Reasons why boats don't get built

There has been a large hiatus in posting. You noticed eh?

Sometimes in the life of a boat builder, certain things get in the way of boat building. Deciding on a plan, maybe an economic downturn, sometimes the weather. It has been a two season long conspiracy against me to have another project in the garage. On the bright side, parking the truck out of the weather and avoiding scraping the windshield has been an unforeseen perk.

One other portion of the Here-comes-the-next-boat parade is keeping the wife happy. She puts up with my building and playing with amazing endurance. I am constantly bouncing ideas off of her as far as what we should have next, what we can afford, how we can sell this or do that to make the next project happen. She tolerates that better than anyone could hope for, and I Love her for that. In order to keep that tenuous balance in tact, however, there needs to be some give and take.

After all of my boat play, it's her turn. She decided we needed a kitchen remodel. In light of that, out came the sanders, prepping the cabinets, and painting. After everything was prepped over 3 days, followed by a week of painting 3 coats of interior goodness on all the cabinets, something went amiss. I returned home from work to her saying "Yeah, this is going to be fine this year, but it's going to need to be redone".

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Mind you, when I return home from work, it can be a plethora of moods I bring with me. It all depends on whether our beloved Zonies were kind and kept the nighttime noise to a dull roar, or if it has been utter lunacy and I haven't slept in 28 hours. This particular morning I had a grand total of 3 hrs of sleep via 3 1 hr naps.

"We are only doing this once..."

So the project changed, considerably.

Now we have begun the process of reprepping the boxes on the cabinets. The worm turned and now the plan is to reface the existing boxes with maple veneer. The doors are being custom built by myself and a friend Derek ( http://wolcottcustomwoodworks.com ), as he has the tools, the skills, and the patience to lead me through the ins and outs of building square things. The countertops were ousted completely, in favor of something more contemporary and durable.

This, my dear reader, is where you see some ACTUAL progress. The countertops have been laid as of this very afternoon. Thankfully...

Here is the post-tearout phase, where the plywood substrate was laid, 3/4" sanded fir because I didn't have the heart to use CDX:





Boatbuilders, this is the last familiar process you will see.

Next, I had the opportunity to work with Wonderboard. Concrete wrapped in fiberglass mesh, it is a very strange beast. When detained in the fiberglass cocoon, it is resilient, flexible, and durable. If the glass is cut, it falls apart, is brittle, and tends to be relatively unfriendly. It does, however go on quickly using some adhesive and a fantastic little tool I received as a gift. Ever used a roto-hammer? Pretty snazzy to say the least. It will beat a screw through just about anything, so long as you have enough phillips bits.





Snazzy you say?

Lastly, after much ado with a rental tile saw from Home Despot, the many tiles were reduced to a relative bundle. We couldn't afford to go the solid-surface route (who really has $4000 for custom countertops?), but for about 1/10th of that price, you can purchase granite floor tile in 12x12 or 18x18 sizes. We were out the door with those, custom ordered with a new sink, for FAR less cash.

After all of the excitement cutting, prepping, recutting, cutting (cussing?) again, and quite a bit of dry fitting, the tiles were stuck down today.







It wasn't horrible, but it definitely lacks perfection. Regardless, SWMBO is happy, so we progress.

Here is a photo of an unfinished cabinet door. Note the panels are maple ply, but the rails and stiles are custom ordered curly maple, some very nice stock purchased from Mr. Wolcott.



Even poorly lit and unfinished, you can see the depth of the curl.

The rest of the curly stock has arrived, so it will be milled accordingly as soon as the grouting and sink are done on the countertops. Then a short vacation, and veneer, then the last of the doors, and we are done.

Now about those boat plans......

E