Oxford
Well after finding a few extra minutes on our return, she's received 4 coats of Epifanes Rapidclear varnish and 3 poorly applied coats of Off White Interlux Brightsides paint. I had a serious struggle with contamination that wasn't alleviated until the third coat.
Be diligent about cleaning the boat and cognizant of what may or may not be on the hull before paint prep. I had her take the boat out for a row before we left, and managed to get some petroleum or oily contamination on the hull. This made fisheyes EVERYWHERE even after a distilled mineral spirits cleaning. The first coat was an abortion. Much sanding was required, followed by more cleaning, more paint, and substantially fewer, but still present fisheyes. The third coat I managed to get the hull completely clean, so she laid on like I remembered. I did use a little bit of penetrol to improve flowability, and it was an immense benefit.
One of my culprits of the fisheyes happened to be the webbing I used in the cradles. A material electricians use called "mule tape", it is a flat 1/2" webbing that has huge strength for its size. Unfortunately, its also apparently covered in some sort of wax or oily lubricant to aid in sliding through pipe chases, etc. Ah well, lesson learned.
Here she is on the cradles, having been rowed the day before:
Other than a little tidying up, she's essentially finished. Couple of hatches need to be added, and a little paint and varnish refinishing are due at the onset of warm weather next spring ( 70 degrees is so much more pleasant to work in...).
I am currently working on another small Dave Beede designed Summerbreeze that's been messed with a little, to use as a shoreside workboat and dink to get to the sled when the lake is down. It was a quick and dirty build of scrap wood, which so far has a new-product cost of $0.
The PC dory project has been shelved in light of the current financial situation. I can't figure out a reason to get rid of the little beater Hewescraft River Runner I traded for last year. Considering that my PC dory plans were going to be essentially the same size, performance, weight, trailerability, etc of the boat I have, why spend the money and the resources to replace it, right?
Plus, it's horrible looking, and tough as nails:
So we are on to the next idea, a 23-25' express cruiser to replace Cloud Cap in the future, which will be a 10-12 month usable boat, instead of summer-only.
Stay tuned, its developing as we speak, and I will be going through some of the plans on hand.
E
