Lesson learned...

Well, the lesson learned this week was that trying to save galley counter material by leaving openings in the glue up leads to a massive increase in labor. I should have worked an extra half day at my real job and bought the extra wood.

I started the weekend by sanding the epoxy off the new layups. My belt sander with 80 grit sandpaper was completely inadequate for the job and I switched to 40 grit with the DA.

There was some dishing but overall it was working great; until I ran out of sandpaper. More has already been ordered. I got enough sanding done to keep glueing the parts up though. The small sections weren't perfectly aligned or perfectly square (which I knew was going to happen) so I cleaned up the pieces and made them square with my skilsaw. If I haven't mentioned before, I bought some very expensive blades for the skilsaw from Forest. They make an excellent blade that leaves an edge smoother than I could ever sand. I loves those blades. Anyway, because all the bits and pieces were being so ornery and hard to keep in place I glued up the front half of the countertop first.

While getting the aft section ready I noticed a problem with the line up. I should not have been surprised to see that nothing in the pattern I made was square. The aft edge follows the original quasi aft bulkhead. The front edge follows my own interpretation. I also discovered a third point of alignment which was a line created by the 'bridge deck'. This wouldn't be such a big issue except I have cabinets faces going right there and any misalignment will be pretty obvious once the cabinet faces sitting direction the countertop.

A second issue was the small sections I glued up that pass along either side of the sink didn't clamp down to exactly the same dimensions. There is about a quarter of an inch difference. My solution was to add an extra piece to the short side and I will then cut it back to match the longer side. It should be barely obvious in the final product.

The third issue was how far out of square the aft edge was. To cut an edge in line with the aft bulkhead would require cutting through two strips. They are hard to see but I am counting on those strips to anchor the aft edge of the countertop down to the structure. I didn't want to add too many pieces to the back edge to compensate because that section will have some drop down storage and I have a minimum size I have to work around - the size of a dishplate. So... the solution was to create a short wedge shaped piece so that the final three strips would align with the back edge of the countertop area.

To complicate matters, I had to really start thinking about how the storage cabinets were going to tie into the countertop since this would effect where the strips were going to end etc. and... oh... and just to add to the confusion, the pattern of two maple strips to one walnut meant that every time I needed to add or subtract a piece I had to figure out how this would effect the whole pattern.

This is why next time I think I will just buy more material and glue up one big sheet and cut out the sections as necessary. Way over complicated this way.

So... I was able to glue up the aft section of the starboard countertop this morning.

Next steps, after sanding, will be to glue the front and back section together, cut to final shape, and add the drop bottom storage areas. Then of course comes final fitting and building the cherry cabinet faces - which is really the fun part :-)

And lastly, I finally got around to converting my original teak stairway to something useful around the house. I have been wanting a step stool for a while now. Doesn't everyone want a step stool made of teak?...

Em tasol wantoks

Glueing up

I was in Maine last weekend looking over some other boat projects and this weekend I was glueing up more of the butcher block galley counter top.

To save material (I barely had enough as it turns out - 21 board feet wasn't really enough) I didn't make one big piece and instead just put wood where I needed it. That meant lots of cuts and little pieces.

The hole is for the new sink. Under the 'bridge deck' and along the outer edge will be storage areas that will be below the level of the counter top. I just plan on using plywood bottoms for the storage areas and will enclose the outside edge storage space in a locker made of cherry. Basically the same outline as the original Triton.

I was going to put a deep drop in locker behind the sink but the sink goes right to the edge of the 'bridge deck' so there wouldn't be much room for fishing out stuff from under there. I decided to store dishes behind the sink in a shallow drop storage area.

Rather than try to keep all the bits and pieces lined up while the epoxy set up I glued up the smaller pieces first and will link them all together with the full length pieces later. Its been a bit cool in my glueing area (basement) so I didn't feel like the parts were ready to come out of their clamps yet.

Next week for sure. The bigger piece on the glueing table is the center section over the engine box.

Other boat stuff this week involved going to the New England Boat Show. It was worthwhile. I have always grumbled about the big obnoxious 40 foot Sea Ray behemoths but in a spirit of fairness I decided to go on board one this week. I have to say, they might be fun for a weekend. I couldn't never afford them or the $1000 a day gas bill but they might be fun to use for a day. Nothing long term of course..

What I did like, more than the new sailboats actually, were some of the trawler yachts. I think in another 20 years or so I am going to have to give them some serious consideration. I love the roominess and ease of use and they aren't the ugliest things on the way (those Sea Rays might be though...)

I wasn't too excited by any of the sailboats I saw. I like my own best. The new hull designs just don't have the sex appeal of the older generations in my opinion. I did take the opportunity to look at their cabinetry closely and write down some vendor names and part numbers of the stuff I liked.

A friend of mine gave me some point and shoot video footage from a sail last summer so I linked it together in a pretty awful video. As bad as it is, it reminds me of sailing in the summer and it brings a smile to my face.

Summer sailing

Spring is coming :-)

SINK!

The sink has arrived :-)

Now I can start glueing up the starboard galley countertop. I milled up a bit more maple just to make sure I had enough. Funny, I was looking at some old photos of the galley and realized that my idea for the starboard galley counter is pretty close to Pearson's idea as well. After making countless changes I have come back to a layout that is very similar to the original. Oh well, at least I really understand why Pearson made the choices they did now. My galley will be nicer to look at of course.

I also started another extremely important project; the head privacy curtain. I purchased the materials (the green stuff at the left of the photo) and now I just need to find a willing soul with a sewing machine... This project moved up the priority list after a summer on the mooring taking friends out for the day on the boat. Nothing spoils a good friendship like seeing your friend on the can. The privacy curtain should make that aspect of small boats a lot nicer. It really should have been done sooner.

Actually doing something

Sometimes I surprise myself. A chance encounter with a high end carpenter/cabinet maker friend of mine led to an invitation to his place to mill up my maple for the butcher block countertop.

I am still looking around for a table saw but in the meantime I had a chance to work in a very very nice professional shop. While I was snooping a bit, my friend ducked out and came back with some offcuts of walnut telling me that I needed some accents. He insisted I take quite a bit of walnut to mix in with my maple. Then he absolutely refused any sort of payment other than paying for his next breakfast at the local greasy spoon.

My friend, Barry Moore, specializes in old home restoration. If you need that sort of work done or need some nice cabinets made you can check him out at http://www.moorecustomwoodworking.com/

So, yesterday, I made a visit to Jenny and removed my patterns for the galley countertops. Before taking them out I made some notes for final fitting and locations of stuff I had to be careful to work around - i.e. edge of the 'bridge deck' so I didn't build a lift up top that wouldn't open because it hit the underside of the deck...

This morning I had the maple and walnut milled up. I thought that would be a suitable amount of work accomplished today but my friend, Barry, gave me a stern look and told me that I WILL be gluing this up today or else I would be very sorry later.

As it turns out, the addition of the walnut was crucial as I think I would have run short of the maple. I started with the port side countertop which will be the simpler side to construct with just one lift up lid to the locker below and a stove mounted in front. I wanted to lay out enough for a flip over lid to cover the stove but I wasn't sure I had enough material so I just laid out enough to make the main piece.

and then I glued it up.

I was going to use a high quality water proof glue but Barry suggested I just use WEST system and since I have 3-4 gallons of resin left it made sense to me too.

So then I started laying out the pieces for the starboard side which will incorporate the sink, dish/cup storage and cooking supplies storage. I didn't have enough materials to simply make one big piece and cut out the bits later and I was thinking of framing the sink cutout with my new walnut anyway so I had to stop since I don't have a sink yet to take accurate measurements.

I have been looking and looking for a sink and I only found one that I was happy with through a commercial distributor. The reason I am having a hard time finding a sink is because I need a shallow one since the waterline is only 5-6 inches below the level of the countertop (I still need to accurately measure this and I might have to raise the sink up a bit) and it has to be on the small size to fit on the small counter space. Most of what I was finding was in the $400+ range which seemed rediculous. Lewis Marine has a 14x10 with 5 inch depth for $129 which seems pretty reasonable.

I could either buy more maple or only make the countertop for the exposed portions around the sink. I really don't need butcher block under the dishes and cooking supplies and actually recessing them a bit might make for better storage volume so I think I am going to hold off on glueing the starboard side until I can match the sink with the framing. The pieces are so short that I am not too worried about the stern looks from my friend.

Or maybe I will partially glue up the countertop and finish around the sink later. I am a little short of swork pace with the port side galley top setting up anyway so for the moment I have to stop.

Typical January Progress

which is to say... 'Not much'. The winter holidays are over except for the credit card bills and I made some efforts (mostly mental) towards accomplishing something.

I purchased the wood last week that will become the galley countertop; maple. I had hopes of cutting it with the bandsaw but three inches into the first cut made it clear that plan was faulty. Even with my (relatively) thick ripping blade the cut was too wavy and the idea of sanding out the hard maple made me stop and re-consider.

The backup plan was to coerce a friend into cutting up the wood for me. Unfortunately, my friends seem to have caught on to my methods and they were unusually scarce last weekend.

I was going to try extra hard and find one this weekend but the single digit winter temperatures dissuaded me. Instead I spent the weekend researching table saws. Money is tight, especially after the holidays, but ramping up the interior work without a table saw has also had its challenges. Doing all my ripping with a skilsaw to any decent standard is annoyingly time consuming and painful to say the least. I am zeroing in on a contractor saw from Rigid mn 4512 (Home Depot) or the same saw with the Craftsman colors painted on it for about $500. Its not a super saw but its not complete junk either and I don't think I will throw tantrums every time I try and use it. 'Good Enough' is about all I can hope for right now. The $3000 cabinet saw will have to wait another year or so. I would have pulled the trigger on the purchase already except I am hoping to find a deal and the low temperatures and my unheated garage means I wasn't going to assemble it this weekend anyway.

Maybe next week.

I hope I don't continue to say that too often this year...

Jenny herself is looking snug and safe and other than a few small chafes on the tarp there is nothing to be worried about there.

Stay warm :-)

Slap Me.

I have been a very naughty boy. I just realized it has been two months since I last updated this blog.

I could list the reasons, the latest being a nasty computer virus, but no one really cares, and it is still my fault anyways.

The main reason for the lack of postings is because there has been a lack of progress. The only real thing accomplished was putting Jenny to bed for the winter.

Nothing too fancy this year. Last year I spent more time building a winter cover than I spent actually working on the boat so this year I went with a simple ridgepole and tarp. I can open the tarp if I want to but I don't plan on working inside of the boat much this winter. I did all the usual winterization stuff - nothing worth noting there. I re-used the framework around the bottom of the boat to secure the tarp to. I did not realize at the time that without the bow frames tying the bottom framework and the ridgepole that there was nothing to keep the bottom framework from being pulled up by the tarp. I have one 2x4 that goes under the keel and holds the framework down but the ends still want to fly up. My solution was to take the re-bar that kept the bottom frame in position last year and bend the ends over like candy canes and drive them in over the top of the frame.

The ground is pretty soft and the re-bar is not staying in too well so I wound up going to Home Despot and buying the tube sand at $3 for a 60 pound bag and laying a few across the frame until the ground freezes.

The holidays are taking up my time at the moment but the next project is to take the galley counter top mockup and start making a real countertop. That should start in the next few weeks.

Just for fun I thought I would include pictures from previous winter covers.

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Sorry again for the lack of postings. I will try to be better.

God Jul og Godt Nytt År!!