Prep School

There isn't much to do when it's cold outside, so I find myself not doing much at all. I've spent some time reading, working, watching movies, and acing Candy Crush, but little in the way of boatbuilding.

Some might recognize the Yeti.

Oh, yeah, there was New Year's Day, too, which for us this year meant Monsters University, some champagne, St. Germain, and a fireplace. Cozy!

New Year's celebration.

I should also report a casualty. After many years of fine service and much abuse, Sprout leaped off the bedroom table and split his asparagus open. I then promptly raided him for beer money.

RIP, Sprout!

Every now and then, I was able to steal away and run a layer of epoxy down, and it's slow going -- but what's the rush? It's not like I can take these pieces and screw them onto the boat. Not until May, at least. We had our usual winter Winnipeg bagpipe competition cancelled this year, and there's no Chieftains in town, so it's tough to even pull out the bagpipes (that's me third from the right on stage).

That meant figuring out how to epoxy 8' pieces of wood in a 10' basement shop. I "borrowed" three TV dinner stands, layered on some plastic, and behold - a long table. That plus the workbench allowed me to work on two sets at a time. Since some of these pieces laid in the garage for 6 months, they got a little sanding and a wipedown as prep. Good practice, anyway. More annoying was sanding off the "Joubert" stickers and the little nubs that attached them to the kit. However, once epoxy'd, most of these won't get sanded much at all since they will face, essentially, the inside of a sealed box.
 

Cockpit sides and decking ready for epoxy. No 'glass here.

Sides and decking done. Nice tone to the wood. I briefly considered leaving the cockpit bright (about 4 seconds), but no way I can keep that much volume in good enough shape. The "tall" half will be sanded to 120 as that will be painted towards the end. This serves as the inside of the cockpit locker.

Foredeck 'glassed and sanded plus unsanded cockpit sides and seatback decking. The foredeck only got a quality sanding where it would sit aft of bulkhead 1 (about 2/3 aft) since that's the only area visible in the cabin. The seatbacks are uniform in color. That's the shadow of the would be router table darkening the right side.

The centerboard isn't quite done as I laid down a layer of 9 oz 'glass on the leading edge and feathered that in. Something to point out here is that one edge of the 9 oz glass is rather thick. I'm not sure if it's just my roll, but I decided to take no chances with the centerboard and trimmed back the thick area. I lost about 1/2" of width but it was a much easier exercise to feather it down and epoxy. I'm reminded of my efforts with laying 9 oz 'glass at the keelson joint between bulkheads 7, 8, and the transom. It was a bear to get that to feather smooth. When trimmed, it was really easy.

Laid down 9 oz strip here over 2 overlapping 6 oz strips. The edges got feathered down smooth.

Epoxy'd the 9 oz glass down. Looks good. I'm not done sanding here. This was just a quick rub with low grit but will eventually get sanded to 400.

I like to think that I'm preparing for the thaw now that I've 'glassed the underside of the foredeck and cockpit decks. At a minimum, it will take about 2 weeks to finish these, so better to spend 2 weeks when it's below zero outside than 2 weeks stalling boat progress. This extra fiberglass schedule isn't called for in the manual, but what the hey. I need to epoxy them, anyway, and I'll feel a lot better when some slobbo jumps onto the boat from the dock. The cockpit deck will get the usual 3 coats and then it will all be sanded down. Given that the hull sides took about 4 hours each... sigh.

Cockpit decking gets 'glassed. This is the underside - facing the interior of the cabin. The wide part is highly visible in the cabin (it is the area that strides across the centerboard trunk) so had to be ready for prime time.

I plan to head to the Big Box store tomorrow (or maybe even a Big Boy Lumberyard) to source wood for the Macgregor rudder. Let's imagine a rudder that's in rough shape. Now make it rougher. No, rougher. Yes, now you're closer. That's what the rudder is today. Don't believe me?

I'm not sure how this actually steered anything.

The photo doesn't do it justice, as this is only half of the full rudder. The other half looks worse. I contemplated just filling the gaps but my wife (whose boat this is) wants a brand new rudder. I got the, "if you can do it for your boat why can't you do it for mine" thing. New rudder it is!