have camera phone, will take pictures

My camera broke but realised the camera phone sometimes can take an adequate picture, so here's one that barely shows how the cockpit trim (a thin piece of wood wrapped around the inner "lip" of the inside deck) is completed! Wow, you must be as excited about it as i am!....another milestone on the journey.

Something goes wrong again!

My frickin' digital camera broke when I was in key west.  Asking the question why me? Why my camera? How am I going to do the Pain in the butt boats blog now?....without a camera I am totally screwed!....Then I thought of something, hey! I know how to draw reasonably well don't I?  I don need no stinkin' camera, I'll just sketch 'em out instead! ...so here's the first one where the trim on the inner cockpit is being glued and held on using clamps in case my drawing isn't good enough for you to recognise them.  One thing about boatbuilding is you can never have enough clamps.

no progress zone

Yes, there's been no progress on the boat(s) for quite awhile - 2 weeks in key west, then a root canal, then a court hearing, then add in what it takes just to live in the city and you add it up and that means no progress!

I did manage to squeek out a sketch though. 

back from Key West

Here's a typical scene on a typical day on Duval St.  I hated to say good bye to all my new perverted friends but a guy just has to get back to the hum drum regular life in Santa Cruz especially since that's where I live and that's where I keep my pain in the butt boats!

sketch break....and announcement!

going to Key West for a coupla weeks, no working on the boats for a little while.

With the other boat out of commission for awhile, been focusing on the 1953 Correct Craft project boat.  This leg of the project entails cutting off the "bastard wild edges" of the planking that overhangs the cockpit which entails cutting around a curve and working around the steering wheel (it gets in the way of power tools). 

The steam bending apperatus (pictured) has been fired up to bend the mahogany trim that needs to follow the tight curves.  Without steam: forget about it buddy!

Ta-Da!

I finished the decking, just put on the final "plank".   This thing may in fact be finished some day!  A lot of the time in the last year plus that I've been working on it I knew that the completion date would be a long timeline.....or never finished at all.....Yet, with this leg of the journey complete,  it might just in fact be completed, the light at the end of the tunnel is beginning to glow, dimly for sure, but I will follow that light and hopefully be on the water listening to the hum of the engine as I carve through the glassy water in search of that magical moment when all is well with the world and my place in it.