Shining Her Up

February 24, 2017  Hours spent building to date:  3,456

Last week my friend Ray remarked, “Pretty soon you are going to run out of jobs to do.”  Tardis is a boat, so I will never run out of jobs to do, but scheduling is getting harder in these final months.  I should have been working on decks this week, but that would have meant filling the shop with sawdust. With various pieces of varnish drying, that wouldn’t work.  So I decided to double down on varnish and finish the exterior.  So 120 yards of Frog Tape later we are up to four coats of a scheduled seven.  It is tough going — every coat needs sanding, wipe down and varnish, which for the whole boat takes about six hours, much of it working from a ladder.  But now that we are varnishing varnish instead of wood, each coat looks better and better.

The varnishing on the cabinet doors did get done, and they are now hung.  I decided to use European hinges because they are adjustable, have a “snap close” feature that may help keep them shut in a seaway and because they are supposedly a “snap-in” easy installation.  I think one out of six doors actually “snapped in”.  Like any hinge, holding the door in one hand, a drill in the other hand, the hinge in your third hand and an impact driver in your fourth hand, getting them in is a fight.  There just didn’t seem a way in the small areas I had to work with to get enough pressure on the hinges to “snap.”  But with shims and trimming and installation with hinges already snapped, I got them to look pretty good.  But it took my almost two days for six doors.  Six doors in two days would get you fired from any cabinet shop in Connecticut, but my boss at the Tardis Project is very understanding.

I am not complaining about the hard work — I come home tired, but am able to eat huge meals without any appreciable weight gain.  And since gin and vermouth are both clear liquids and have no calories, a martini also seems an appropriate reward for shaking-tired legs.

Four coats on, three more to go.

Transom — may have to go an extra coat here, since mahogany has a grain pattern that’s hard to fill.

Final varnish on interior trim

Final settee varnish