Well, I didn't get the fabric covering on the bottom today after all. A combination of things took up too much of the day.
I gave a neighbor a ride to a doctor's office on the way to the sail loft to pick up our boat's sail, and I didn't pick it up after all; the sailmaker was concerned that the way he'd sewn brass thimbles along the luff left the metal edges of the thimbles exposed, which would certainly chew up the mast over time. He had an idea how to wrap the thimbles with webbing, which sounded good to me, so I left the sail with him. The sail does look great. He reinforced all the corners well and on his own initiative sewed a reinforced seam along the vertical reef points to give the cloth support when reefed. I am well pleased with my choice of sailmakers. He has shown more interest and insight than I expected, considering that my little sail is such small potatoes.
By the time I'd retrieved my neighbor from her doctor's office and stopped at a pharmacy, it was too late to start the fabric covering job, so I spent most of the afternoon working on the spars. I sanded the sprit and the club, and then I sanded them some more. The only certain thing about making a round spar is that it will never be perfectly round, but I did try. Actually, let me qualify that: I've read of large spars being turned on giant lathes, which would indeed make them perfectly round, but that is a power tool I do not and will not have.
After getting the little club spar as round and smooth as I could, I gave it a first coat of varnish. Before applying any finish to the sprit, there were small knot holes and lamination voids which I filled and left to cure. The sprit and especially the mast will be exposed to the weather, so before varnishing them I want them sealed with a coat of penetrating epoxy. I coated the mast, which made it look more than ever like a real spar instead of the raw fir timber it started as.
I still had time, so I did a bit of work on the coaming, which will be laminated of two thicknesses of 6mm plywood. I had made a rough pattern from doorskin strips, and today I cut the top and bottom edges on the pattern. When I next have a little time for that project, I can trace the pattern on plywood and start to make the two actual coaming pieces.
The fabric coating on the exterior of the boat? Maybe I'll actually get to do that tomorrow>
Oh, come on. I bet if you had put your mind to it, with all the spare bike parts you have lying around, you could have created an improvised lathe. I'm sure Mrs. Strongback would have been happy to provide the power, too!
ReplyDelete-- Mike