Warm Weather on Button Bay and the snow is almost gone!

This past week has been un-seasonally warm and I have been working on finishing my varnish work on the pieces I removed from the skiff. Things have been going well and my brightwork has been inproving, But still have stuff in my work, oh well. I am finishing one of the biggest pieces, the front bench seat back. THis one is challenging because of its size. I tried the roll and tipe method that many use. THis method is definatly faster but I still find I get better results with just the brush. I have not learned the best method to load a foam roller. Her e is some pic's I took after the last coat of varnish was applied.



On another front since the weather is getting better is working on my engine stringers. My boat originally came with a 6 cyl but the original owner changed the power plant to a v-8 to get the skiff to go faster. He said it did not improve anything. I have located the correct Chris Craft motor and will go back to the 6 cyl. Since the v-8 mounted differently I have been removing threaded rod and rotted dowel rods to get thes tringer ready for new dowel rods and on the startbard stringer I need to take 1 inch off the top to deal with some surface rot. AS you see below I have drilled out the sections and now have CPES in the holes trying to stabilize the stringers before they are doweled. Once the CPES drys up I will route off the top of the starboard stringer then dowel that piece before I lay in its new top. It will be glued and screwed. A side note on material cost is that they have sky rocked and I believe it will get worse. What scares me other than the economy hitting hard times is the challenge of finishing this skiff before I cant affoard ot work on it anymore.



The next thing to tackle is making an engine box. I bought the African Mahogany Lumber All I need left is the Mahogany plywood for the sides. I am going to get new Marine Fir plywood for the floors. The original flooring has been cut for the v-8. Well more to come tomorrow or when ever.

Spring is coming SLOWLY

Well here it is mid April and we had snow showers over the weekend. The ice is off button bay and Trout season has started. I have been working on varnishing more pieces and had to strip some pieces I thought I finished but some how the stain did not match as well. The initial pieces I did where a little yellow compared to my recent stain work which is more red'ish. Some of the pieces I am reworking are more lighter color from sun exposure so I need two applications of stain to somewhat even things out.


Here you have the front bench in sections and it has an orange tinge which highlights the lighter sections so I put on a second coat of stain to darken it a bit more.

Here is a shot after sanding the third coat, as you can see it is darker. I think it blends a little better with the differing wood color.


I had a dickens of a time getting the front bench seat uprights done in that I constantly was getting sags. It was to the point of sanding down to the satin and starting over. I did get them presentable. I have 5 good coats on these pieces and am in the process of varnishing the seat back for the front.