Frozen

Saturday morning I woke up and checked the thermometer. It was stuck at zero. I went back to bed.

My boatwork for the weekend consisted of sorting out my hardware and putting it all into bins.



Over the past few years I have been accumulating a lot of boxes of hardware. It is so much more productive buying by the box because invariably I need one or two more or the project I start the following week needs the same sized fasteners. So I buy by the box which worked fine for awhile but then I started having trouble finding the box I needed and double ordering or taking my container of boxed hardware out to the boat and finding that the only size I didn't have was the one I needed.

I bought one of these bins at Sears for $12 which was pretty cheap. I filled that up and was nowhere close to having all my hardware sorted. So I went back and bought another. Still not enough. Then I couldn't find the bins at the sale price anymore even after hitting every hardware store and mall (Sears) around. I finally broke down and paid $35 for the last box which isn't such a great deal in my opinion. Now I have 'nearly' enough storage. Enough for now and most of my hardware is organized and easy to find.

In retrospect I should have bought some real parts bins from an industrial supplier. They seemed expensive at the time but now that I have three of these cheesy little bins I think I could have had real storage for not that much more. Oh well.

Other than that, I stayed indoors and watched my heating oil tank get lighter by the minute, and a few other things that are just part of normal life.

Maybe next week.

Winter Doldrums

Snow, sub-zero temperatures, and flu virus.

Nothing to report.

I will leave this little trick I just learned and tried out from The Family Handyman magazine.

When drilling large holes for seacocks and such:

Start the hole to outline the cut. Then drill a few small holes along the perimeter. Then go back and cut the primarly hole.



The smaller holes give a place for the chips to exit which frees up the cutting teeth and reduces the heat buildup. Doing a hole this way takes less than half the time for simply boring the large hole. One could say 'but drilling the extra holes takes even longer' -which is true- but it drastically reduces the heat and keeps your hole saw teeth sharp for much longer. You don't have to buy a new hole saw every three or four cuts which seems to be my practice when drilling into thick fiberglass hulls.

Note: I only tried this on wood, not fiberglass but I am assuming it works the same.

In any case, its a free advice and you get what you paid for it.

Plus, nothing you read on the Internet is actually true...

The cherry paneling is still in my basement. I have been ordering a few small bits of tools and supplies as my budget allows. I shovel, sniffle and wait for an opportunity to spend some quality time on the boat.

And that's it for now.

Life is cherry

Sorry, I couldn't think of a good title this week.

I continue to nurse a bad back and the temps remain in the mid 20's (f) so I kept my boat projects close to home this weekend.

I sanded the face surfaces of the cherry paneling rounding and 'softening' the hard edges of the profile...



... and then oiled them.



Here is a preview of what the paneling might look like.



I might actually get some of the paneling installed next weekend. There are a few other non-boat projects in the pipeline that I might have to deal with and the weather is always an issue but I am looking forward to the possibility of installing the cherry paneling next weekend. It might even be time to order the sheets of cherry veneered plywood that will cover the largest portion of the interior. And there is the galley benchtop to frame up too. And a million other small projects I could do to for that matter.

As an old boss used to tell me. "Somedays all you can do is push the ball forward a little bit. Any progress is good progress and progress means you will eventually finish."

Shoveling out.

Monday through Friday is for working to make a living.

Saturday and Sunday are for... shoveling. Once again we had nearly a foot of snow over the weekend so my time was spent shoveling around the house and popping Ibuprofen to keep my back reasonably supple.

No boat work this weekend other than to swing by and make sure everything was okay. (which it was)



I will try again next weekend...