Building a Skerry

Day 86 (2/29/04) - 2Hrs: I'm guessing on the 2Hrs, since the amount of time I was attempting to work on the boat and the time that I actually GOT to work on the boat, were inconsistent. The good news is that it was a beautiful Sunday and I had no other plans. So, I dragged the ET Bugaboo out of the shop and into the driveway so I could enjoy the weather and all the birds lusting after each other. The bad news is that the warm weather brings out the masses from the neighborhood, and everyone, at some point during the day, was checking out the boat. Not that I don't enjoy talking with them and appreciate the compliments, but it's hard to get any work done. At one point, I had 4 kids playing pirate while sitting in the hull. Who am I kidding... I love it!!!

I had a couple more cross-cleats to finish on the floorboards. After completing these, I finally glued and screwed the pieces for all of the section.

Now that it's all together, I can demonstrate how the sections go together


The aft floor sections, in place. The pilot holes circled in red are from a cleat that I originally had. All the pilot holes will be filled with "peanut butter" mix	Lifting up on the floor, you can see how it works

I will probably put cleats across the frames to keep the floor from shifting around.

A few weeks ago, the Skerry Gang was discussing how their masts a fitting loosely in the mast partner and mast step. Today, I rechecked mine and sure enough...


Mast Partner	Mast Step

Day 87 (3/13/04) - 2Hrs: Made removable foot braces that fit into the floorboards. These are two blocks of Douglas Fir with two 3/4 dowels each. The dowels fit into holes in the floorboard. There are 4 positions aft and 4 positions forward.


One of the Foot Braces	The aft Foot Brace setup (my cordless drill ran out of juice before I could finish the last hole... lower right)

Day 88 (3/20/04) - 1.5Hrs: I've procrastinated long enough. If I don't get the hull sanded, it'll never be painted and varnished. Today, I pulled a cabinet scraper (that I bought many years ago for another project) out of the bottom of the tool cabinet. I have enough dried epoxy drips that scraping is a must, before I break out the sandpaper. However, I forgot about the alternate blade that came with the scraper. It is shaped like a teardrop and, wouldn't you know it, is perfect for evening out fillets. In fact, it worked so well, that I never got to my intended task of scraping down the drips. I thought I was done sanding the fillets, but once I started using the scraper on them, found I could do an even better job. I will just need to go over them lightly with 220 grit, for a smoother finish.


Standard attachment which I will use for scraping the hull	Teardrop attachment which works great on fillets. I also used the pointed end to cleanup the inner lap between the 2nd and 3rd plank.

Day 89 (4/16/04) - 5 Hrs (over past few weeks): My goal is to have all the sanding done by the end of the month and start painting and varnishing in May. But, there hasn't been a great deal of time to focus on the boat, lately. I am determined to officially launch during my vacation, in June.

Most of the time that I have been able to work on the boat has been spent on sanding and scraping the hull. I am almost done with the interior and will soon start the exterior. I have also plugged the pilot holes in the floorboards. I haven't yet decided if I will coat the floorboards or just paint over the wood.

I don't like the idea of the mast sitting directly on the hull, so I added a slab of left over Douglas Fir inside the Mast Step.

Day 90 (4/16/04) - 8 Hrs (past week): Nothin' but sanding. The pre-finish sanding is complete. Time to start painting!!!!