Turning the corner

Jim Hall came by for a day of big fun in the boatshop. We started off making sweet smells, milling out the new Port Orford cedar floor ribs and installing those. Jim scarfed in a new bottom for a rotted rib.

After a pizza break we started making the new bulkheads and screwing them in. The first was the trickiest, as it had to arch up to meet the front decks--which are not there at the moment--so we had to hallucinate where they would be and cut to that. Mmmm hmm. We called it a success and celebrated.

The second bulkhead also required a small celebration.

As did the third.

It was close to quitting time but we were having too much fun and thought we'd clean up the boatman seat real quickly by taking off an extraneous plank. That turned into a bit of a project...

...during which we began feeling like archaeologists, uncovering a lower seat level from an earlier civilization. From what we could tell, this was the original seat when Ronn Hayes ran it as the Betty Boop. Larry Testerman must have raised the seat about four inches, and built up higher oarlocks as well.

Interesting. But to hell with it. With some careful analytical thinking and the help of the Jameson whisky we determined that Larry's higher seat was probably a good call. We removed about another fifty pounds of shaky, rotted wood and got down to the floor. 

At this point we elected to banish ourselves from power tools and admired our handiwork. Here Jim is giving scale to the pile of rotted wood removed so far.