George's Shop Updates!

The shop is buzzing with activity!  The rails seats for the latest skiff have been varnished (Ray Jim Scott) , the seats for older skiff ( In showroom) have been bleached(Jim) .

The hull of the Lightning has been sanded ( Peter) . The four "stepped" scarf sheets from stock have been glued successfully and are mounted on light tables for Anton to belt sand (two 16 foots sheets) .

The shorter cross planks for the Shepperd  outboard have been plugged , filled and completed sanding . When we have Johns outer planks we can proceed with assembly . The three sets of fittings for the skiff builds are cut and planed . The three decks have been glued with splines . Jim and I modified the skiff parts SLIDES to suit Antons big 10" saw . They work well and Anton's saw is #1 .

Canvas The Lightning!

Was this day ever going to arrive! Somehow it seems appropriate that we gave the Lightning new life today just as the smoke clears from Scott's ceremonial Viking Ship burning! Perhaps for all of us in the shop the "laying on" of the deck canvas has represented the great turning point in this restoration. No sweat from here on. Here's the morning in pictures...

A final sanding, cleaning and tacking..

Paper and taping all around...

Dry fit the canvas and rough cut...

Rolling out the first area for epoxy...

Many hands flatten the canvas into epoxy

next the side decks...

pull out and flatten the canvas...

cut-outs done, front deck laid, more epoxy!

Trim excess all around after stapeling...

There! Nothin to it! One Lightning deck!

WOW what an accomplishment for a bunch of beginners! I think we really will get this boat in the water this summer - stay tuned...

new author

Hey, it's Scott writing as a new contributor. This is a test.

I went up to my buddy's place up near Dundalk two weekends ago, to clelbrate UYphellya, that great mid winter festival celebrated by the Scandinavian nations, which culminates with the burning of a Viking ship, to usher in the New Year and make propitious offerings to the gods. And then eat and drink alot.
So I built a boat and burned it.

 

Where there's Lightning there's dunder (-heads trying to install a deck)

We are proceeding carefully after MUCH RESEARCH, nudge nudge wink wink...

Today the first coat of sealing epoxy was paddled and rolled out on the Lightning's deck - two coats went on as the stuff was dissapearing into the bare plywood deck like you wouldn't believe!

This week it will be sanded out so next week (drum roll), the canvas goes on! MANY HANDS NEEDED

Chris tapes off to prevent drips.

Scott and Chris do the finishing touches

Once the canvas is on we'll have to sand and paint it. We were thinking it would look great in natural tan canvas but epoxy is not UV tolerant and has to be covered or it goes chalky fairly soon. Then we'll be on to lots of varnishing the trim and seats etc - most of which have several coats already.

On the little Shepherd Outboard the hull is ready for the original bottom boards to go back on so we are plugging all the screw holes with sticks and epoxy. As everything has shrunk over the years and as we are going to put the original boards back on - they will be in a slightly different location and the new holes will have to drilled as required. This will allow us to tighten up the plank clearances to new specs.

George has a system, plugs are flying into place!

Great news this week! We can confirm that a date has been set for our first Boats for Folks Skiff building event with kids fighting cancer. This will take place in Toronto as a joint venture with an organization that specializes in helping these kids. Intended date of the build is May 5/6.

Big Daddy Festival is on again this year in the Glen and Kids & Classics Boatshops will be part of it. Events at our boatshop will include a Boats for Folks skiff building, an antique boat show, Paint-A-Boat (the other side of Wavecrast) and likely some other features tba!

If you wish to become involved in our activities this year call about attending our pot-luck boatshop meeting this Thursday Feb 16, 6:30 to 9 pm. 905 873-0141

Of Tops and Bottoms...

Lots of activity this week, beginning Tuesday evening with Trevor and George under the Shepherd with sandpaper and scrapers. Trevor found a note written in pencil on the number one forward deckbeam which said "6 sets 16 foot" - suggesting these were the first set.

"6 sets 16 foot"...

"I love sanding!"

By Saturday all four projects were in some level of action. With the pitching in of new volunteer Rajmund, he and Jim sanded the first primer coat of the skiff out pretty flat, tacked it and laid the second coat on. This one came out really well.

Ray and Jim lay it on smoooth!

really looking good here...

Meanwhile the insides of the Shepherd outboard was ready for a varsol wash and a fresh coat of Epifanes Woodfinish Gloss. George, John and Anton crunch through to make this all happen today.

lots of corners and hidden areas...

Anton and John get at the bow while it is open

Eventually there are 4 of us under there brushing away but what a difference! Too bad this is mostly out of sight in the finished boat! We are already working on stripping and cleaning the inner and outer original planks for the bottom. This week (or two) might see them all done and ready to go back on the boat!

under the bow deck - pure gold!

closing the last section!

At the other side of the shop Chris has showed up with the 86" wide canvas for the deck of the Lightning. Today some last minute fairing and smoothing of edges where the canvas will be stretched over the deck. With luck we'll epoxy the deck Tuesday night, sand it Thursday night and be ready to apply the canvas next Saturday. Lots of hands required to pull the canvas - so come on out!

Chris studying

Chris studying...some more

Today we had Jim, Ray, George, John, Anton and MB out. Amazing what was accomplised with many hands and it is inspiring to have projects move along so quickly as well.

Roni and Wayne will be attending a meeting in the Glen Monday night regarding the planning of the Big Daddy Fetival on Father's Day weekend - June 16 / 17 this year. We'll have the full story for you next week's edition but we will have lots going on at the Boatshop Museum! For sure there will be a need to bring in some funding to make all of this happen - let us know how you would like to pitch in...

Sand Putty & Paint - some more...

John puttied the Shepherd screw holes, George and Jim carried out some final sanding of the frames and rails while Chris tacked the skiff and readied it for it's first coat of primer.

tacky, tacky, tacky...

sand, sand, sand...

George removed the last of the Sikaflex from where someone had sandwiched plywood on the transom.

scrape, scrape, scrape

fill, fill, fill...

then everybody got painting, Chris on the skiff and the rest on the Shepherd. Feels like a huge step ahead once finishes begin to go on. Although on the Shepherd we will be back into gooping and scraping to ready the original planks for re-installation. The plan is to re-set all the inner and outer planks to their original spacing of one popsicle stick width appart. We suspect this will mean that the last plank on will be a new one to make up for the 50 years of accumulated shrinkage - we'll see!

First coat done!

over and under

A really great day to leave the shop with finishes done and drying. Lots of participation all week and two projects really moved ahead. We reviewed the pros and cons of staining the cedar dinghy to mask the years of wear and tear on the outer hull. Cedar looks so lovely with clear varnish on the bare wood but this girl had been bumped around, original finish half scraped off then painted green and that half scraped off - it looked really dubious to bring it back. We decided to mask off a rectangel and apply 4 or 5 coats of varnish to see if the stains and scrapes mute out enough to live with....

first coat - marks do jump out!

Michealanglo and the Cisteen keel?

See you next week at the Kids & Classics Boatshop!

Anton, Tevor and George have at it!

Projects are really moving along this week - it's really great to see this happen.

Our "apprentice boatbuilder" Trevor has been out to every session this week and received detailed training from Anton our Master of Preping. It is so easy to sand through previous layers when trying to achive a 'flat' surface between coats of finish - especially at edges. Trevor has becaome quite good at this and we are looking forward to seeing the results as the skiff he was involved in building last springs Big Daddy Festival weekend begins to see paint this weekend.

Anton "If you can feel it you will see it"

"Dr." Anton mixes a batch of epoxy

 George went at the Shepherd dressing the holes we had filled earlier in the week - so all the underwater frames and longitudinals are ready for grey paint on Saturday. Next we will scrape and sand the underside of the decks and sides for a few coats of varnish. Most of this will be out of sight when the boat is finished but we just "had to do it" anyway.

Filling and sanding old screw holes

George and the 'final touch'

Finally Thursday night, the skiff was ready for primer and the Shepherd was ready for grey paint on its nether parts - so our attention turned to the transom...we've been stalling this off! We are not sure but we think this is not the original transom covering. It is 3 pieces of plywood and there are bad spots in them - it has to be redone.

If anyone out there knows for sure how Shepherd would have covered the transom on these boats - we'd love to hear. We would prefer to layer it with three solid mahogany planks. The catch is they would only be about 5/8" thick and that may be why plywood is there now. Whoever put the plywood on used something like Sikaflex - what a job getting that off - chisels, axes, masonry hammers, saws...

just getting started!

resorting to destruction...

and DONE!

Amazing what many hands can accomplish in short order!

We are always open to seeing new faces - especially on Saturdays. Visit the Beaumont Mill Antiques & Collectibles Market in Glen Williams and we are just across the parking lot.