Sunday, 29 June 2014
And so it ends...
Today sees possibly the end of my beloved canoe after it was crushed by a canal boat whilst I enjoyed a leisurely lunch :-(
Tuesday, 1 May 2012
Day...Lost count. C'est Fini - That's French you know!
Tea count...Lost count
Injury Count...None:-)
Thankfully none Stickiness Factor...It's always sticky, it's an inevitable part of life and boat building. If it's not resin it's varnish, if it's not varnish it's Golden Syrup. What are ya gonna do. You just gotta roll with it and deal with each sticky icky stickiness situation that life throws at you.
Q. What's brown and sticky
A. A stick!
So as you will of course have noticed I have been more than neglecting my blogging duties over the past month, as I did in the previous month. The canoe build definitely got the better of me and the thought of putting fingers to keyboard at the end of each day entirely lost it's appeal. I fear I may have lost some friends along the way as I have without doubt left them lost and alone without my weekend posts. Regretfully, and with the merest hint of sarcasm, I care not as it was never my intention to entertain with my musings, more just keep a record of the build! The pressure of writing a whole page each week became too much for my small and underdeveloped brain hence the lack of updates during the latter stages. However, I thank you all for reading, both of you, and I hope from the bottom my bilges that reading my ramblings over the first quarter of the year has provided a modicum of interest and entertainment, despite that never being my intention - just in case you didn't get that!
So all's well that ends well and as you can see from the title, boat is indeed finished!!! To be honest the last six or seven days of the build that have not been documented would have made for very dull reading. It would have been more like watching varnish dry... as that's exactly what I was I doing. So it would have exactly like watching varnish dry, hmmmm! The last days were spent sanding, adding resin, sanding more resin, sanding, varnishing, sanding, varnishing...you can see I was losing my enthusiasm at this stage.
Ooh I nearly forgot! I made seats! That was quite exciting and it got me indoors too as the weather stunk! I made wooden frames and added a lattice (I think that's the right word - not lettuce as the spell checker keeps trying to tell me) middle made from strong webbing tape. It seems to work very well, although I did have to re-enforce the frames as I had made them a tadge spindly. This was discovered on the first of our sea trials (river not sea) and whilst the seats did support my victim and I they were flexing a little too much for comfort.
My largest fears concerning the bulkhead joint were unfounded. Such and odd word! How can you unfound something. Does this mean that you lost something, found it and then lost it again? It's like "disgruntled". Has anyone in the history of mankind ever actually been gruntled? There are more like this but I digress. I put silicone over one end of the bulkhead with cling film (other brands are available) on the other bulkhead to stop it sticking. I then bolted the two halves together and left for one hour on gas mark 6 until the silicone began to skin over. I then separated the two halves and removed the cling film. The theory being that I would now have a perfectly matching silicone gadget on one half of the boat. It only bloody worked didn't it!? This was the final task and the only remaining thing to do was to practice loading it onto the car unaided. Deciding that caution should be excercised as I was highly likely to either wreck the boat, wreck the car or both, I waited until Zena was two hundred miles away in Cornwall. It was a good plan as the experience was slightly hair raising.
I asked Jason - my son in case you thought I had gained a friend, to stand by and jump in to lend some muscle if needed. In retrospect this was a very irresponsible act of parenting. Had I indeed required his muscle it would surely have ended up with him acting as nothing more that a landing cushion for a very heavy boat! Anyway with much huffing and puffing and and a lot of laughing and words of discouragement such as "dad I don't think this is going to end well," from the afore mention son, the boat did indeed end up atop the car. It looked magnificent!
My good friend Ollie, who I had let down terribly with regards to a promised canoe camping trip by being far too slow in building my boat, had forgiven me enough to join me for the first test on the water.
With my heart in my mouth, Jason and I swung her into the water for the first time. I hardly dare look at the bulkhead join or into the promisingly named "watertight hatches" at the ends. Then, to my utmost surprise I was struck by the realisation that there were no leaks, not a one! I was flabbergasted, slightly emotional but more than anything else, utterly knackered. Carrying the boat from car to river was exhausting, a canoe trolley is thus being sought!
The next couple of hours was spent heading up river and through a lock and I can honestly say it was awesome. Paddling a few feet from nesting moorhens, dive bombed by Canada Geese and being pissed on from the heavens by hailstones as sharp as cut glass were all part of my first magical trip! The second trial, the next day was a gentle paddle up the Thames from East Reading back toward town. With Jason relaxing at the back, this was pleasant couple of hours with the only threat coming from some perturbed looking swans (don't ask me how a swan looks perturbed but it did!) We even stopped near the lock for a picnic of Bacon and lattice sandwiches!
Next is one more river trial but with Captain Zena at the helm to get her used to swinging her paddle before the official launch which will be announced soon. This I hope will take the form of a launch picnic on a bright, sunny and warm May day.
It is then with a tinge of sadness but with a bucket load of relief that I sign off from my blogging duties. I shall be back at some point as I have some new project ideas forming which consist of an underwater housing for my video camera (Zenas none too keen on that one!) and then a cedar strip built Kayak - Wooohoooo. And if I get round to the latter I promise I'll blog the bollocks off that one!!!
Injury Count...None:-)
Thankfully none Stickiness Factor...It's always sticky, it's an inevitable part of life and boat building. If it's not resin it's varnish, if it's not varnish it's Golden Syrup. What are ya gonna do. You just gotta roll with it and deal with each sticky icky stickiness situation that life throws at you.
Q. What's brown and sticky
A. A stick!
So as you will of course have noticed I have been more than neglecting my blogging duties over the past month, as I did in the previous month. The canoe build definitely got the better of me and the thought of putting fingers to keyboard at the end of each day entirely lost it's appeal. I fear I may have lost some friends along the way as I have without doubt left them lost and alone without my weekend posts. Regretfully, and with the merest hint of sarcasm, I care not as it was never my intention to entertain with my musings, more just keep a record of the build! The pressure of writing a whole page each week became too much for my small and underdeveloped brain hence the lack of updates during the latter stages. However, I thank you all for reading, both of you, and I hope from the bottom my bilges that reading my ramblings over the first quarter of the year has provided a modicum of interest and entertainment, despite that never being my intention - just in case you didn't get that!
So all's well that ends well and as you can see from the title, boat is indeed finished!!! To be honest the last six or seven days of the build that have not been documented would have made for very dull reading. It would have been more like watching varnish dry... as that's exactly what I was I doing. So it would have exactly like watching varnish dry, hmmmm! The last days were spent sanding, adding resin, sanding more resin, sanding, varnishing, sanding, varnishing...you can see I was losing my enthusiasm at this stage.
My largest fears concerning the bulkhead joint were unfounded. Such and odd word! How can you unfound something. Does this mean that you lost something, found it and then lost it again? It's like "disgruntled". Has anyone in the history of mankind ever actually been gruntled? There are more like this but I digress. I put silicone over one end of the bulkhead with cling film (other brands are available) on the other bulkhead to stop it sticking. I then bolted the two halves together and left for one hour on gas mark 6 until the silicone began to skin over. I then separated the two halves and removed the cling film. The theory being that I would now have a perfectly matching silicone gadget on one half of the boat. It only bloody worked didn't it!? This was the final task and the only remaining thing to do was to practice loading it onto the car unaided. Deciding that caution should be excercised as I was highly likely to either wreck the boat, wreck the car or both, I waited until Zena was two hundred miles away in Cornwall. It was a good plan as the experience was slightly hair raising.
My good friend Ollie, who I had let down terribly with regards to a promised canoe camping trip by being far too slow in building my boat, had forgiven me enough to join me for the first test on the water.
With my heart in my mouth, Jason and I swung her into the water for the first time. I hardly dare look at the bulkhead join or into the promisingly named "watertight hatches" at the ends. Then, to my utmost surprise I was struck by the realisation that there were no leaks, not a one! I was flabbergasted, slightly emotional but more than anything else, utterly knackered. Carrying the boat from car to river was exhausting, a canoe trolley is thus being sought!
The next couple of hours was spent heading up river and through a lock and I can honestly say it was awesome. Paddling a few feet from nesting moorhens, dive bombed by Canada Geese and being pissed on from the heavens by hailstones as sharp as cut glass were all part of my first magical trip! The second trial, the next day was a gentle paddle up the Thames from East Reading back toward town. With Jason relaxing at the back, this was pleasant couple of hours with the only threat coming from some perturbed looking swans (don't ask me how a swan looks perturbed but it did!) We even stopped near the lock for a picnic of Bacon and lattice sandwiches!
Next is one more river trial but with Captain Zena at the helm to get her used to swinging her paddle before the official launch which will be announced soon. This I hope will take the form of a launch picnic on a bright, sunny and warm May day.
It is then with a tinge of sadness but with a bucket load of relief that I sign off from my blogging duties. I shall be back at some point as I have some new project ideas forming which consist of an underwater housing for my video camera (Zenas none too keen on that one!) and then a cedar strip built Kayak - Wooohoooo. And if I get round to the latter I promise I'll blog the bollocks off that one!!!
Sunday, 1 April 2012
Day 20 & 21 It's all a matter of re-cycling
Tea Count 4
Injuries 0
Time Spent 10 Hours
Stickiness Factor 5/10
Good evening, morning or afternoon readers. (delete as appropriate) Let's get the apologies out of the way first. You will no doubt have noticed that I have not been blogging for nearly a month now and if truth be told, which it will be, progress has been slow. I am sorry for the lack of updates but not for the well needed time out.
Following my last post I had a nasty reaction to either the poxy resin, the fibre glass dust or both. The upshot of this was a pair of swollen, puffy eyes, rashes on my leg tummy arms and neck and very very itchy eyelids – not the best symptoms to have if you're a photographer! Needless to say some time off from sanding and poxying was ordered and I dutifully obeyed. Much of my time away from canoe building was spent walking. First, a good 15km hike around the Lambourne gallops in the company of air cadets. This only served to Then a weekend of camping and walking in North Wales again in the company of cadets.
In between this of course was the scheduled launch date of our lovely canoe. In hindsight this was always a little optimistic. On the bright side though, we still had the launch/birthday party on the 17th March. On the dark side, the 18th March was very much a sofa day nursing a head partially, but thankfully temporarily damaged by blackberry vodka - a concoction of my lovely wife's making. It is both delicious and addictive but ever so slightly dangerous. It renders limbs quite useless in less time than I remember!
So..to matters of canoe! Now that my rashes have almost all cleared up and he eyelids have returned to their pre-itchy state, I deemed it safe to continue. My first task of the day was to finish making the bilge runners of the aft section and using the left over cut-offs I recycled them into the rails for the aft seat. Shaping the ends to fit into the curved section of the boat was an arse of a job but satisfying when completed. Using the cut-offs from these rails I recycled them to make the kneels for the seat rails to sit on which I then shaped to mirror the curves of the hull. Yep, that was also an arse of a job.
I also laid another coat of resin on the forward section both inside and out. I'm using a roller to put the resin on now as it is much easier and gives a better finish. It lays on a thinner coat and still runs and sags a little but the finish is better and weave of the glass cloth is now almost filled.
The finish on the decorative decking is now very pleasing and another coat should see it finished. In fact I'm hoping, nay pleading and hoping that one more coat of resin all over will see this half finished and with thought spurring me on I decided to embark on the all important job of installing the beverage holder tops.
As you can see from the photograph it's a welcome addition to the build. I'm making the actual beverage holders using left over fibreglass cloth, utilising some cardboard tubing as a mould. Will it work? Dunno, we'll have to wait and see but I do have a plan B if this fails.
I'm hoping with next weekend being a long one I may get very close to finishing the whole project. My next goal is to have it ready for a canoe camping trip on 20th April. Fingers crossed but no promises!!!
Injuries 0
Time Spent 10 Hours
Stickiness Factor 5/10
Good evening, morning or afternoon readers. (delete as appropriate) Let's get the apologies out of the way first. You will no doubt have noticed that I have not been blogging for nearly a month now and if truth be told, which it will be, progress has been slow. I am sorry for the lack of updates but not for the well needed time out.
In between this of course was the scheduled launch date of our lovely canoe. In hindsight this was always a little optimistic. On the bright side though, we still had the launch/birthday party on the 17th March. On the dark side, the 18th March was very much a sofa day nursing a head partially, but thankfully temporarily damaged by blackberry vodka - a concoction of my lovely wife's making. It is both delicious and addictive but ever so slightly dangerous. It renders limbs quite useless in less time than I remember!
So..to matters of canoe! Now that my rashes have almost all cleared up and he eyelids have returned to their pre-itchy state, I deemed it safe to continue. My first task of the day was to finish making the bilge runners of the aft section and using the left over cut-offs I recycled them into the rails for the aft seat. Shaping the ends to fit into the curved section of the boat was an arse of a job but satisfying when completed. Using the cut-offs from these rails I recycled them to make the kneels for the seat rails to sit on which I then shaped to mirror the curves of the hull. Yep, that was also an arse of a job.
I also laid another coat of resin on the forward section both inside and out. I'm using a roller to put the resin on now as it is much easier and gives a better finish. It lays on a thinner coat and still runs and sags a little but the finish is better and weave of the glass cloth is now almost filled.
I'm hoping with next weekend being a long one I may get very close to finishing the whole project. My next goal is to have it ready for a canoe camping trip on 20th April. Fingers crossed but no promises!!!
Sunday, 4 March 2012
Day 18 Poets Day
Tea Count 2
Injuries 0
Time Spent 4 Hours
Stickiness Factor 0/10
For readers who are unaware of poets let me enlighten you. Poets day only ever occurs on a Friday and involves leaving work early because as the acronym alludes "tomorrow's Saturday". I'll leave you work out the first two words.
As you will no doubt have guessed this is Friday's post. A week of early mornings allowed me to accumulate some time and take Friday afternoon as boat building time. Thanks as ever to my lovely wife for allowing me leave my desk while she continued working for the afternoon.
As mentioned in my last post I've added one or two luxuries to the build and having decided on the beverage holders the next addition was going to be either cutting edge sound system, periscope in case of submersion (likely) or some decorative decking instead of plain old wood decking. The sound system would add too much weight and mixing water with electrics is suicide in my book. The periscope? well that's just ridiculous, though useful. So onto the decorative decking! That'll test my marquetry skills, or it would if I had any.
I made my plan, sort of and starting cutting some strips of wood from my off cuts and left overs. Now even if I do say so myself, I think it looks pretty awesome and of course will look more awsomeer when its sanded flush and varnished. The downside is this. What you see in this photograph is the sum total of my 4 four hours work! Looks great but rather than progressing with the build I think I'm falling further behind and now in serious danger of missing launch date.
Fortunately I haven't sold any tickets to would be passengers so no refunds to worry about, just a little face loosing which by the way would not be a problem right now as the face is still very much in itchy and scratchy mode.
On a final note I have now managed the shape the troublesome piece that runs along the top of the bulkhead to meet the gunwales. TFFT
Injuries 0
Time Spent 4 Hours
Stickiness Factor 0/10
For readers who are unaware of poets let me enlighten you. Poets day only ever occurs on a Friday and involves leaving work early because as the acronym alludes "tomorrow's Saturday". I'll leave you work out the first two words.
As you will no doubt have guessed this is Friday's post. A week of early mornings allowed me to accumulate some time and take Friday afternoon as boat building time. Thanks as ever to my lovely wife for allowing me leave my desk while she continued working for the afternoon.
As mentioned in my last post I've added one or two luxuries to the build and having decided on the beverage holders the next addition was going to be either cutting edge sound system, periscope in case of submersion (likely) or some decorative decking instead of plain old wood decking. The sound system would add too much weight and mixing water with electrics is suicide in my book. The periscope? well that's just ridiculous, though useful. So onto the decorative decking! That'll test my marquetry skills, or it would if I had any.
I made my plan, sort of and starting cutting some strips of wood from my off cuts and left overs. Now even if I do say so myself, I think it looks pretty awesome and of course will look more awsomeer when its sanded flush and varnished. The downside is this. What you see in this photograph is the sum total of my 4 four hours work! Looks great but rather than progressing with the build I think I'm falling further behind and now in serious danger of missing launch date.
Fortunately I haven't sold any tickets to would be passengers so no refunds to worry about, just a little face loosing which by the way would not be a problem right now as the face is still very much in itchy and scratchy mode.
On a final note I have now managed the shape the troublesome piece that runs along the top of the bulkhead to meet the gunwales. TFFT
Day 17 Supplemental - Itchy and Scratchy
Tea Count 1
Injuries 0
Time Spent 2 Hours
Stickiness factor 10/10
In order to have any chance of meeting my self imposed launch date of March 17th I decided to put some evening shifts in. A couple of hours here and there should go some way to helping me achieve my deadline. This decision was not taken lightly as time off at the moment is sparse as work has been particularly good lately. The pressure to meet my launch date has been getting quite intense from various quarters. Not least of which is our party planned for the 17th which is supposed to be both a birthday and launch party, hopefully it still will be both. One friend heaped on the pressure on monday night by informing me that he had invested in bread with which to feed the ducks on launch day. You know who your are "H" and I will do all I can not to let you down but if I do, I will at the very least reimburse you for the bread.
So last Tuesday evening I donned my now ever so poxie stained overalls and gave half number one a second coat of resin on her bottom:-). This proved far easier than the first coat which I applied to glass cloth. After diligently reading some advice I kept my resin warm and kept the coat thin and this did go most of the way to avoiding runs and sags in the resin. It's still damn tricky stuff to apply evenly though especially on curved surfaces like boats.
I don't seem to be helping my own deadline much as now the boat is approaching completion I'm adding in some luxury extras. The first of these is of the obligatory beverage holders, yes you read it correctly folks, beverage holders. If luxury cars have them then so should my canoe.
On to health issues now. I am undecided if it's the remnants of the loft insulation on my overalls collar or poxie fumes and resin from the boat but my neck feels like a Simpsons spin off cartoon, that's itchy and scratchy to the non Bartonians. It's been like it for a couple weeks now and the rash is a little unsightly. More unnervingly the itching is equally as bad under my eyes on my cheekbones and now on my eye lids. Let me tell you itchy eye lids is no fun at all not least of all because I keep missing the footy. I have to close my eyes to have a good rub and on opening them everything is very blurry indeed.. Today I've missed two goals that I am aware of. If anyone has any medical knowledge of how to alleviate fiber glass/resin induced dermatitis I'll gladly take the advice.
Injuries 0
Time Spent 2 Hours
Stickiness factor 10/10
In order to have any chance of meeting my self imposed launch date of March 17th I decided to put some evening shifts in. A couple of hours here and there should go some way to helping me achieve my deadline. This decision was not taken lightly as time off at the moment is sparse as work has been particularly good lately. The pressure to meet my launch date has been getting quite intense from various quarters. Not least of which is our party planned for the 17th which is supposed to be both a birthday and launch party, hopefully it still will be both. One friend heaped on the pressure on monday night by informing me that he had invested in bread with which to feed the ducks on launch day. You know who your are "H" and I will do all I can not to let you down but if I do, I will at the very least reimburse you for the bread.
I don't seem to be helping my own deadline much as now the boat is approaching completion I'm adding in some luxury extras. The first of these is of the obligatory beverage holders, yes you read it correctly folks, beverage holders. If luxury cars have them then so should my canoe.
On to health issues now. I am undecided if it's the remnants of the loft insulation on my overalls collar or poxie fumes and resin from the boat but my neck feels like a Simpsons spin off cartoon, that's itchy and scratchy to the non Bartonians. It's been like it for a couple weeks now and the rash is a little unsightly. More unnervingly the itching is equally as bad under my eyes on my cheekbones and now on my eye lids. Let me tell you itchy eye lids is no fun at all not least of all because I keep missing the footy. I have to close my eyes to have a good rub and on opening them everything is very blurry indeed.. Today I've missed two goals that I am aware of. If anyone has any medical knowledge of how to alleviate fiber glass/resin induced dermatitis I'll gladly take the advice.
Day 17 Sods Law!
Tea Count 3
Injuries 1 (A bad gash to the thumb)
Time Spent 5 Hours
Blood factor 5/10
Hello once again fellow bloggers, readers and boat building buddies. As you can see my followers increased in number this week by a massive two fifths and I'm now confident of hitting double figures before the end of the build. I thought it time to catch up with some updates as once again readers I am behind by a couple of days.
Last Sunday was indeed day seventeen and was largely given over to the creation of the inner gunwales and fitting two of them to half number one the aft section or the fore section...whatever! In addition I spent a fair portion of time cutting to shape the piece of wood that be needed to run across the top of the bulkhead to meet the inner gunwales. This is far harder than it sounds as the piece has be cut and shaped in three directions to take the shape of the boat from back to front, as well as top to bottom, as well as meet the gunwales at the right angle and take into account the slight slope of the bulkhead and...and... and...see, it's a very hard piece to shape! Needless to say I went through three lengths of wood before giving up and vowing to do better on another day.
After a trial fit of the gunwales I had ripped to size on my trusted table saw it was obvious
there was no way on this earth they were going to bend enough to follow the curve and contour of the boat. Being deeper that the outer gunwales meant they were much more resistant to bending. I decided a compromise was needed and so slimmed them down somewhat to make life a little easier. I also routed some sections out of the gunwales which would allow any water left in the canoe to drain out when stored upside down, and it makes them look pretty! Rather handily it also made the gunwales more flexible and I was able to easily bend them into shape. Anyone would have thought I planned it that way! Actually I did but no-ones ever going to believe me. I dry fitted the gunwales into place but they'll have to come off again later to be poxied. The boat is really feeling quite rigid and strong now.
A large part of my day, and I mean over an hour, was spent looking for my countersink drill bit. I only have the one and losing it meant the project was stalled until I could find or replace it. When eventually I did find it I couldn't quite believe how well "sod" had implemented it's long, pointless and ever recurring law. Out of interest, probably to me only, I took some measurements. The gap between the table saw blade and the edge of the blade slot in the table is ten millimeters.
The widest part of the drill bit is nine millimeters! For this drill bit to have fallen in the direction of the slot is one thing. The chances of it landing at such an angle that it could fall through the slot is astonishing and then to top things off it landed inside the blade tilting mechanism and in doing so adjusted itself so that no matter how much shaking, banking and poking it was never going to fall loose. In one split second butter finger moment, dropping my drill bit had successfully disabled not only my ability to drill and countersink the holes needed to fit the gunwales but had also disabled the table saw and hence my ability of cutting the remaining gunwales. The table saw required a complete strip down to retrieve my bit. Please also bear in mind that I had spent the best part of half an hour searching for the damn thing and it was only in one of those "I wonder" moments that I had peered down into the depths of the saw only to see the damn drill bit staring back at me.
The day did not end well either. Todays use of sharps and power tools meant that the danger stakes were always going to be high. A table saw, a router, drill, tenon saw, three different chisels, stanley knife, two different sanding machines... I could go on! So which one do you think gave me the gash across the base of my thumb. A deep gash at that and one which could well have rendered me useless for the day had it not happened right on last knockings. Well readers, I can reveal to you now that it was none of these death inducing implements! Whist clearing up at the end of my day I lifted a box containing some left over papers from my sons paper-round and as I did so a one of the papers revealed it's ugly brutish and uncaring nature and slashed me across the ball of my thumb. I had become the victim of a brutal paper cut attack and once again sod had demonstrated it's relentless desire to implement it's own rule of law!
Injuries 1 (A bad gash to the thumb)
Time Spent 5 Hours
Blood factor 5/10
Hello once again fellow bloggers, readers and boat building buddies. As you can see my followers increased in number this week by a massive two fifths and I'm now confident of hitting double figures before the end of the build. I thought it time to catch up with some updates as once again readers I am behind by a couple of days.
Last Sunday was indeed day seventeen and was largely given over to the creation of the inner gunwales and fitting two of them to half number one the aft section or the fore section...whatever! In addition I spent a fair portion of time cutting to shape the piece of wood that be needed to run across the top of the bulkhead to meet the inner gunwales. This is far harder than it sounds as the piece has be cut and shaped in three directions to take the shape of the boat from back to front, as well as top to bottom, as well as meet the gunwales at the right angle and take into account the slight slope of the bulkhead and...and... and...see, it's a very hard piece to shape! Needless to say I went through three lengths of wood before giving up and vowing to do better on another day.
After a trial fit of the gunwales I had ripped to size on my trusted table saw it was obvious
there was no way on this earth they were going to bend enough to follow the curve and contour of the boat. Being deeper that the outer gunwales meant they were much more resistant to bending. I decided a compromise was needed and so slimmed them down somewhat to make life a little easier. I also routed some sections out of the gunwales which would allow any water left in the canoe to drain out when stored upside down, and it makes them look pretty! Rather handily it also made the gunwales more flexible and I was able to easily bend them into shape. Anyone would have thought I planned it that way! Actually I did but no-ones ever going to believe me. I dry fitted the gunwales into place but they'll have to come off again later to be poxied. The boat is really feeling quite rigid and strong now.
A large part of my day, and I mean over an hour, was spent looking for my countersink drill bit. I only have the one and losing it meant the project was stalled until I could find or replace it. When eventually I did find it I couldn't quite believe how well "sod" had implemented it's long, pointless and ever recurring law. Out of interest, probably to me only, I took some measurements. The gap between the table saw blade and the edge of the blade slot in the table is ten millimeters.
The widest part of the drill bit is nine millimeters! For this drill bit to have fallen in the direction of the slot is one thing. The chances of it landing at such an angle that it could fall through the slot is astonishing and then to top things off it landed inside the blade tilting mechanism and in doing so adjusted itself so that no matter how much shaking, banking and poking it was never going to fall loose. In one split second butter finger moment, dropping my drill bit had successfully disabled not only my ability to drill and countersink the holes needed to fit the gunwales but had also disabled the table saw and hence my ability of cutting the remaining gunwales. The table saw required a complete strip down to retrieve my bit. Please also bear in mind that I had spent the best part of half an hour searching for the damn thing and it was only in one of those "I wonder" moments that I had peered down into the depths of the saw only to see the damn drill bit staring back at me.
The day did not end well either. Todays use of sharps and power tools meant that the danger stakes were always going to be high. A table saw, a router, drill, tenon saw, three different chisels, stanley knife, two different sanding machines... I could go on! So which one do you think gave me the gash across the base of my thumb. A deep gash at that and one which could well have rendered me useless for the day had it not happened right on last knockings. Well readers, I can reveal to you now that it was none of these death inducing implements! Whist clearing up at the end of my day I lifted a box containing some left over papers from my sons paper-round and as I did so a one of the papers revealed it's ugly brutish and uncaring nature and slashed me across the ball of my thumb. I had become the victim of a brutal paper cut attack and once again sod had demonstrated it's relentless desire to implement it's own rule of law!
Tuesday, 28 February 2012
Day 16 What a beautiful smooth bottom you have ;-)
Tea Count 1
Injuries 0
Time Spent 5 Hours
Stickiness Dust Factor 1000/10
Injuries 0
Time Spent 5 Hours
Sorry once again for the belated post but after much rigorous right arm action I felt truly unable to type following my day of bottom smoothing on Saturday. Doing her bottom, was not too taxing and much easier than getting around all her nooks and crannies inside and I finally managed to feather out her seams ready for another coating. Hopefully you will of course have guessed that I am talking once again about my favourite pastime of sanding rather than assume I have a new hobby of writing bad porn scripts!
Whilst this is possibly the most tedious of activities I was going to be much rewarded in the afternoon as I had promised myself some construction. Bilge runners and gunwales! Who on earth thought of all these weird names? Fitting the bilge runners (that be the bits of wood than run along the bottom to stop it scrapping along the river bed when it sinks) was a fairly straight forward exercise albeit arms two feet longer would have been useful to be able to work on the inside and outside at the same time. The gunwales on the other hand was another matter. I've read about people making steamers to help bend and twist the gunwales into shape, in hindsight I can see why. Bending an eight foot strip of wood into a gentle curve is one thing but then bending in another plane at the same time and getting it to twist to match the shape of the canoe still at the same time took every inch of strength I could muster. I used all four of my G clamps but could have done with a dozen more and at least twice as many arms that I was born with.
As you can see from the photo I not only succeeded in attaching the gunwales but also turned the patio in the back garden into something resembling a boat yard slash bomb site! Also of note in the photograph are the rather spooky "devil eyes" watching me work. Freaky huh? Still, it was a satisfying day with all planned activities completed. I find it helps to make the plan of activities retrospectively at the end of the day, that way I always achieve my goals and often far exceed them!
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