Tempus Fugit

Another summer seems to have vanished like a sugar cube in a cup of hot coffee.   I suppose I got to paddle quite a bit and visit with friends and do interesting things, but it still seems altogether too short.  When I was a kid, it always seemed that summer went on forever.  I wish it still did.

However, this brings the start of wonderful things.   Like sign-up for a new year's class of boat-building.  After exhibition last June, I had a list nearly three pages long of people who were interested in the boat-building class.  I put together an email regarding class registration. (which was yesterday...) and about the class itself and sent it to the people on the list.

I figure that we usually get maybe 5% of the people who were interested at exhibition to actually show up for registration - if I'm lucky.  When I was driving to registration, I could see that all the side streets around the school were almost completely full of parked cars.  As I turned down the street the school is on, there were students waiting in a line that stretched down the sidewalk from the building to the street and down the sidewalk along the street.  It was only 9:00 AM - registration doesn't start until 10:00 AM, but is first-come, first-served in order to be fair to everyone, so people come early.  Sometimes really early - with a chair, a book, a cup of coffee, snacks, determination and apparently - a strong constitution.  It felt a bit like an Apple iPhone launch.

The lines for woodworking and boat-building as well as a few other classes run from the side of the building and ran all the way to the parking lot and back to the dumpster.  As I took my paperwork into the building and prepared to bring the skin-on-frame canoe downstairs as my "calling card", I was approached by a woman who was clearly distressed.

"Are you the boat building instructor?"

"Yes."

"Is it true?"

"Is what true?"

"That this class is for returning students only."

"WHAT?"

"That's what the sign says."

"No - that's not true.  It's open registration.  I don't have returning students."

I went and checked the sign with the class listings that showed students where to wait to register.  The sign clearly had an asterisk and a notation beneath the class name that said, "Returning Students Only".  I grabbed a marker and crossed that line out in a big hurry, let me tell you.  It was a clerical error from using an old class list.  I have no idea how many students saw that sign and went home without finding out if this was true.  I was beginning to sweat that the class wouldn't run because people left after seeing the sign.

Because of the way that the school runs, there are minimum enrollments - 8 people is the minimum for my class to run.  It's also sort of the maximum class size, too - I only have room to build and store 8 boats.  If each person decides to build their own boat (like last year's class...) I have the minimum number of people and the maximum number of boats - a precarious balancing act.  Fortunately for me, ten students registered and are planning to build 8 boats.  Two couples have decided to build a boat together and the other 6 students will build their own boats.

So, if anyone DID see the sign and go home, I apologize.  While I'm not responsible for the error, I still worry that people missed an opportunity.  If you did, please comment on this post or otherwise get back to me - I'd like to know.

Out of Sorts

I've been feeling out of sorts a bit lately. Two weekends ago I went to help a friend stack his firewood and when I came home, I was feeling the cold coming on. It has been tenaciously hanging about for the past week as I've been trying to do my job and keep moving along with my life. Last weekend, I had things to do around the house and needed to help my father with things at his house. I'm not whining, mind you, (OK, maybe a little...) but I'm missing some of my favorite paddling.

Fall paddling is wonderful in the Northeast, United States and is some of my favorite. There can be occasional warm days until about mid October. The bugs are gone and the foliage is colorful. Most paddlers have put their boats away as they think it will be too cold to get out on the water, so there are fewer people to contend with at the put-in. A tart, fresh, crisp apple makes a fantastic afternoon snack out on the water and the warm sun on you feels that little bit nicer than usual. Migrating birds are passing through on their way South.

I haven't gotten as much paddling in this year as I'd like as it has been quite a busy one and we've not had much rain so the water levels have been low. As I was helping my father last weekend, I was looking out the back windows at two of his canoes in the back yard that really drove home the fact that I need to paddle a bit more.

A little bit of progress

Well, I've been making progress on a few fronts lately. It's been coming slowly, but it has been coming. First, I've made the decision to build the Chestnut Prospector "Ranger" canoe for the tandem boat in my class and ordered the plans. In order to protect the intellectual property of the designer, I'll have to ask my students to buy the book which contains the plans, but that's not a bad trade-off, really as the book contains a lot of great information. It's a 15' long canoe that's just shy of 3' at it's widest point. It should feel stable but still be fairly easily paddled. A good compromise.

I'm still working on making the strongback and forms for this design lighter. I'm planning on a foam-filled box beam for the strongback that will be set on either sawhorses (stackable or folding) or benches in the shop. The top will be 3/4" plywood to allow us to screw down the patterns and the sides will be luan ply. In between will be layers of foamular insulation that are laminated to each other and the luan with construction adhesive. Periodically, there will be 2x4 or 2x6 blocks to improve the torsional rigidity. I went to the lumberyard this morning to get the materials that I wanted only to find them closed. I then went to our local "big-box" store to see if they had what I wanted. They do, but I didn't buy them there - I was planning on using construction adhesive to assemble the beam, but hadn't considered the fact that the adhesive might be incompatible with the foam. Dang. A bit more research. The forms will also be "lightened" by the removal of material where it isn't necessary from the patterns. I need to keep this light so we're not moving 140 pound of boat and strongback around. My goal is to get a prototype built before next weekend is out so I can have a material list ready for sign-up on the following Monday. The other trick is going to be organizing the shop this year to accomodate the different stages of build that are going on. We'll see how that goes as time goes on.

I've got the majority of the frame complete and put two coats of semi-gloss polyurethane on it. I think things look pretty nice, actually:



I also picked up black nylon rope, webbing, hardware, grommets, elastic and such for deck rigging. I need to bore some holes in the frame to allow me to attach carry loops at the bow and stern, deck rigging and hatch straps. My next major task is to build the foot braces and to finish up the coamings and hatch.

I'm not impressed with my first attempt at the rear hatch - the wood was wet with boiling water and then using a steam iron and damp cloth, it was steamed around a plywood form to get the oval shape. I broke the first one due to wild grain, but the second went better with no fractures. After the wood dried, I removed it from the form to apply glue, but I couldn't manage to get it as back on the frame as tightly as I'd like. The picture below is the first attempt. There are gaps between the laminations that I'm not happy with. I need two of these - one slightly larger than the other - as the hatch rim and the other for the hatch cover.


I also need another piece for the coaming, but the radii are much bigger (as is the part) and I anticipate fewer problems. I'd purchased some ratcheting straps to try to pull things onto the rim, but I think I'll go "low-tech" with a Spanish windlass to try to clamp the wood around the form as it's gluing. Sometimes the simplest ways are the best.

Tomorrow is another day and I'll take another stab at the coaming and the cover rims.

Ever have one of those days?

I did on Sunday. Murphy's Law just seemed to be working overtime around our place.

Quite frankly, Murphy is an SOB.

With Spring in the air, all of the springtime chores have kicked in. On Saturday morning the weather was beautiful and we had our canoe building class outside. The last of the strips were put on the second boat (YAY!) SWMBO had invited a friend of SWMBO Jr. over to have a sleep-over on Saturday night, so I spent my afternoon running errands to get fertilizer and things for the lawn, food and drink for our guest and her parents who would join us for Sunday lunch and a movie for the kids to watch. I'd wanted to get some chores done but Saturday was pretty much shot.

Meh.

So, on Sunday morning, I got up and got some stuff done after breakfast. (cleaned the winter tar off the car, and prepped stuff for lunch) I cooked a great lunch (...if I do say so, myself) and we had a great time with our guests.

Then Murphy took over.

I was going to edge the garden beds. I went to get out the necessary tools. I got out the edging tool and a shovel. Then, I got the garden cart and wheeled it out. The rubber peeled off the rim of the cart. Geez... Not going to be doing edging, I guess.

Next task on the list. Get out the pressure washer to do a bit of clean-up. Hook it all up get started and pull the handle along to where I'll be working. *SNAP* The plastic quick-disconnect that feeds water to the thing from the hose snaps off. Guess what I'm not doing.

I was going to work in the back yard, but my son decided to go down to play at the end of the street where I was going to need to keep an eye on him. No working in the back yard.

Ok. I guess I'll finish cleaning and waxing my car. No, wait, I don't HAVE my car, SWMBO took it to take herself and SWMBO Jr. somwhere as our guests were parked behind her vehicle.

Alright, I guess I'd better clean SWMBO's beast. It's been unloved all winter long. I pulled out the floor mats and got the shop vac out. Turns out there is a cut in the hose.

Grrr.

Duct tape. If you can't fix it with duct tape, you're not using enough.

I got the car vacuumed out and started washing. I then accidentally stepped on the nozzle's lever and proceeded to liberally hose down my crotch, making it look like I'd wet my pants.

With an afternoon like that I was almost afraid to go to the bathroom.