Getting ready for the chine

      My little brother came in yesterday, and he, Ramon, and I spent the afternoon at the boat shop ripping 8"x2" rough-sawn oak into 8"x1" halves with my cheap little Harbor Freight table saw. Ill be using these for the chine lamination after running them through the thickness planer. 
      Lots of time on this build has been spent trying to morph the wood I have into the wood I want. First, for the keel I bought construction-grade Southern yellow pine which promptly warped. Ramon and I used all manner of clamp configurations to get that stuff to laminate up into semi-straight pieces. Then, I milled the frame lumber from rough sawn white oak. Ripping the full oak pieces thickness-wise has been our toughest challenge yet. My table saw doesnt quite cut through half of the 8" width so we today we ran the pieces through on each side three times so we wouldnt blow a fuse (though we did manage switch the breaker multiple times anyway) and then ran a Sawzall down the middle to finally split the thing. Overall, though, we had a great day and worked off the beer and sushi from last night.

Boatbuilding in Hindsight:
1. Pay the little bit extra to have the wood milled.
2. Get a bandsaw.
3. Id really like to have some nicer power tools for the next build, but I certainly dont regret going with the cheap stuff the first time around (particularly because my shop is so exposed to the elements).

Here the frames are squared and braced from the outside. Ill add bracing on the inside before laminating the chine, then remove the exterior bracing to install the stringers.

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Laminating the Chine

I half expected the boat to be engulfed by those little sandcastles that termites make when I came back to the boat shop this week after a nearly five month absence. No termites, thank goodness, just a lot of black mold. I welcome the mold. It comes with the incredible amount of rain weve received over the past several weeks. Rio Grande City is now a tolerable grassland rather than a post-apocalyptic dust bowl. 

NASA was wonderful. I developed some algorithms for optimizing medical kits for spaceflight. And met real astronauts. The whole experience was incredibly inspiring. Fresh off this NASA high, Ive re-committed to the boat project. This thing WILL GET DONE.

My brother came in on Sunday for a week of boat building. We actually spend the first few days battling the cockroaches (á la Stormship Troopers) that made themselves welcome during my long absence. We finally got around to some boat work on Thursday and will have the first layer of the chine glued in place by the time he leaves tomorrow afternoon.

This week at my house. Pro tip: Dont leave potatoes in cabinet for 5 months.

My mentality re the boat project has shifted. I was beginning to feel paralyzed by the sheer size of the project--  by all the work remaining and all of the things that could possibly go wrong. I am now thinking no further than getting the chine laminated. Then Ill think no further than cutting the notches for the stringers on the bottomsides. Etc. This seems to be a more effective mindset, as Im pretty sure Ill be able to get the chine in, and Im pretty sure I can cut a few notches.

An acquaintance from college sent me this poem written by a boatbuilder. While at the moment I cant relate to the romanticization of boatbuilding in the body, I was particularly amused/struck by the first line: 
And so it is, the boat has come to own you

Indeed, building Luna came to own me. I resented my previous self who thought building a gigantic sailboat in small-town Texas was a good idea. Time away from Luna was exactly what I needed to build up the guts to finish her. Looking forward to the next few months of boat work!

The not-so-little brother and I.

Slinging epoxy.

The first chine piece glued in place.

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