A Bad Hair Day

Things are getting a little out of order in this blog since some stuff happened on the Sea Scull that I haven't gotten around to posting yet. But since these blogs are backwards, WTF does order matter?

You know how people sometimes have bad hair days? I never have a bad hair day because my hair is bad every day. But, I do have bad shop days. And I have drop days.

Have you ever had a drop day? That is when everything you touch, you drop. Like the day starts off by dropping the butter knife onto the kitchen floor. If no one saw it, I put the knife back in the butter dish. On drop days, I am especially aware of what I hold and don't hold. Like babies, I never hold someone else's baby on a drop day. It is OK to drop your baby, but never drop your neighbor's baby.

Then there was the time that I dropped the gallon jug of pickles. The only places that you can buy a gallon jug of pickles are the discount warehouses like Costco and Sams. Those are the places that sell 50-pound sacks of flour. Who-the-fook would buy a 50-pound sack of flour? Unless you own a bakery, you are not going to use 50 pounds of flour in your lifetime. But people buy 50-pound sacks of flour. Why? Because it is a good deal. "50 pounds for $50. Wow, I made out like a bandit." If I owned a 50-pound sack of flour, after 10 years I would have 49½ pounds left and realize that for the past 5 years I have been harboring an entire colony of meal worms in the bottom of the flour sack.

The Skeg Went Wrong

Fiberglass being applied
to the edge of the 1x10

Yesterday was a really bad shop day. It seems like it all went wrong. The day before was great. I pulled out an 8-foot 1x10 of select pine to be made into the Sea Scull's skeg. I rounded the edge and applied epoxy-saturated fiberglass to the rounded edged. It was a thing of beauty. I'll apply the second coat of fiberglass the next day.

The skeg is the deepened keel at the rear of the boat that sticks down into the water and keeps the boat going straight. It is the first thing to crash into the sand when you hit the beach so I wanted 2 layers of fiberglass on the leading edge.



Constantly pulling harder on one
oar can't be all that bad, can it?

But then, yesterday, I looked down the 8-foot length of the 1x10 and noticed a wicked curve. The board is horribly warped and the skeg will have a fine curve to it. If that is my skeg, the Sea Scull will constantly turn left. Which is OK if you just want to row in circles. To go straight you will have to constantly pull harder on one oar. Is that so bad?

The Skeg Went Wrong Again

Laminated skeg plywood
EASY!

I decided to toss the warped 1x10 back on the lumber pile and build the skeg out of laminated marine plywood. I prepared two pieces of 3/8 marine ply for laminating into a piece of 3/4. I wet the faces with unthickened epoxy then applied a layer of thickened epoxy. I placed one piece on top of the other and put clamping weights on it. It was a thing of beauty!



Where are they going?

Then, 30 minutes later, I glanced at the two pieces of plywood. They were no longer aligned. What? How could that be? It is a flat level surface. Why would they move?

I looked closely and saw they were still moving very slowly out of alignment. WTF? Where are they going?   On a walkabout? A half dozen screws put an end to that shit.

Can I Catch a Break Here?



Applying the first coat of
epoxy on the seat box



Also the day before, I put the first coat of epoxy on the assembled seat box. It came out glossy clear and the select pine was a thing of beauty. Yesterday, I applied the second coat of epoxy, being very careful, all the while aware of the 207 bug, and it was a thing of beauty. A few hours later I realized that the 207 bug had bitten. West System 207 epoxy hardener is wonderful in that it does not blush and is super clear. But that shit runs. The first coat is absorbed by the dry wood and doesn't run. But the second coat...that shit runs like there is no tomorrow. And it waits until you are not looking to run...the 207 bug. It runs worse than your first crap in the morning after a night of drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon. There were at least a dozen drips. I'll be sanding those out this afternoon.

A Bad Hair Day

Seat base screwed together
in the dry

Then I went to glue-up the base for the seat box. The day before, I screwed the seat base together in the dry and it was a thing of beauty. Yesterday, I unscrewed it and began applying epoxy and screwing it back together. The first seven pieces went together as if I knew what I was doing. But the eighth piece revealed the truth.

Screwing and gluing the seat base

I could tell right away that it was not going back together as planned. This is bad, everything is already coated with uncured epoxy and I am taking it apart and trying to re-drill and re-screw. Epoxy is getting everywhere - all over my hands and arms, all over the drill and screwdriver, all over the seat base and all over the wood strips. But I fought it and finally I got it all back together.

Was it worth it? Totally

To be sure that all was right, I bent down, put my face very close to the seat base, looked down the length of it to see if everything is lined up straight. It was at that precise moment that I learned how you get epoxy in your hair.