Thirteen Days

Days Five through Nine

The last post got us through Day Four. The hull is finished and fiberglassed, so we roll her up. Now begins the hard part: Decking. Cross members are cut, fit, and installed. Hatch landings are fit in, and all are guttered for draining. 

Once the framing is finished and installed, we spile in the decks.

Day Ten

Time out for bronzecasting. Mike's sweetheart Claire has been carving patterns for washers and the breastplate. These we pound into the sand and cast, along with the oar stands and bow and stern eyes.

The day's booty

My camera has been drinking. A fine night's celebration.

And hogtying in the loft. (??!!)

 Day Eleven

The money cut: After an hour or two of pondering the placement of the gunwales, Mike cuts the sheer line as Janek and I originally drew it back in January. And it is still sweet.

And on go the gunwales. We frame the artwork. It is Amber's last day on the job and she has to catch the 2am shuttle. So why not work until midnight? All gunwales on and bolted, left gunwales ground, routed, sanded, and oiled. If only we'd had more time we'd have gotten the right ones finished off too.

Day Twelve.

Right gunwales finished out. Oh my. So pretty.

Oar stands all on. As it turns out, the propellors Mike brought down to melt down and cast these parts out of, were made of something far harder than my drill bits. That slowed us down some.

With one day to go, we get the gutters fiberglassed and call it a night.

Day Thirteen.

Hatch lids all made, placed, fit, and hinged. Too busy to take pictures of the process, I guess.

After dinner we fit the bow cap and stern trim, grind and sand it into form, oil it, and call it a wrap. Cricket is in the bow hatch signing the bow post.

There's still a bit for Mike to do--install latches, a bit of fiberglassing in the footwells, paint, and so forth. But by and large she's a boat. We bid adieu.

 After a day in a coma, Pat and I go down and dig out the shop. All set for the next mess.

Wild Child is born

Mike's first dory was Wild Thing. A full rockered, narrow-tailed McKenzie with a 1" thick floor and 5/8" sides. She was a portly gal, weighing in at over 800 pounds empty and drawing, her previous owner said, eleven inches unloaded. Mike and I did a bit of work on Wild Thing's hatches and decks last spring, got her salable, and he was able to find a new owner for her in Oregon. 

So now we are going to build his new dream boat, along the lines of Bears Ears, the Briggs-plus-25% that I designed and built last winter. My brief autumn holiday ended Monday evening when Mike showed up with a trailer heaped with plywood and Port Orford cedar. We off-loaded it and went to bed, ready to start the build the next day. The boat's shop name is Wild Child. 

Day 1

We started out milling a bunch of cedar for the rib sections.

Meanwhile Bryan and I ground away at the floor plywood, making four pieces into one great big one.

Inside Mike, Cricket, Chelsea, and Pat began milling out and assembling ribs.

With with 42-feet of 8:1 bevels ground along the edges of the half-inch plywood sheets, we assembled them into a really big, heavy thing.

You gotta eat sometime.

Day 2

We schlepped the big heavy floor blank outdoors for a bit of clean-up and prep work.

We scarfed Wild Child's side panels and got them glued up.

And went to work finishing off the ribs, installing bulkheads, making a transom, and carving the rolling bevel into the bowpost.

Almost ready to build a boat.

Day 3

Mike is making a nice flat edge on the two side-panels so we can cut and drill them identically in one fell swoop.

Two panels being cut...

...marked, and drilled.

And the games begin. Fasten the sides to the bow post and start installing ribs.

And hour and a half later it looks a lot like a boat.

Clean up the chine and prepare to install the floor.

Cricket is inside the boat working on the inner chine, which is composed of long, thick strips of wet, gooey, biaxial fiberglass.

And we seal Cricket permanently into the boat.

Day 4

Oh my. It snowed. I guess winter is really going to come.

Time to fill screw holes and smooth out the chine corner.

Dress Wild Child in her finest silk.

And impregnate her!

Not bad for four days' work. I wonder if Cricket is still in there?

Procrastinatory Endeavors

A few stories from earlier this summer before I'm ready to acknowledge winter. 

Cline Library Special Collections over at Northern Arizona University is doing a one year display in honor of Grand Canyon National Park's 100th anniversary. They asked if they could borrow a boat. I figured my Buzz Holmstrom replica, Julius, would love to escape my dark, cold loft and show off for a while. The trick was to get her 475 pounds up the spiral stairs. Kelly at the library made a full-scale mock-up of sticks and string and found that technically, the boat could go up the curving stairwell. But she's a bit awkward to carry around. No problem: Call the Firemen Movers.

They didn't even slow down. Stop by Special Collections and say hi.

My friend Bruce had a wee run-in with the left side of Lava Falls and left the ends of his boat behind. Five days in the shop and she's as good as new.

A very nice photographer named Amanda came by the shop to play, and sent me some pictures. Here I am happily at work, but I'm not sure my hands are that pleased with me.

Well, anyhow, the river season drew to a close, Andy and I ran up to Idaho to get the old Keith Stele boats, and then it was time to get to work. But there are so many things a fellow can find to do when work is about to rear its ugly head. Like play on the roof. Got to get those pine needle out of the gutters and soak in the view.  Here's the shop as seen from the house roof.

And the house as seen from the shop roof.

You know it's severe procrastination when a fellow cleans up three years' worth of clutter in the boathouse loft.

And really, I don't know how I lived this long without painting my trailer fenders in proper dory colors.

And that one forty-foot pine tree that was touching the house, being a fire hazard, and shading the solar array. Now it's top twelve feet have become a fine Christmas tree. Flamingo tutu compliments of Astrid.