“A Gallon of Mayonnaise, Please”

April 24, 2016 Hours spent building to date: 2,439

The title does not refer to my friend Pat Harris’s usual accompaniment to burgers, sandwiches, pancakes or apple pie. It was my order at Clinton Paint Co. for a gallon of Benjamin Moore Regal Satin “Mayonnaise” to begin painting the interior bead board roof panels.

That turned out to be quite a job since they cover a lot of area even after trimming to size — sand, prime, sand, first coat, sand, final coat. I’m glad Ray was able to help.

But just as the panels were finished I received a comment from Conall asking how I was going to establish the radius on the corners. As he expected, it was a critical measurement and very tricky. I first tried to make a big compass with a nail and string, but the corners really aren’t circular. So I tried making segments of an ellipse using a long ruler with a hole in it, moving it all around the corner trying to duplicate the plans. Close, but not quite there. After two hours of fiddling, I laid the plans on the plywood, put a nail where I thought the curve would start, another where it should end, and just pulled a light batten out to a rough diagonal from the corner. Looked good, marked it, cut it and used the offcut for a pattern for the other four corners.

But after getting Conall’s comment on my phone, I thought, “Conall is a professional craftsman. He built an exquisite steel 50-footer by himself. Should I have been more scientific? Should I have thought that through a little more?” So I ran back into the shop and flipped a panel on the boat upside down to protect the paint. Whew — looked just right. I’ll bet that’s how Mark got that curve — threw one up on the computer and pulled it with his cursor until it looked just right.

Ray acted as ground crew Friday to hoist up the panels and hand me screws and tools. But it was an exhausting day — I must have been on and off the boat 50 times, checking for square, checking that the seams ran true along their whole length, drilling, countersinking and fastening dozens of screws. Sparta the cat had a toenail clipping appointment at the vet in the afternoon, so I used that as an excuse to take the rest of the day off.