DIY Dinghy Work - Feb 20th, '23.
Covid Hits Home:
I spent a few days in Oakville, helping Mom around the house. Several days later, Donna got sick and I came home (against her wishes). That was on the 15th. The next day, she tested positive for Covid.
Since then, we've been avoiding each other in the house and wearing masks. I haven't had any symptoms yet (fingers crossed).
Her fever broke yesterday and, although still testing positive, she's feeling much better today (making sticky buns).
Boat Work:
When we last saw our intrepid dinghy, I had installed the corner braces (knees).
Yesterday, I hauled the car out of the garage, brought the boat outside and sanded the inside seams.
Back inside, I began work on a few of the internal 'finishing' items.
From left-over pieces of that old mahogany coffee table, I cut 4 backing pads for oarlock socket fittings.
The pads needed a lot of sanding to make them fit snug against the curve of the hull sides. I glued them on with epoxy.
The placement of the 2 toward the stern is indicated in the plans. The other two are my additions. They are placed further forward and will be used when there are 2 of us in the little boat. Placement involved a bit of 'seat-of-the-pants' engineering / guesswork. It'll be interesting to see how that works out on the water.
I also glued supports for the center seat in place. One attached to the bow and one attached to the top of the partial bulkhead.
Finally, I cut out a 1/4" panel to strengthen the transom.
I glued a cleat onto the middle (for a stern seat) and glued the panel onto the inside of the transom with a jumble of shims and clamps.
Today the epoxy-glued things were solid and I removed all the clamps.
I cut out the seat parts and glued a couple of white oak cleats onto the stern seat support.
I also puttied (with epoxy) the damaged edges of the main seat board (the construction materials place only had one pine board of the size I needed).
If all goes well, we install the seats tomorrow!
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