An Eventful Day

Today was an eventful day, but not on the boatbuilding front. I walked into the office like any normal Monday. That is, grumpy and despondent that I didn't have a random orbital sander in my hands. That changed at about 9:30 when I received an email from our division president.

A short time later, his admin found me on Sametime and wanted to confirm I got the email and would make it to this all-important 10:00. I said sure. I won't get into any major personal / personnel issues, but suffice to say I didn't expect to hear what I heard. My boss' boss and his 3 directs (one of whom was my boss of 3 years) were walked out about an hour earlier. An admin came up for their jackets but that was the last I saw of them. Now, I have to admit a part of me wishes I was in that group, because then I could concentrate on PocketShip and other things, but the vast majority of me expressed the sentiment as, "Holy f7ck!"

There was not much work done today as a result. Half my meetings were either with my boss or the business lead. So us remaining minions just shot the shat for awhile and wondered how we avoided the same fate. I find out on Friday what my new job will be. I'm sure it will be outstanding. When I got home, my wife and I headed up to a new Chinese buffet where we gorged ourselves on every available sea critter. Our neighbors joined us and we had a good chat. It was nice not to think about work for a little bit.

Continuing the theme of total destruction, my belt sander died today when it decided to suck up the front of my work sweater. It ripped it clear off my body and fried itself before I could shut it off. It scared the crap out of me, but probably scared my sweater more. It was a nice sweater but I can't say it was a nice sander. The sanding belt kept creeping out of alignment and the thing was dang heavy. It was also the only used power tool I bought off eBay (the Rigid planer is refurbished, technically) and will be the last. I put an order in for a new Porter Cable sander that all the reviews raved about but won't break the bank. Unfortunately, that means I can't get to the real nasty squeeze out from the centerboard trunk until Wednesday when the new sander arrives.

Suicide by sweater.

More good news: I rounded over the boom gallows and discovered that I cut too deeply with the band saw so I have these gouges along one of the rounded edges. Not pretty. I'm trying the old woodworker's trick of sawdust and glue to fill the gaps but I'm resigned to the "white edge" design of so many boom gallows these days. I think the white edges looks great. I just wasn't planning on it. I'll sand that back down and see where it leaves me before the final epoxy coating.

Filling the gap with a little saw dust and glue.

Without being able to remove the hardened epoxy from the sides of the centerboard trunk (the piece with the hole in it) I dry fit the glue up and tested alignment after lightly sanding everything down one last time. Pleasantly surprised all things are a go, including that little gremlin of a timber block I made the other day. I also did a little spring cleaning in the shop and moved my tools back to their homes.

Everything lines up pretty well.

The pivot hole (not visible here) near the front of the keel aligns really well with the centerboard trunk's. It's hard to appreciate how big this is from this photo. It's about 8 feet across. I have a little table extension near the bottom of the picture and the keel blocking towards the upper right is up against the wall. My furnace is the object to the lower left. That means if I want to get from where this photo was taken, which is the entrance to the shop from the family room downstairs, I have to crawl under the aft part of the keel and shimmy on over.

I crawl under this to get out while the glue up is underway.

I envy those people who have all the space in the world to build this thing. I think they would look at my workspace and laugh all the way back to their heated barns.