Scuttle

When someone hollers to 'go below' we now have a way to get there- that is... after we have a deck.We have spent the last month or so working on a beautiful deck house or 'scuttle'. It is made of pine and oak with a mahogany cover and inlay work. It will go through the deck and fasten to the deck beams.

Because Warren has links with Ireland we decided to add some shamrocks to the doors of the scuttle. Here is the template we used to mark them off. You will see I had excellent assistance from our cat, Maggie. She's always around for quality control. After that I used the scroll saw to cut out the shapes, then we sanded it all and laminated oak on top of the mahogany.

We also took some time to get some oakum ready for caulking. As soon as we are able to return to the boat shed we will finish the sealing and sand the hull. Then caulking. As a note to those who roll oakum- it may be a good idea to put some protection between the oakum and your leg for rolling. Extended contact with the pine tar could cause hives on your legs. Not serious but terribly itchy.:)
We had a couple of friends come and help us one afternoon. It was a great time of story telling, laughter, and good food and we got some work done.

Until next time, we are still battling snow and snow storms here. Hopefully, by this time next month we will have blue sky and warm weather.
Happy Easter to all.