Tweedle Dum

Tonight I finished the last of the epoxy and fiberglass on the boat*. Tomorrow I'll start the final sanding and then painting. Got some paint at Home Depot. Pretty sure I've shored up, epoxied, and glassed more than I need to on "it's just a rowboat" and I am really confident the Tweedle Dee will take about a third of the time to do now that I know what I'm doing.

Jill and the kids are visiting relatives tonight, so I enjoyed some late boat work and the rain. I've done my obsessive reading about boats and boat building, and when I'm not working on it I'm thinking about working on it, or the next one, or the next next one. But when I'm in the garage working on it time stands still and the only thing I'm thinking about it wood, water, epoxy, and sandpaper. It's nice to have a meditation like that.

* The oars still need some epoxy and glassing, but since I'm clamping one of them with every clamp I've got right now, it'll take a few more days to finish up the second one.

Catching Up: Part 1

The photo album server took a nosedive late last fall. It took a long time to recover the drive, then get the server working again, get the network set up properly and debugged, and get the new photos indexed. And then there was the whole sewer incident. It's been a long road. But things are moderately stable and I feel maybe a little somewhat hesitantly confident that they're back in working order. We'll see. :)

But in order to catch everyone up, I'm going to make some posts here in my blog summarizing and linking to all of the photo albums you've missed since then! Enjoy! (click on the links to see albums, or the year/date to see the whole month.

2008 - November

Robert and Jill in their Wii Halloween costumes

Thanksgiving

2008 - December

December was a happy holiday month, of course. The kids made gingerbread houses, christmas wish lists, and artistic and toylike creations. We put up a tree and took portraits in front of it. Robert had a couple of different birthday parties, since he was turning 40! We got to see the Michigan cousins, bubbles, and pretend northern lights. After a traditional Christmas Eve with the Hubbes families, we had a nice little new years eve. (I can't believe we managed to miss taking pictures of the Mipros, will check back on that one. We were having a bit of a house plumbing meltdown problem at the time..)

2009 - January

The month of the sewer issues. We took a lot of pictures of the long, drawn out drama. Thirty days without a fully functional plumbing system - in January! We went to Bear Lake with the McAneney's, Lily graduated from a gymnastics class, and Robert connected with his TNR friends by bowling.

Lily had a birthday, received some great presents, and later dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood. Robert is still working at Nazca, the kids are still kinda crazy, and it's cold out.

Next installment: February 2009!

.. progress ..

It's always a good thing to make some progress.

• Finished filleting the inside seams
• Taped inside seams
• Began work on supports, finished mid-ship support and fore-side supports
• Rough cut all support pieces
• Removed braces, boat didn't snap in half or anything traumatic, yay!

Got some more hardware, clamps, drill bits, etc. That was exciting, as always. :) And I'm not counting it on the boat total. In fact, I'm not counting the prices or hours of the boat. I've learned that it's all about the process, all about the craft, and all about the journey.

I'm also so much more embedded in the idea of a chugger. Oh, and did I mention the Tweedle-Dee won't likely nest in the 'Dum? Those added supports and all. But that's ok. The intention of the two was that "there is another one somewhere", just like in the movie.

New Mantra: "It's just a rowboat" - replaced "that's for the shop, it's not included in the cost of the boat"

FLIPPED!

Sanded the rest of the bottom and flipped* her. Got another gunwale on and the inner and outer gunwales on the transom. Also got a whole side of the inner seam filleted and glassed. I know already that I'll have to go back over it and do the epoxy thing on the stitchpoints a bit, but otherwise it looks good. Used a little different tape as well as a new mantra ("It's only a rowboat") and the fiberglassing job looks better already.

Jill's dad is coming to town this weekend and I'm rushing to get as much done as possible in an effort to get her painted before he can see my shoddy glassing and sanding job. :) Actually I want to get the grunt work done so I can work on some of the detail stuff and show off with the scrollsaw.

I should get to work on those oars, too.

* When building a larger boat the transition from working on the hull (upside down boat) to working on the righted portion seems to be a big deal. And rightfully so. Often it's been a long, long time and a lot of hard work to finish the bottom of the boat. It's also one of those times when you have to call all your friends and get them to help you turn it over. So when you finally get it flipped not only have you worked really hard, but it's time for the fun building stuff to start.