From Ply to Sheaves and Bronze Strips.

I've marked out a 4x8 18mm Marine ply for the transom, centerboard and floors and laminations for the stem and breasthooks. Now all have to do is to cut it out.
Marking it out was made far easier by
* a little spiked wheel with a handle, bought in a fabric shop. Put down the carbon paper and roll the wheel along the lines.
* a T Square made from two offcuts of PLY screwed together at right angles. Or you can buy one for €20 - really if you are building a boat, a T Square should be trivial to make :-)

The only down side is that the forecast for the weekend is rain, so I doubt that I'll get much cutting done.

In the mean time I've been trying to find a good source for for the cute little bronze bits and for fibre glass and epoxy (ouch that's expensive stuff, and it's considered hazardous for shipping which means I can't just buy it in from the US.).

I plan to make the cleets from wood - just for fun. But for things like the strap that holds the sheave for the centerboard, all I need is about 8 inches of 1" x 1/8th" bronze strip. Fine. Only nobody wants to sell less than an 10 foot strip. And shipping a 10 foot strip of anything is expensive.

It's the little things. It's always the little things. The Devil is indeed in the details.

A weekend off

Life is full of deadlines, work, college and full of things that need to be done, like putting up a security light, or wiring a light in a cupboard, or handing up another stats project. I need another deadline like I need an itchy rash.

Building a small boat, should not be like that. And this weekend I did nothing on the boat. We visited my parents in law. Went out in the evenings, looked at a house for sale that we couldn't afford anyway - didn't like it much. But there was no progress on the boat.

In my actually free time, a scarce commodity when you have a rug rat, I read - admittedly I read books about boat building, scarfing short lengths of wood to make up a mast, and books about woodwork jigs.

So there's not much to report about the boat, other than when I am working on it, I really do enjoy it. I don't work on it just because I feel I have to.

A little off topic

We have a general election coming up.

The immediate impact of this is that

• A tribunal set up to investigate corruption is going to defer questioning our glorious leader until after the election.
• There's speculation that the winning government may reform stamp duty on houses. So no-one is buying houses in advance of the election.
• Everything that stands still for more than 35 seconds has a poster on if of some politician grinning smugly, usually in a suit that costs more than most peoples monthly pay cheque.
• The Canvasers are coming. You get home from a hard days work and have dinner, then sit down to read a good book and the door bell rings. Some twit with a badge whom you have never seen before in your life feels he's perfectly entitled knock on your door and ask if he can count on your vote -
  I'm trying do decide on a new sign - "No dogs or Politicicans*" or "No peddlers of politicial ideology or other useless tat"
• And finally the graffetti artists are stepping up to the mark. "If voting really changed anything it would be illegal"

So please make the effort, go out and vote 1,2 and 3 in order of your choice

• The Corrupt
• The Inept
• The Idealogically Bankrupt

* Actually dogs are ok if they are house trained