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.

Chain Plates and Deadeye Bands

We're doing a little metal work. Just wanted to show some pics of the chain plates (before galvanizing) and the metal bands that go around the deadeyes and attach to the chain plates. In the next little while we'll be making the boom bands and bales, mast bands and goose neck, bow sprit irons and jib hanks. The old term for this was ' ironing out the vessel'.

Deadeyes and Baggy Wrinkles

We have been busy inside for the last little while. It is cold outside and we have turned to the warmth and relative comfort of the basement to get some things made that we will eventually need.
We would like to say thank you to Page Baird, a fine wood worker in his own right. He is a neighbour and dear friend, who has been lending his hand to helping with the deadeyes.
About half of them are completed and epoxied and the other half need the cut out for the irons and epoxy finish.
We have also been busy with baggy wrinkles (baggy winkles, as my kids call them) I have about 10 of those done as well. They are the anti sail chafers that wrap around the rigging on the vessel.

Lovely Gift

Happy New Year.
We have been out of the shop for a couple of weeks now with the holidays and the colder weather. We have taken to doing in house work like making chain plates and baggy winkles. We won't need either right away but eventually they will come in handy and working towards something keeps our hands from getting idle.

We had a surprise and welcome visit from two people this morning that we have come to know through the building of the Lena Blanche. They are boat enthusiasts and charming to boot. Steve Wynn and artist Al Chaddock. Al presented us with one of his original paintings of the stern of the Lena Blanche and Warren in the foreground. We are quite thankful for this  lovely gift and wanted to share it on our blog. So with Al's permission:

We plan to have it framed and put up where we, and all those who come to visit, can enjoy it. And as Al requested we will use ' the finest galvanized nails' to display it.  Such a sense of humour. Thank you so much for the beautiful painting and thank you both for the visit. We hope to see you again soon.

We wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and the best of the New Year. We have had an amazing year and have so much to be thankful for. In this season we often reflect on all the things we are grateful for. We have been blessed with a home and great kids. We have welcomed new members into our extended families this year- babies and in laws. We have had good health and are still able to do the things we want (no skiing or skydiving). We are surrounded by old friends and new ones.

We have gotten quite a bit done on the vessel this year and hope that in 2015 we will make an even bigger step toward getting Lena Blanche in the water and setting sail.

All the best to you and yours.
Warren and Andrea

After the flood

Hello from the boatshed. Yesterday was a great rain throughout Nova Scotia and Truro got it's share. The cutting room of the boat shed, which is a dirt floor, is soaking but not underwater. It just makes your boots clog up a little with shavings. Scrape them before you enter the vessel! Today, however, was sunny and gorgeous. It was at least 15 degrees Celsius in the afternoon and we certainly enjoyed it while we were putting ceiling in the Lena Blanche. We had a couple of friends drop by to check on the progress and to have a little visit- and to smell the oakum- and we had some other things to do in the basement workshop.
Warren has been making a little forge in which to make the irons for the deadeyes,the boom bails and mast bands,goose necks and all the irons for the schooner and it has a powerful blast to it. When he starts engaging it I will post the pics of our fiery friend.
Today I have pics of the new interior that we are working on. We have 5 strakes of ceiling on so far. We can usually put in one strake on in a day.

 Warren removing the clamps, getting ready to put the next piece in the vessel.

 Each piece of ceiling is 2" x 3" v-joint pine. It will all be painted white.

A close up of the work. All of the nail holes will be plugged before it is painted.

If we don't update before Christmas, we would like to thank you all for your interest in this project and to wish you a Merry Christmas or whatever celebration you celebrate in your home.

December

We are into December and thankfully we are still working fairly steadily on Lena Blanche. She is now planked and we have started to install the ceiling in the interior. We sealed it all with S1 on the interior  and painted all of the ribs with oil paint. Now we're covering it all up with pine ceiling (sealed, of course, with S1 epoxy).
We have taken delivery of 320 lbs. of oakum and 18 lbs. (so far) of cotton so that in the spring we won't be held up with the caulking. All that has to be done before that is planing and sanding off the entire exterior of the vessel..........no sweat.  Well, probably a lot of sweat, but good sweat.

 18 bags of cotton each weighing one pound.

 One bag opened up to have a look at the quality of the oakum. Hemp and pine tar. Mmmmm

8 bags of oakum- 40 lbs in each.

We've had quite a lot of visitors this fall. So nice to meet so many new people and so nice to have folks return who make our boat shed part of their yearly visits. 

Tomorrow it's supposed to warm up again and so we'll be back in the boat continuing with the ceiling. Pics to follow later.