Month: October 2018

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Week 3: Measuring, Marking, Cutting Plywood

I measured and marked the plywood sheet for the sides on Saturday afternoon, and then cut the pieces on Sunday afternoon.

I screwed up marking the starboard aft side at first, forgetting to mirror image the already marked out port side, drawing the line parallel instead. This was after I had mistakenly marked the starting point at 4-5/8″ instead of 5-1/4″. Oh well.

This is why we use pencil first.

I was a little perturbed by my inability to measure accurately across the 8-foot length with a single straight edge. The drywall square is only 4 feet (actually a bit less than that). So the 16-inch thirds didn’t quite meet exactly right in the middle. So just tried to approximate in the middle.

Pencil, green highlighter, and Sharpie

I did a thorough re-measure, and then a re-measure after that, before cutting.

Measure once, cut twice?

Stopped to commemorate the occasion after the first cut.

The cutting has begun!

I found a thin piece of wainscoting to use as a batten to mark the rocker curve.

I thought I would have to tack it down in 3 spots to make the curve, but the clamps worked just fine.

And, now, I have some parts.

I stood on Geoff & Becky’s driveway fence pillar thing to get this shot.

My cutting was very much not straight enough. The matching pieces are not exactly symmetrical. I’m trying to not let this bother me.

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Week 2: Filling Knot Holes

The absolute first step in my plans was to mark out the plywood sheets for the parts. But turns out that there’s knot holes on the C side of BC plywood. I want to fill those with wood fill before cutting anything.

So that’s a good lesson to learn right away, that there will be unknowns and challenges of all sorts, despite all the time I’ve spent planning this thing.

DAP Plastic Wood for the knot holes

Saturday afternoon I started filling knot holes. Geoff and Dash were tossing around a ball in their backyard, came over to gab and watch what I was doing. I got to work on the boat for all of like a half hour before Dawn came out and made me mow the lawn.

Just trowelin’ it on

So that’s .5 hours down, maybe 149.5 hours to go.

One knot hole filled, 17 more to go.

And I would’ve worked more on Sunday, but we rode our bikes to UMD for the last game of the women’s soccer season. Go Terps!

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Week 1: The Great Work Begins

Ordered some wood online for in-store pickup.

It was all on a cart waiting for me when I arrived.

Took it out to the car and put it on the rack.

Took me a long time to secure it, what with being terrible with knots and overly paranoid about it all falling off.

I finally got the ratcheting straps out and got them to work.

I had stupidly configured both straps through the wrong side of the ratchets.

But I eventually got it all home, driving slowly, like an old woman, the whole way.

I stood on the back fence by the garage to get the best angle.

Now it’s all in the garage. Waiting for me.

The great work begins.

Oh, my, yes.