If Only I Had Some Vicks VapoRub...

So, is it a bad thing when you're hands feel like they're vibrating 2 hours after you're done using an oscillating sander? I'm pretty sure I've lost blood flow in my hands today and collapsed a few capillaries. However, the centerboard is taking shape after sanding away for more than 2 hours on it. I'm pretty sure my neighbors hate me, but they need to suck it up b/c I have many many more hours of boatbuilding to go. I must say though, using the epoxy to create a leading and trailing edge on the board is a pretty cool idea. It will now stand up to many underwater hazards in it's hopefully long life. Next step is to find some lead, melt it down and pour it in that hole. The centerboard trunk is essentially done too, I'll finish sanding that down and rout down the sharp edges that will be part of the cockpit upon completion tomorrow afternoon. I also need to start epoxying the keel together tomorrow. Hopefully I can get the keel blocking right so the keel isn't twisted.

On another note, I have decided I love my respirator. I feel like Darth Vader in that thing. I can literally hear the funky breathing sounds as the positive and negative pressure valves release with each breath. I'm thinking this should be part of a disturbing halloween costume somehow. Hmm, how can I rig a respirator to supply alcohol to my mouth? Thoughts? Also, at the suggestion of my roommate, I will now use this apparatus to clean my bathroom (I do share my bathroom with a stinky mexican after all) It's probably not a good idea to inhale as many noxious Tilex vapors as I have in my lifetime anyway. I also want to use a public toilet with it on, pull it off as I'm walking out and say to an incoming user, "Good Luck!"

Oh, and if you understand the title of this post then you understand my sordid past ;)

"Those Who Understand History, Are Condemned to Watch Other Idiots Repeat It"

Therefore, I officially label myself an idiot. I am absolutely no good at judging how much epoxy to use at a given instance, especially in hot weather. See... epoxy is a funny material, it acts in the exact opposite way you would think a strong adhesive would act. Most glues when spread thin tend to dry quicker than if they were a solid blob of goo. Epoxy reacts in the exact opposite manor. A big thick mass (as in a mixing cup) will actually cure much more rapidly than a thin film spread across a large surface area. Oh, and when it's a thick mass it generates lots of heat. You can see what happened to my mixing cup in the above photo. Apparently thickened epoxy doesn't agree with polyethylene. On a more progressive note, all the pieces for the keel are now cut out. I would have epoxied more pieces together today but I ran out of clamps. I need more clamps. Lots more. Oh well, it will be a fairly simple thing to do after work during the week. I also hope to get the centerboard shaped and the full keel assembled and ready for the lead pours next weekend. Hopefully I'll have pictures that actually look like they came from a real boat soon!

I Like Sex and Boats (not Candy)...

I got a fairly late start today because I decided I would go out last night. It wasn't really a thrilling night but it wasn't the bar's fault. There were plenty of cute girls but they were showing The Doors on tv with the closed captioning on. I was entirely too distracted by how fucked up Jim Morrison was. Eventually I got bored of the random girls blatantly showing off cleavage to attract attention. (The friend I was with likes to point out that female humans evolved and grew breasts to turn men on during sex since humans are one of the few species to copulate face-to-face. Most animals do it from behind. I wonder if there is a correlation between being an ass man vs. a boob man and their preferred sexual position?)

Anyway... back to boatbuilding; as I said before I didn't get much done, but I did cut out the pieces for the centerboard and the keelson. I tried to be a badass and cut out a puzzle joint to join the halves of the keelson. I am in fact, not a badass. But regardless with enough thickened epoxy slathered all over the place I'm sure I'll be fine. I clamped the hell out of it for curing, and I'm sure it's nothing a sander won't clean up. I'm thinking I'll go with scarf joints from here on out after all. I layered on a second coat of epoxy onto the centerboard trunk, only one more to go! And I'm excited to get started on shaping the centerboard. Once I have some free time during the week I'll probably apply the last coat of epoxy on the trunk and epoxy the two halves of the centerboard together, I'm guessing that should be fairly quick and easy as an after work task...

Let's Build a Boat!

So... boatbuilding began in earnest this morning upon my return from the local marine supply shop for some epoxy and epoxy tools/safety equipment. I must say, my geographic location has been a blessing for undertaking this project. I have read about a few other people's projects who have to have supplies shipped to them in bulk from a great distance away, and I feel very very fortunate to have a myriad of marine supply shops as well as marine plywood suppliers in the greater Boston area. I can literally buy supplies as I need them avoiding any large lump sum payments (a key factor to allow me to finish such a project). The biggest x-factor I thought was going to be acquiring the okoume plywood. After some brief web research I discovered Boulter Plywood, all of 1 mile from my house. Anyway, onto the boatbuilding.

I started with cutting out the pieces for the centerboard trunk and sanding them down to the exact size, it was pretty fun getting started I had to admit. I then milled down a nice solid piece of mahogany I had laying around into the noseblock. It's probably about 1/16th of an inch shorter than it's supposed to be but I assume I can get away with that. (Apparently the guide marks on my table saw are off by 1/16th on an inch. A good fact to know upfront) Another exciting revelation was the joy of using a block plane. You can see by the mess I made in the last photo that I decided to forego ripping off a large chunk with the table saw (it does still scare me after all) and went after that chunk of wood with zeal with the block plane. Serious fun. My father had a block plane when I was a kid but it was a piece of crap, I bought a new one and that thing is a thing of beauty in action. Apparently I am amused by simple things.

Lastly, I laid down the first coat of epoxy and glass fabric on the insides of the centerboard trunk before calling it a day. I found working with the epoxy to be much easier than I had expected, and with disposable gloves clean up was easy. (I chose this as my last step of the day b/c I figured sawdust floating around the work area and landing on curing epoxy would not be desirable.) Tomorrow is going to be an easy day I think, just cutting out more pieces and applying another coat of epoxy onto the trunk. There's no turning back now...

Gotta Have a Place to Work!

Well, if I'm going to seriously undertake this project I realized I needed a place to work... Well, you can see from the photo above what an afternoon's efforts achieved a couple weeks ago. Based on this experience I must say I am encouraged that my woodworking and architectural skills have not completely disappeared. Glad to know my brain still functions on some basic level. I have since acquired a plethora of additional tools as well, including a 10" table saw that absolutely scares the shit out of me. I grew up using my father's radial arm saw and frankly I was about 16 by the time he let me near it. (With his knowledge) The most threatening power tool I have used since is a very nice power drill I bought in college, not exactly a life threatening tool unless serious misused. (I'm pretty sure Jeffrey Dahmer used to kill people with a drill, not exactly the most useful piece of knowledge but I'm willing to bet that qualifies as "misuse")

Anyway... I'm kind of hoping I still have all my fingers and no additional scars by the end of this project. Somehow I doubt I'll be that lucky...

The Avenging Amateur...

Ok first off, a little about me... I'm a 30 year old living just outside Boston who is quite frankly sick of drunken nights and weekends with the same old people and looking for a new adventure. That being said, I have always been interested in sailing and I have always wanted my own sailboat. I never thought I could afford one however, and as much as I would still like a 60' Beneteau let's be honest it really isn't in my price range to own one. I stumbled across the Chesapeake Light Craft website (Please note shameless plug) not too long ago and really liked the idea of building my own. I thought that I would enjoy it so much more if it were born of my own sweat and tears (let's hope more sweat than tears) And winters in Boston can be pretty miserable so I figured a good project would keep me busy. The reason I chose to build the Pocketship is because it really was everything I was looking for without being too expensive. I can easily store it in my garage while being built and after completion, trailer it around New England and beyond with my horrendously underpowered car, and build it piece by piece avoiding any large lump sum investments. Oh, and it will keep me from being a drunk waste product. Ok, well the drunk part is true at least. Hopefully... (I do work for a prominent local brewery after all)

The other more important reason I decided to undertake this adventure was to regain my childish enthusiasms with constructing something by my own two hands. Too often in modern society we as a culture are addicted to the grab and go lifestyle. I look back in envy at the age of the pioneers who simply built something if they needed it. Need a wagon? Build one. Need a house? Build one. Need a boat? Build one. You get the idea. I will admit I have never built a boat before, nor have I ever built anything of this magnitude. An ex-girlfriend of mine recently lambasted my idea of building a boat and saying she doubts it will even float. I suppose she's right, there is that chance. (She's also my ex and likely finds it her duty to disagree with anything I say or do) Her point I'm assuming is that building something which requires a skill is something best left to the experts. But I am excited about this amateur pursuit. I acquiesce to my humility in that I know very little about boat building, but in my mind there is no better way to learn, than to do. I'm quite sure I will be in more than one situation where I will be uncertain as to how to proceed, ignorant even in fact. However, in doing so I will be obliged to figure out new skills and techniques. A historian named Daniel Boorstin once mused, "in the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are very few." Another favorite quote happens to be, "The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge." I make no claim of knowing what I'm getting myself into, which conveniently happens to be precisely what makes it exciting.