Epilog...the Love Affair Continues

Did you notice that my first post about this boat was titled, "The Beginning of a Love Affair?"
"Affair" means other than your wife. Read on to see where this is going.

Now that the boat is finished, I am making plans for next summer. I will be going to local lakes near here and in Utah for exposure. I mentioned that I will be going to some boat shows. Tahoe, Coeur d’Alene, Lake Oswego, up near Seattle, to name a few. I needed pictures, I actually needed to finish by October so I could find water in a lake. And I didn’t want to turn it into an ice breaker.

My motto with hobbies is, no deadlines. As soon as you "have to get it done", it becomes a chore. So I spent more time at the shop, without making it a deadline. If I didn’t get it done, then there was always another year. But I finished it with about 3 weeks to spare, you know, water was still in the lake.

You’ve read the chapters and seen the pictures. As I went from one day to the next, I could hardly wait for morning to come. Yet if other things needed to be done, or a trip to see my grand kids, there was no urgency. But there was one thing I noticed that bothered me a little. I was anxious to get one step done, so I could start on the next. I wanted to get the framing done so I could start putting the bottom planks on, etc. And each night when I went to bed, I planned the next days work, seeing in my mind what I would do. I used to fly instrument approaches in the airplane the same way. In my mind. All the steps. Before I was in the plane.

You saw the beauty of that boat. I still can’t believe that I did that. I knew it had to be near perfect, but I am so surprised that it is.

A boat is a girl. A boat needs a name. I wondered what I would name it.

You may know that I was partially retired. I had no set working hours, just get the job done, which was managing a grain elevator. I was actually teaching the bosses son the drill. And his wife to keep the books and inventory correct. As they learned more, the less I worked. I had been doing this for 7 years, and I fully retired at the end of 2007.

So when I started on the boat in the spring of 2006, I had a lot of time for the boat. Now I didn’t neglect my wife. When I retried, she didn’t want me home all the time anyway. You know, like one of her friend’s husband, in his boredom, he rearranged her recipe book!

We teased each other a lot. I always had a hobby in the evenings. I built things out side, a garage, bridges, a grape arbor, a covered walkway for her vast yard, helped build flower gardens, etc. But I always came in from my model railroad, or my model planes, etc. by 9 PM and spent the last hour and a half before bed with her. Talking, rubbing her feet, laughing, watching TV. When I got my first computer in 1988, and spent so much time on it, she gave it a name. She called it "Meg" (It was a "Mega-Turbo") It had that name on the front.

So one day she teased me and said, "You spend more time on that boat than you do with me."

Now I had my name.

THE OTHER WOMAN

Here is my beautiful wife with her brother at 3 years.

Here she is at 17 years. Here she is at 45 years.

Here she is at 61 years with her lucky husband.

Here she is at 69 years.

I would never step out on this wonderful woman.

Here is the boat at 59 years.

Here is the resurrected boat.

Here is my resurrected wife. You know, the prime of life.

They are both so beautiful.

And that is the last thing I need to do on the boat. I’m having a graphic artist paint it on the transom later on.

I am going to expand these chapters and pictures into a loose leaf folder to display at the boat shows. So this gave me a start.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Read you on the blog, I am the OldBoatGuy.

The Grand Finale #12 of 12

I took the boat back to the shop, put it on the floor so I could work on it easy and here are some pictures. I painted the white stripes, installed the chrome, seats, ceilings, etc.

This was on 1 October 2008

On 7 October 2008, I took it again to the lake for the pictures I needed for next years boat shows.




Next to a beautiful woman, isn’t that the most beautiful thing you have ever seen? Well, to me anyway.

My freind Randy took some of these pictures.

Movies. Launching.

Short trip around the lake.

My friend Randy is driving.

There’s your boat ride.

All three times I was at the lake, people came to see it and talk about the boat. They saw it while driving by. They were older men who remember them from their younger years or owned one. One of them was a prior owner of this boat. This is the only mahogany planked wooden boat in Southeastern Idaho.

In 2008 I spent 685 hours. Total of 2 years 6 months and 2 days. Total of 1674 hours of which 145 were spent on the engine and 88 on the trailer. If my time is worth $10 an hour as an apprentice cabinet maker, that’s $16,740. The other costs were in the thousands also.

The next boat would take me less time. But I don’t think my legs or shoulders will hold up for that much work again. I would love to do another boat, but.........

The Last Stage and Water Test #11 of 12

Laying the carpet.


New wiring in the boat. I found cloth covered wire, just like in 1947, and put in curly pig tails.




The ceilings. In a boat, the inside walls are called ceilings, crazy.



They will be screwd to the inside of the topside frams to cover up the ugliness.

Gas tank. I took it to a radiator shop and had it cleaned. The gas had turned to guk after 28 years and melted the gas level sender.




The trailer. The original trailer was pathetic. I found an old used home made boat with a nice trailer under it. I bought them and took the trailer, had it sand blasted and painted. I have no pictures of the trailer until the end.

With the boat at this stage of the restoration, it was time to install the engine. It had been test run on the bench and had no leaks. It was painted and wired and full of oil. All I had to do was put the boat on the trailer, move the boat under the engine that was hanging on a chain hoist, and set it in the boat. Remember when I talked about drilling the hole for the prop shaft? This was the moment of truth, or consequences.


It lined up so near perfect that I only had to adjust the front motor mount about 1/8 of an inch.

You can see a small space on the top between the flanges. It must be with in .004 of an inch. That is the thickness of a hair. I made the adjustment and bolted it together.

The water test was next. Here the boat is on the trailer. It has no chrome hardware and no seats. I am just going to take it to the lake and check for leaks in the hull.


That’s my son and me going about 35 miles per hour. I had a leak in the engine water pump. I’ll repair that later. My neighbor Randy took the picture. There is still masking tape on the side. I will also give the deck one more coat of varnish. Then paint the white water line and paint the deck stripes white.

I guess that about wraps it up. The next one will be the finish. The boat in all it's splenor!

It's almost over. 12 July 2008, #10 of 12

January found me sanding. And sanding, but more on that later.

Now I was ready for the staining. I spent from the 4th of March until the 12th of April testing by trail and error the color of different stains I wanted to use. I stained and varnished samples by the dozen.

I finally had the color I wanted. The planks on the right would turn out the way I wanted them to.

While I was sampling, I was doing other things, like rebuilding the engine, new wiring inside the boat, working on the trailer, I spent from 9 Jan 2008 to 8 July 2008 sanding the hull. It had to be perfectly smooth. If I didn’t do this right, all the rest of the work would be in vain. I would sand for an hour, my arms got tired, then go do something else for awhile. This was all hand sanding with a long board, first vertical with 60 grit, then 80 grit. Then horizontal with 80 grit to sand out the vertical lines, then 100 grit sandpaper. I would draw lines with a lead pencil all over the planks about an inch apart. Then when I sanded, the high points would be removed and erase the lines leaving the low places with lines. That is why it took 6 months!

Finally on 9 July I applied the stain to the hull sides. They would be stained and varnished first because I had the boat jacked up high. Later I would set the boat on the floor and do the deck.

The staining took six hours. The next day I applied CEPS as a sealer. The next day the first of 14 coats of varnish. I varnished in the cool morning before breakfast. Leave the shop for 2 or 3 hours until the coat was tack free. Then I would go back and work on other things. Early the next morning I had to lightly sand the previous coat, wipe it down with a solvent and apply another coat.

I tried three methods of applying the varnish. A special $35 brush that is never washed, just put overnight in kerosene. I tried spaying. I had 10 coats to experiment on. The brush left little hairs and varnish residue. The spraying was either too dry and left a sandpaper feel, or to wet and it sagged and ran terribly. And it took two coats to hid the sag or run. My final and best method was cheap 99 cent 4 inch throw away foam brushes.

It took 4 coats before it started looking like this.

More sanding, more coats.

I was only going to put on 12 coats, but the 12th and 13th were not perfect. Number 14 was.

I lowered the boat to the floor and installed the deck molding.

Then sanded everything perfect, including the bull nose.

Then the stain, 12 coats, you know the drill.

It is now 7 September 2008.

I am now going to digress and show you other things that I was doing in my spare time. You know, while the varnish was drying.

Rebuild the carburetor.

The engine. Disassembled and rebuilt, including more power and painting.

The last picture, it is ready to start on the bench.

Seats. I had them done by my friend Ray’s Upholstery. This a before.

Whoops, the piano is a different ptoject. The finished seats will be seen at the end.

Chrome was done by Rayco in Rigby. This is the before photo.

Gauges. I did these myself. The tach (not pictured here) was sent to Clawson Classic Instruments in Washington. You will see it in the finale.

Next time I'll start with the carpet.