Christmas, Bow Monkeys, & Bilge Rats

The family has returned for Christmas!!!!

All four kids plus Erik's fiancee, Christie.

We're very happy to have them home again, as always.  Christmas is my favorite time of year and the house just seems fuller, back to normal, with them here. Plus all of the great food - for many year's we've had a family tradition of each person being in charge of one or two special dishes.  Michael (King Bing) on the bing cherry salad.

Erik on the bourbon chocolate pecan pie.

Kevin with the sweet potato casserole.

and Vivian ditching her famous squash soup recipe for a new cranberry concoction.

Cheryl is always in charge of the main dish, and I'm of course the head taster and meat carver.  Seems fair to me.

Plus Christmas brunch with french toast and bacon made by Christie and Erik.  Yum.

On a much less important note, I had been pushing hard over the week leading up to the holidays to get the top decking done, with filleting and seam taping, to have the boat ready to turn over and start working on the hull - since there would soon be several very able, strong bodies to help!


Discussing the kids, and reminiscing on past trips with them, reminds me of a recent discussion of the proper terminology for front passengers.  Kevin and Vivian were fellow travelers on our first private trip down the Main Salmon two years ago.  Pretty hard to top that one. Since then we've had the great fortune to run several other rivers including Rogue, Lodore, Deso (twice) and Cataract.

It seems to me calling my fellow high siders "bow monkeys" is somewhat derogatory.

Bilge rats is much better, don't you think?

Scut Work

Spent the few hours before the kids got up (ok, maybe more than a few, since I was up at 5 and the kids all went out to the Bee after a family party last night) doing some prep scut work on the hull bottom and sides before I start glassing.

Lots of sanding, Surfoaming, scrapping, and some swearing.  Plus plenty of patching and and a little filleting and radiusing. Not a ton of fun but moving forward....

It almost reminds me of the morning VA rounds for blood draws and dressing changes many years ago.  Someone's got to do it.

Barn Raising

The neighborhood showed up today for a barn raising, er.... boat turning party.

Lots of good friends offered to help.  Which was a good thing since I'd hurt my wrist and was temporarily out of action. At least with two hands.

I built a support to add onto the boat dolly, since I wanted to continue to be able to roll it outside the garage for sanding, weather permitting.

We spent a good 30 minutes discussing options of how to do this. Straps around the boat and a fork lift, although very enticing, had been ruled out by me since I was concerned that the side rails of the Core Cell would cave in under full weight of the boat.

It seemed like there were about ten chiefs and very few indians. But eventually we pretty much came back to the original plan.

Which worked very well.

I am a little concerned since I'll need to roll it back over in a week or so, and at least one friend has said, "don't call" and another I think has blocked my cell phone number. Plus, considering how much bourbon this may cost me, it may be cheaper just to hire some temporary labor.

Afterwards, I trimmed the drainage pipes with my MultiTool (great tool which has been sulking a little since I inadvertently left it out of the Tools of the Trade post) and trimmed the bottom boat edge first with a chamfer router bit, then a 1/4" round-over one.

And then made sure to do a little more Surfoaming, cleaning up the spilled resin spots.

Big day today, another major milestone with no damage or injuries.  Thanks to all of the helpers!!!

Hardware

Some of the hardware has arrived!

(Actually, I've had some of this stuff for a while, but I'm using blog artistic license here).


Southco C5 12 25 latches.

And aluminum piano hinges from McMaster-Carr.

Brass gunwale bolts, sex nuts, and open post nuts from Security Fasteners

Footman loops, for tie downs inside some hatches

Hatch lid weatherstripping (alright, not really "hardware")

And a big pile of mainly stainless steel stuff from Bolt Depot

I'm still researching the best options for the bow and stern eyes or u-bolts, and haven't decided if I want a rope, with brass eyes, on the outside of my hull yet.

Hatching and Filleting

After work Thursday I stayed up late and worked on the hatches.  My original plan was just to "contemplate" some, coming up with a game plan for cutting them out and what to do next.

In typical MBS (Marland Boat Shop) fashion, however, I got a head of steam up and the original plans went out the window.

The hatch openings were cut out with a combination of my circular and jig saws.  The large cross hatches were cut in-situ (temporarily installed on the decks) since that seemed to be the best way to securely hold them. The smaller bow and stern hatches and the side hatches were taken down to the wood shop, since the cuts were too close to the side of the boat or another bulkhead and the saws couldn't fit completely in place.

Yep, lots more trips up and down the stairs.  My legs are getting in good shape for the cycling season, if this snow and ice will ever melt.

The plunge cuts (along the back or hinge edge of each hatch lid) were really no big deal. No pics since I'm pretty much a one man show, except for the occ. family conscript, er...   volunteer.


Most cuts came out pretty well, except for one little warble on one of the side hatches.  Wouldn't you know it, the ones I'll see most frequently. Right there in front of me as a daily reminder on the river that my boat construction, not unlike my river running, is imperfect.

Decks, minus the cut-out hatch lids, then went back on and were filleted and seam taped with two layers.

Ready just in time for the family to arrive for Christmas.  Next on the agenda is to turn the boat over and start glassing the hull.  That will take every family member, fiancee, some neighbor friends, and Ruby the DD if she's not too busy.

I added another wood reinforcing strip to the bottom of the rear cross hatch - after stepping on it and feeling it flex quite a bit.  Last summer I had to buy a case of Orange Crush, needing one can for my peach/blackberry/mandarin orange Dutch oven cobbler.  What can you do with 11 more cans, that's a lot of cobbler? And river trips! But they've come in handy, first for the Core Cell panel joints and now this.

And then early this morning, Saturday, I tackled the inside fillets. Once again my caulk tube system came through with flying colors. I don't claim to have many genius, or even inspired, moments, but this was clearly one.

Filling a tube:

Contortions, part 2:

Aftermath:

I've been dreading that job for a while and, like most things, the anticipation was much worse than the reality.  Just a little neck stiffness and a sore back.  Nothing a few more Advil can't handle.

What is this?  The view from inside the rear cross hatch, before filleting, in case you were wondering what it looked like in there.