why the boat is called Patience.
Patience now has gunwales. I'd originally intended to put them on the boat on Thursday of last week. Instead I found myself doing a number of preliminary things that I'd thought wouldn't take long:
1) rounding off the bottom edges of the gunwales (router broke, had to research new ones, call a dozen places to finally find one that had my second choice; first choice not available anywhere within 30 miles as best I can tell, though they'd have been happy to order one for me that would only take 10 days to come (!)), whole day shot.
2) cutting the tapers on the outwales (planned to use my friend's table saw; it broke back in February and she still hasn't gotten it fixed, used my jigsaw instead, spent about 45 minutes per outwale end cleaning up the tapers with a plane borrowed from another friend, which not being a power tool, was in good working order)
3) chamfering (cutting the bottom outside corner off) the outwales--(hey, all I had to do was drive into Morristown for a router bit; cool beans!),
4) cutting the outwale scuppers (yes, I know outwales don't have scuppers--they're my own invention; two scupper-like holes in the outwales that will theoretically make it much easier to strap the canoe to a car rack; and they'd have added very little time to the project except that I forgot I wanted to do them until I already had two coats of varnish on the hull sides of the outwales, thus had to put two extra coats of varnish on the little slots to get them "caught up" for an extra 4 hours (to dry) per coat)
5) finshing sanding the inside of the canoe (I don't much like sanding so I'd been letting it slide, but it's much easier to sand before the inwales go on).
6) sanding off the varnish I put on the hull sides of the inwales because I changed my mind and decided to epoxy the inwales to the boat (better support) but attach the outwales with screws only (outwales can thus be removed for refinishing or replacement if they get too dinged up). Gunwales attached with screws must be thoroughly varnished (I did 5 coats) on the hull side before attachment to keep the water from eating them out from the back. Gunwales attached with epoxy should not be varnished--that way the epoxy can penetrate the pores of the wood for the best possible bond. Trust me to change my mind in the middle and go with a hybrid style for maximum mess and inconvenience.
7) attending Launch Day for the shop class that helped cut my planks and gunwales--I loaded up Gussie the solo canoe (borrowed) and followed them out to Tellico Lake where they launched a shiny new cedar strip canoe and a venerable old redwood-strip canoe. A fun day for me and the kids, and a wake up call for my canoing muscles, but a whole day when I didn't work on the boat, except for making a thwart pattern and cutting it out with the jigsaw. Unfortunately I was so worried about making the thwarts too short that I made them too long, so now I will need to make a new set. Fortunately, they don't take nearly as long to make as most of this stuff, and the router and random orbital sander are real treasures for this
8) finding an appropriate drill bit to install wood screws. Wood screws don't have threads all the way down, and a constant diameter like regular sane screws. No, they have threads about 3/4 of the way down from the tip, then the shaft of the screw becomes threadless, and the same diameter as the outside edge of the threads. This means you need a special combination bit that is narrow enough at the end for the threads to bite into the wood, but wide enough at the top that the shaft can fit (I think this is called counterboring). And it needs to cut a countersink at the top for the head of the screw. These bits exist, and only cost about 4$ once you find them. I bought one and went triumphantly home, only to discover that I needed to use slightly shorter brass screws at the ends of the gunwales, (so the sharp end of the screw wouldn't pop out where I'd made the gunwale thinner for the taper). Which meant I needed to move the counterbore/countersink part of the combination bit farther up the drill bit--which is possible; it's quite a clever little design, with a little stop tightened by an allen wrench--which I didn't have. Another trip out to Morristown; I now have a thing like a pocket knife, only with allen wrenches instead of blades. It's a clever little dohickey and it cost me only 6$--and another third of a day or so.
These ate up all my time till Sunday. I tried to install the gunwales Sunday and got the port set installed, but discovered that I really couldn't drive the slot-headed brass screws reliably; the screwdriver kept twisting out and scarring the heads. So I installed the port set with my philips headed screws and figured I'd pick up the extra 35 philips screws on Monday and do the starboard gunwales. I'd already brushed the first coat of (unthickened) epoxy on the hull side of the starboard inwale before I figured this out, of course. However, it takes 3 days to cure (at 60 degrees) past forming a chemical bond with a new layer of epoxy, so even at 75 degrees 16 hours should be no problem between the unthickened epoxy and the sawdust-enhanced epoxy that goes on in the second layer.
This morning I went and got the rest of the screws, and another 20 latex gloves, and installed the starboard gunwale. It took 2 1/2 hours. Somehow I thought installing the gunwales would be reasonably easy and quick. I don't know where I got that idea.
The whole project has been like this. This is why the boat is called Patience.
