Tuesday 24 April 2007

My fair lady


I’ve been through a small stack of sand paper, generated a lot of dust and my ears are still ringing with the orbital sander’s shrill whine. Bertie belt sander sat grumpily on the bench, annoyed that he wasn’t allowed free reign to gouge some divots in the hull.

Onawind Blue is some way to being fair. I recoated the reasonably smooth surface with lightly thickened epoxy and if I can manage another couple of hours in a dust cloud when that coat has fully cured I should have a hull that’s ready for painting.

Looking back through my list, of a few posts ago, I’m just ticking off point five and, looking ahead, point six should get a tick before the end of the week.

Last weekend brought many comments from passers-by, and even the local police force was good enough to send round a double act for my entertainment. Our brief conversation went something like this.

Policeman 1: Bonjour. (He knows I’m not Spanish but can’t quite pin me down)

Me: Hola.

Policeman 1: What this then? A water-going vessel?

Me: Yes, a boat.

Policeman 1: Wood won’t be strong enough. It won’t hold up to the force of the waves.

Me: But all boats were once made of wood.

Policeman 1: Yes, but it was big, thick wood. This stuff is too flimsy. It’s very irregular making a boat with such thin wood, this stuff isn’t for boats, it’s for furniture.

Me: I’m sure it will be fine.

Policeman 1: I wouldn’t go out in it.

Policeman 2: Glug, glug, glug…

Policeman 1: Au revoir.

Policeman 2: (Looking back over his shoulder) Glug, glug, glug.

And not a word about these fine lines.

1 comment:

OzzyC said...

Hi. I ran across your blog via the "Building NINA" blog site. I'm the sidekick in a friend's boat project. We've been at it for two years and are still working on the hull. The guy's a perfectionist.

Feel free to check my blog out... Building a Houseboat