Offgassing

So first we headed out to the Buoy 10 fishery at the mouth of the Columbia near Astoria Or. Fishing was excellent! I love this place, but be prepared for combat fishing, as MANY people fish out here.

Coho here are BIG, comparable to a Chinook:



When we returned from picking up 50+ lbs of salmon per guy, it was time to get back to work.

OXFORD

All of the preliminary wood fairing is finished, and epoxy was the excitement today. SWMBO put her best foot forward on this, running the tipping brush (roller cut lengthwise and held with pliers). Roll some on, tip it down.





This really brought out the beauty of the structure of the wood, especially around the knots:



The temps eeked up a little bit after we got the sticky stuff down, which allowed some offgassing. This is where the expansion of gases trapped in the wood slide through the surface and create bubbles in the epoxy. This can be mitigated by doing your epoxy work midday or at the warmest part of the day, or by controlling the temp in your shop. Today it was a balmy 76F, so not like it was epically hot.

Here is a perfect picture of the off gassing bubbles:



It isn't anything we builder's cant mitigate, however. Just knock the bubble down with a finger, or if it has cured, a scraper, knife, or piece of sand paper. This will cause a small blemish, but since we are early on, there will be fairing occurring later and will be hidden with more layers of epoxy.

Ordered the rigger from www.clcboats.com a few days ago. Great people to work with as they are prompt to respond to questions and have very competitive prices. They are even having their oar supplier do a custom blade and handle for me (Dreher adjustable handles and a set of Apex Hatchet blades). I decided on the RowWing thanks to the help of Chesapeake Rowing and their expertise. Very good experience there as well, and they happen to be the supplier of CLC. Go get your goods from CLC if you can, it works out best for both of the businesses.

This is going to be one helluva sweet setup for SWMBO, I think she will be happy with it.

E

Splashy splash

Wonderful day outside, while I sit here at work. 100 degrees, blisteringly hot here in the Inland Northwest (you know, it used to be the Inland Empire until California chose to abscond with our beloved moniker, like so many other wonderful things up here). Looks like two more days of it. I guess we should all soak it in, because the sun keeps going down earlier every night, and I have this sneaking suspicion that fall might sneak up on us faster than I thought.

Did I mention my first Powder magazine for the year showed up?



Hey, turns out that chisel really is sharp!

OXFORD

Shes turning out little by little. The complete splashboard setup is finished as far as assembly goes. It takes some patience as far as fitting, because most is by eye, and the measurements provided are pretty stinkin accurate. There just happens to be a period of an hour where you fiddle with this and that to make it all line up.

Neat little trick I have been messing with on this boat is 5 minute epoxy. Whip up a little batch of this stuff, and you have perfect little tack welds to hold pieces in place while you get the real epoxy and filler built. Saves tape and time, as well as the frustration of a part of the project falling to pieces while you wait for a solid cure.

If you look closely in the image, you can see where the two forward pieces are mated with 5 minute to keep the V shape, while the rest was just held in place while gluing up with filled epoxy:



I like this, and intend to use the hell out of the 5 minutes stuff on projects to come.

Why don't we just have a look at the finished product of the splashboards, since we are looking at photos:





Ahh, now we all feel better.

I think Sunday will see exactly zero work accomplished. Monday is weed spraying day, back to the station Tuesday, more weed abatement Wednesday. I might get some work done eventually, but I can't seem to get the massive blocks of free time I had with the Cloud Cap project.

I hope to give you all more to entertain yourselves with by wednesday, but we will have to see, now won't we...

E

Hotness makes for slowness

When it gets over 90, and you have two boats tied to the dock, do you stay and work on projects?

Its been warm, so we have been playing more than working here. Neighbor's kid is in town, so we are being drafted regularly to help out with flagging. Isn't that a shame. Even after all this, there is still progress on the Ox.

OXFORD



She's received half of the splashwell protection, and I used the excess filler to fill the holes from the screws. This will make handy little epoxy nails, hard chunks of epoxy through the deck and into the existing screw holes in the sheer clamps below. Light AND strong...



Closer look, and as of late the clamp collection is getting much larger. this is less than 1/3 of the available clamps. One clamp at a time, every trip to the store...

Also, here is a shot of the bow joint. I had a little seepage when I glued it up initially, and did a pretty lackadaisical (read half-assed) job of cleaning it up. I ground it down with the plane a bit, and a sanding block, then pulled a little filler over it. Should do the trick, the sander will be the taddle tail



Nothing new to report on the dory, its still in the air.

E

Finally the heat returns

So they decided to put me through a few extra shifts this week.

Ive been at work 92 of the last 120 hrs (thats 5 days for the web design folks), so progress has ground to a halt on the Oxford. Add a saturday party with 100 guests on the horizon, and we keep pretty busy around here.

Oxford

As she stands today:



Our friend the Oxford has a welded and faired skeg today, as well as the decks assembled and the rough fairing done. You can see that we opted for the screw-only program, relying on the epoxy to do the work and save 3 lbs of silicon bronze annular ring nails. Anything for a pound. It was quick work that I had been dreading, but SWMBO made an appearance in the shop and did a smashing job of helping get the decks on the boat. Two people is definitely the key for this project, no question there. Screws had to be very close together to hold the decks in a fair alignment with no hooeys. Have about a pound of drywall screws on hand for this step.

Check out the camber:



Im impressed. John Harris over at CLC did a nice job of making a sheet boat look like more than a box. Very nice indeed.

Its going to hit 95+ this week. Plans are to stay in the water as much as possible, with little work sessions morning and evening. You, my faithful reader, will be abreast of the situation as changes happen.

E