The Tardis Project

October 11, 2015  Hours spent building to date:  1,526 I’ve never had a boat shippy enough to have bulwarks (railings that run around the deck) or hawse holes (openings lined with metal to allow lines to go through the bulwarks).  Not even 50+ year old Memsahib was that traditional. But little Tardis has small bulwarks at

October 4, 2015  Hours spent building to date:  1,500 Just hit the 1500 hours mark.  I was sort of thinking 2000 when I started the Tardis, but it looks more like 2500.  But then again, I work slowly and take a lot of breaks. Anyway, it was a good week, even with interruptions to prepare for

September 29, 2015  Hours spent building to date:  1,484 The holding and water tanks (holding – 30 gallons, main water tank -30 gallons, backup water tanks -15 gallons) arrived last week and I have been prepping the tank bays and installing the fittings since then.  Getting the tank bays ready was pretty easy since the

September 18, 2015  Hours spent building to date:  1,447 It may seem that I’m moving somewhat haphazardly from job to job on the Tardis — and that’s true.  The hull has to be built in a pretty strict sequence, but once the boat is turned over there are dozens of ways to proceed. To solidify

September 10, 2015  Hours spent building to date 1,415 The heat wave has finally broken and I’ve really been working again after days of thinking of simple things to do once the shop turns into a hothouse at about 2 pm. The fuel tanks are in and tied down tight.  I trimmed the vertical braces

Sept 7, 2015  Hours spent building to date:  1,398 Getting the forecabin beam shelf to take the proper bend was an interesting project.  As I mentioned before, there is a nice open area at the aft end of the berth area, but that means there is no frame there to take the curve of the

August 31, 2015  Hours spent building to date:  1,363 A short week due to the trip to Ohio to deliver John to school and a long weekend in beautiful Westport, MA to visit wonderful old friends, Angie and Alan Scott. Nevertheless, a few thing got done: — Bonded in the cockpit sides for a watertight

August 21, 2015   Hours spent building to date: 1,337 The New York area has been going through some extremely humid weather, so after 3 pm I am reduced to jobs that don’t fog up my glasses and require minimal effort (like gazing at the plans and plotting next steps).  Nevertheless, it was a productive week cut

August 16, 2015  Hours spent building to date:  1,309 A pretty boring week installing floor joists, painting the deckhouse with tie-coat and fitting the cockpit and deckhouse sole subflooring (1/2-inch marine ply in the cockpit, birch in the cabin proper).  Also did a lot of shop reorganization, since I am now back to cutting big sheets of

August 9, 2015  Hours spent building to date: 1,283 I have been at this for a year now, and it has been a wonderful year by any measure.  I wanted to have some, big significant piece of work to mark the boat’s first birthday, but all I could come up with was painting the bilge/tankage