She's Waiting...

Gloriously sunny day with temperatures in the low 40s (F) today... Enough to lift the spirits but not enough to clear a foot or so of ice and snow away from the barn door. It may not look like much, but those doors are not opening any time soon. Okay, maybe sometime soon - but not today.

And she's waiting (puts me in mind of an Eric Clapton song)... Yes, Gardens is waiting for me to get back to work on her. Meanwhile, down in the basement work continues on the boomkin, refitting the mizzen boom hardware and painting the rudder.

Disappearing Snow

Work continues on the spars: planing, ripping, and notching staves for the mizzen mast, main yard and boom; varnishing and painting the boomkin; and, installing new (more suitably sized) hardware on the mizzen boom. Gluing up the spars is next. The main mast will come later - hopefully after gaining some experience with these smaller spars.

We were out of town for five days. When we returned, most of the snow - but not all - had disappeared. The main barn doors are still snowed shut but I can get into the barn to begin setting up to resume work on Gardens' hull. Maybe, if we go away for another five days, the temperatures will warm a bit more... and work on the hull can continue.

Wishful Thinking

Not much boat building activity to report as we are on the West Coast attending memorial services for my cousin. Before leaving town I applied the first three coats of varnish to the boomkin. Work on the boomkin will continue next week. The hardware for the mizzen boom and the boomkin should arrive mid-week so I can get that installed and be done with those two spars. I am hopeful that the predicted warmer temperatures will have done away with much of the snow this weekend... wishful thinking, I know.

Mizzen Boom Revisited

Not quite done… The pad-eyes installed on the boom are too large and there aren't enough of them…

Using the Rigging page from Joel's Navigator Site, I've redone my hardware list and will be ordering new bits and pieces.

Since the correct pad-eyes are smaller, the fasteners will have to be redone. True, only one hole per each oversized pad-eye will have to be refilled. But new holes will need drilling/filling/redrilling - and then repainting…

I need to remember that nothing is ever really "done" on a wooden boat project.

Mizzen Boom

The mizzen boom is (finally) done: varnished, painted and hardware installed.

Rustoleum products were used:

• Spar Varnish
• Marine Wood and Fiberglass Primer
• Marine Topside Paint

All were applied using 1" foam brushes, bought in bulk for about 18¢ per brush.

I used yellow Frog Tape and was both surprised and pleased with the crisp edge of the white paint.

Odds & Ends, Bits & Pieces…

Winter weather keeps us inside. Oh, today's bright, sunny skies look great - but looks can be deceiving. The temperature is 5° F which makes it much too cold to do anything productive outside.

Not much "visible" progress this week. I sanded, planed and sanded the birdsmouth test piece and it looks pretty darn (that's d-a-r-n) good.

I haven't gotten back over to my BIL's shop to turn the other piece on the lathe but someday soon…

Ever notice how when looking for a tool or supplies or just about anything, really, information about that tool, supplies or whatever sort of magically appears? Some call it coincidence but it happens much too often to be coincidence. A case in point, last week I brought my epoxy set-up home from my sister's place. The condiment squeeze bottles I use for dispensing resin and hardener needed replacing. Condiment bottles are hard to come by in Michigan in late February… Amazon has bottles (they have everything except decent employment practices) and I made a note to order some. Then - and I do mean right then - I read Bob Easton's blog post about repurposing ketchup and honey bottles to dispense glue. The result? I repurposed a ketchup bottle and a mustard bottle (red duct tape = hardener):

The varnishing of the spars continues, although this may be an exercise in futility (more on this in a bit).

The mizzen boom has been fitted with hardware. Painting of the ends began with the first coat of primer.

We drew scale drawings to compare the GIS sail to the balance lug John Welsford drew up. I am pleased that the two sails are very similar in area and, more importantly, location of the CE. I plan to use Karen Ann's balance lug sail on Gardens - at least for awhile.

I have become so enamored with the prospects of birdsmouth spars that I plan to build a set to replace the original yard and boom built for Karen Ann (the reason why continued varnishing of the boom may be an exercise in futility; and yes, I will have a surplus of spars…). I mentioned this possibility in an earlier post but now I have definitely decided on the new spars. Mik Storer suggested increasing the diameter of the yard (from the plan specs) and gave me an idea for an oval x-section boom.

Those new spars will have to wait until warmer weather. I need to dig out the Volvo wagon to get the 12' lumber home from the lumber yard.

Like I said, not a lot of "visible" progress but it feels like things - odds & ends, bits & pieces -are getting done.

Sample Birdsmouth Spar Blanks

Yesterday I glued up two short spar blanks using epoxy. Here's one of them.

Today I cut the ends of one blank flush and trimmed the corners to get a nice octagonal shape. I used a drum sander to trim the corners - not the quickest way to do it but with my planes in the other shop and cabin fever setting in, I used what I had available. I'll take the second blank to my brother-in-law's shop for turning on a lathe.

I used pieces of a round dowel for plugs, which worked for this experiment but I think I'd want to cut octagonal plugs for the real spars.

Some thoughts and observations from this experiment:

• Use a squeeze bag or caulking gun tubed epoxy to facilitate spreading the thickened epoxy.
• Use enough epoxy for some (but not a lot) squeeze-out to ensure good glue joins. Use enough epoxy around the plugs to ensure filling of the spaces between the plugs and the wall of the spars.
• Assemble the spar in two halves - glue up two sets of four staves and clamp together but do not glue the two halves together. This makes coating the inside surfaces of the spar with epoxy simpler and less messy (if that is possible with epoxy). It also reduces, by two, the sets of mating surfaces to be coated with neat and thickened epoxy.
• Use wax paper or parchment paper underneath the hose clamps.
• Have enough hose clamps on hand.
• Try not to coat the handle of the screwdriver with epoxy (transferred from squeeze-out to glove to screwdriver)…

Using the Birdsmouth Calculators it occurred to me that by tapering the staves as shown in the illustration, the inside of the spar is tapered as well as the the outside. This creates - in my mind - an obstacle: how does one accurately cut tapered octagonal plugs? Or is this not really an obstacle/issue?

One other factor to take into account is John Welsford's note on the sail-plan drawing: "taper outside not the inside space." I am not visualizing a straight-forward way to taper and notch the staves prior to assembly. Any suggestions on how to do this?