Mi vida loca
Man, if there was a way to get something completely F!ed up, I found at least one alternate version today. Even managed to cut the cables to my solar panels while I was out shaving the rocks in my Minefield/obstacle course that is loosely called “the yard”.
Easy enough fix, but dang-it!!!, I know I buried those daggum things when I put the panels on a rack. (formerly installed on roof. NOTE: do NOT do that. Bad bad Juju happens to people that do that!!!). and I know it because there was fresh dirt where the mower grabbed them and pulled the remainder out of that trench. That’s part of the problem living on this hill. Nothing stays buried. Rocks grow better than weeds, and the weeds grow better than anything that resembles ‘grass’. Every spring, my liitle rock retaining wall grows a little bigger as I add rocks to it as they pop up in front of and underneath the mower. I replace the blades on the mower at least once a year. Twice last year as I broke both. Amazingly, I didn’t destroy the engine.
In about 20 years of annual mowing, this yard may become civilized. Sure as heck isn’t right now. Maybe I just need a herd of sheep to keep it trimmed,,,,
Sorry for the lack of posting lately, I just needed to take a break from things. I didn’t even take the phone to work with me on Monday. Left it here at the house and reveled in the peace of mind that settled in without the deluge of email notices, and other things.
As was quoted of John Ross, RIP, talking about his sequel to Unintended Consequences: He said that he hadn’t been able to finish the book because the FRAUD kept giving him new material every morning. I know exactly how he felt: I have the same problem coming up in the sequel to Wings for that very same reason. I guess I should have written the whole thing further into the future or just ignored ‘current events’ while writing the original, but now I feel like I am locked into using our ‘history’ as it unfolds, and the FRAUD just keeps piling on more crap. Even when you think things can’t get any stranger, they dump a shovel load of “WTF?” on and turn the valve open just a little further.
Ok, Confession time. I am HIGHLY distracted right now, and it has NOTHING, absolutely NOTHING, to do with world events or any of that. My distraction explains why I am having little “oops” factors popping up on me too. Nopes, I found another deal of the century in kayaky goodness, and I am trying my dangedest to make the connections that make it MINE!!!! Don’t want to go into too many details, like make and model, or what not, but I can tell you it is a legitimate Seakayak, 17′ long, and honest to Dawg fiberglass construction. Need some TLC, but from everything I can see in the pictures i have of it, the TLC is outfitting only. The glass appears ‘factory fresh’, and I can see that the skeg is in working order. So, new deck lines, possibly new hatch covers ( most likely) and I would have a ship-shape seakayak for a tenth of the price of a new one. No, I am not kidding, ONE. TENTH. 
(not the exact version, but a good example.)
yup, its eating me alive trying to figure out how to get tab A into slot B and make all of this happen. So, apologies to you all for my lack of focus on the bloggy stuff.
Follow up on Oofff!!!
Hate to say it but the medal was kind of a “Gimme”; There were only two of us in that class. So, last place, woohooo… With that up front, it was competitive. I never lost sight of the other paddler, but he was running a home built Night Heron Design which Nick Schade came up with to improve on the Greenland Inuit designs. Hull speed is about 3/4 mph faster than mine and it showed. I never lost sight of him, but he continually pulled ahead of me and by the end of the race, had near a half mile lead on me. Neither of us EVER stopped paddling (other than to grab some water ’cause that wind was drying everyone out. Dry enough that you couldn’t spit!) and he was using a Wing Paddle where I was using my Greenland. There is a performance difference, but I am still impressed that a GP can still compete with a Wing: maybe not beat it, but it will give it a run for its money. Considering the GP was designed by primitive peoples using anthropomorphic measurements, and the Wings are computer designed high tech paddles, I think that says more about “human ingenuity” than mere words here can express.
And there were participation awards as well, but In this case I ain’t giving the promoters any shit about it. Just showing up at the finish line was a challenge and a half!!! There was a kickin’ wind coming out of the west, straight into our faces for the return trip and getting through that was no fun. Cooling, as the splash from the paddles kept the quickly drying sweat washed off the face, but damn!!! what a battle heading up-wind.
Selkie did frigging PERFECT. No splash off the bow!!! She just sliced right in and didn’t matter if it was glass flat or chop or wave sets. Chop did nothing against performance while wave sets played with her stern a bit, and she did surf a wave face or three. Not much, but enough to give the old dude at the paddle a momentary respite, and a small ‘turbo boost’.
What needs changed though? 6.5 miles will tell you something about your design that “isn’t quite right”. In my case, its the bulkhead footrest I came up with. It worked, worked well, but the angle is ALL OFF. My heels went numb fairly early, and I started shifting around trying to make them comfortable and that put the strain on other parts and by the end of the race, I felt like I had a hole bored into my left asscheek. Nothing wrong with my seat pad, it was all about the footrest and that is easy enough to fix.
Even though I felt stiff and unstable for the first mile, that wasn’t ‘a boat issue’: that was a “I’m in need of seat time” issue, and by the end of the first mile, my hips had loosened up and my mind put into ‘sea-legs’ mode and I was fine. Wave-sets off the rear quarter didn’t goose me after that first mile like they did when I started out, and I was paddling smoother with each hundred yards traveled; not the epileptic seizure splash and churn that I started with. I really needed to get A LOT more seat time in before this race, but is what it is, and now I have my mind conditioned for the rest of the paddle season.
B, the indomitable, stubborn persistent bullish paddler he is, came across the line last of the entire group. He had done the long distance run so had to do two laps to my one, and that wind was kickin’ EVERYONES ass. Even the surfski’s were looking rather dogged out when they crossed the line at the last. B was in a Perception Vizcaya (yeah, the blue one I used to own.) and while its a great little recreational boat, B (and meself vicariously) found it ‘It ain’t no race boat’. Great hull design for shallow waters where you want to ride over debris and what not, but seeing the double wake pattern along its gunwales tells me it creates its own drag.* You are fighting the boat to move forward at anything over ‘mild cruise’ (3-4mph). if you go for higher, you have to double your efforts to hold it and that wears you down. B did that for 13 miles of open water, 6.5 of which was in a head wind of at least 8mph with gusting up to 25.
And this was the first big paddle of the season. Wooofffff!!!!
T, bullheaded and stubborn herself, chose to do the same lap as I did, but she did it in her Duck; An inflatable whitewater ‘kayak’. She fought probably twice as hard as B and I did because she was still set up for whitewater, not flat water and the bow of her Duck kept trying to fly off the water when she was headed into the wind. I watched her crossing the bay towards the finish line and a halfway serious gust would lift the front and turn her boat ninety degrees to her heading, and she would have to fight to correct it. She paddled half the race from the kneeling position to keep her weight forward and stop that, but that’s a very hard position to paddle in if you don’t have the ‘saddle’ for it. She did finish, and I could hear the exhaustion in her voice while talking to her afterwards.
That fight she had was why I am saying not giving the promoter shit for the participation awards. Just crossing the finish line yesterday was a challenge and those that did, deserve something ‘just for showing up to the fight’.
Damned good day out, and I mentioned to B that I hadn’t felt this relaxed since around August of last year. I need to get out to the Church of the Two Bladed Paddle a whole lot more often. The world seems brighter today for it.
* In comparison, in Selkie, I didn’t see the first wake wave until well near my cockpit, while moving at nearly 5mph. And it was a lot smaller than the wave the Viz was making: it never rose to the gunwales like what I saw on the Viz. No way to change the design of his boat, but I am certain he will keep in mind what its capable of, and more importantly what it is NOT capable of, in the future.
Christened!!
As I said yesterday, it was time to take the kayak formerly known as Serena out for the very first float. In this time loop, I missed a full two months of water time: the first go-round, Serena had her first float the day before Turkey day. This round, I didn’t even have the skin on the boat until after the New Year roll over. Reasons, but I finally managed to do the deed.
No pictures. The water was 40° and I was dressed for such and since I was alone, decided to forego any distractions like GPS, Phone, extra paddle, paddle float and bilge pump. Just an easy little paddle around the bay of one of my regular put-ins. The wind was kicking HARD and I didn’t want to get out on open water, solo, in a new to me boat. Prudent too, because at one point the wind picked up and I could see the wake pattern shift as the boat was pushed laterally while moving forward. Interesting aspect, she did not weathercock: she held her heading even though she was being pushed sideways. No meed for a skeg on this girl!!! She is completely weather neutral. (No ‘good’waves so I dont know how she handles chop other than the frog ripples kicked up in the bay. Those don’t even register anymore.)
But her new name is SELKIE. And I am IMPRESSED. Great initial stability, solid wall secondary, even though she rides an inch higher in the water than Serena did. Easy hip snaps(though I didnt try a roll yet), perfect tracking even in wind, a little edge and she turns fast,and. FAST. Two or three good strokes of the blades and she is moving quick from a standing start. A couple more and she is cruising and then easy peasy maintain momentum strokes. No GPS so dont know what cruise is, but from experiance, I’d say 4.3 is close. And she holds it with so little effort, I could paddle all day and still be energized at the tail end.
Oh, and that hard decked cockpit? Frickin AWESOME. Control is rock solid with those thighbraces in there, and the adjustable footplate I made worked perfectly. (Tempted to find a ratchet system from an old IR reggie backband and improve what I have, but no rush)
She is gonna live on the truck now and gear will stay there as well. I intend on paddling at least once a week for the rest of the year. My drytop and other gear did just fine while trying my hipsnaps ▪︎(cold head but I do have just didn’t use, a neoprene hood.) My reactor Pogies always blow my mind at how warm they keep the forefeet, even when dipping them in 40°water repeatedly. So cold weather ain’tagonnabe a show stopper anymore.
(I promise action pics/vid soonest, just not this time)
▪︎ there was some leakage around the cockpit while hip snapping. I think, dunno for certain, that my spray skirt was not seated properly behind me. But the end amount of water in the boat was less than a 16oz bottle worth so I am not overly concerned with it.
ya might be addicted,,,
Slow day. bored kittehs cuz it’s far too cold for bare paws to go outside for very long. No need to make booties for them, they wouldn’t wear ’em anyways and I like my skin intact: ever tried to force a kat into doing something for its own good that it thought otherwise of?
anywhoos,,,,
Ya might be addicted,,,
Yah, I might be.
Yesterday eve, chatting with B about life the universe and kayaking, I brought all my cold water gear inside from the truck and was going through things. Mostly to make sure I have it all together, but also to make sure gaskets and seams were still functional. Decided to do a little testing of a sort: I doffed my street duds and climbed into all that gear. Quick-dry long-sleeve undershirt, long sleeve fleece top, fleece vest. 5 mm wetsuit bottoms and dive boots. Then the dry top. Gaskets feeling a little sticky so I 303’ed them and donned that ‘straight jacket’. Slide into the sprayskirt and sealed the double tunnel of the top to it. (part under the skirt, part over it) then the PFD just because I am doing ‘a test’. I am actually getting sweaty at this point. Then, out onto the porch with a good book.
It was 22 degrees out there and I always have a pretty decent breeze blowing off the hills. Wind chill is closer to 8 degrees. Full (semi) dry gear and a breeze and I was out there for over an hour doing jack shit and the only thing that the cold managed to get, was my NOSE. I never felt the cold air except on bare skin. When I paddle in the cold, I add a neoprene dive hood but I didn’t need that to stay warm. I think if I had worn it, I would have been sweating buckets under all that gear. As for the handwear, I used to use gloves or mittens, but since I bought my pogies, I don’t bother. My hands stay plenty warm even wet with the pogies. Not the top of the line type, but they are neoprene with the ‘reactor’ fleece liner. If its above 40 degrees, your hands WILL sweat in them. (they were not a part of this test since I do know what they can do, and they stay fixed to the paddle in any case. Hard to read a book with your hands incased in pogies.)
Now, I know that this isn’t the best test of my gear, and that I need to get things wet to really KNOW what it can handle, but I have done that in the past, just not down to the temperatures we had today. I still won’t paddle in this crap without a wingman; Too easy for things to go sideways. But I feel that what I have will work well enough, especially if I stay IN the boat and not pop that skirt. I know the drytop will keep me completely dry so long as that skirt stays on the cockpit.
No, I am not suffering from kayak withdrawal or anything ;-P.
My biggest worry with this test was Grizz. I had to keep his attention off of me to keep those sharp meathooks away from a $300 drytop. One little hole and the term is bunk. It may not leak much, but the idea is for it to not leak AT ALL. It’s why it has heavy rubber gaskets at the neck and wrists. I know it doesn’t leak at those points from rolling Ghost while wearing it. The only part that is gonna leak is around the waist IF immersed, and why I want to stay in the boat when the water starts trying to make like a solid.
Won’t get that rough here, but that water is just as cold as it can get without going full solid.
No kayaking THERE eh?
BUT, that test made me want to go out even more but reinforced that I REALLY REALLY WANT SPRING TO HURRY ITS ASS UP!!!.
I hate feeling like I am getting ready for a shuttle launch just to go paddling. Much rather this type of weather and after paddle event.
come on SPRING!!!!! Wants away for a couple days,,,,
Not happy
Sorry for the lack of posting, been busy, its cold, and days are short, so I squeeze in what I can while I can. Staying up on the latest outrage of the FRAUD is at the low end of that list (but I do keep a weather ear out for sudden shifts in tyranny to make sure I am not caught broadside)
Trying something a little different with the kayak. Its not new; others have done it and reported good results, but I am not happy with what I am seeing. Ok, gotta bring y’all up to speed here. In both Serena and Duh!kee, I used a two part polyurethane system from Spirit-line. Good results, but it can be finicky about repairs and re-finish. Most people just ‘deal’ until such time as its time to re-skin. Well, this time around I chose to go with regular spar varnish and pigment it like I do the two-part (very successfully at that).
MEH!!!
It soaks into the fabric very well, maybe better than the two part stuff does (less solids, more carrier solvents). and it takes pigment pretty well too: nothing separating out when it gets on the fabric. BUT,, That finish is totally lacking any luster or appeal. Its a smooth satin and I had to double check to make sure I hadn’t picked up a satin varnish ( ( didn’t, its high gloss). It looks ‘Okay’, but it certainly lacks the ‘POP!” that the two part gave to Serena.
*sigh*
And I am to far along and committed to a system to make the change to the other. Heck, once that first line of coating went on, I was committed with no recourse for correction.
But I will not be using it again.
And I already told myself “Self, you shoulda tried it on a peice of scrap FIRST”. Self responded that at the price I am paying for spar varnish, I was committed to the system and a test strip would have done little to my resolve. Both selves are right. I would have found a use for the spar varnish elsewhere, but at $18/qt and I bought a gallon, I was determined to use the crap on this boat. Should’ve stuck to ‘tried and true’. Live and learn, and I did learn and won’t be repeating this little screw-up.
Honestly, it looks like I painted the hull with a satin house paint, not varnish. Blech!!!
On other fronts, I have a 2 gallon pot of chicken parts stewing on the woodstove, and will be adding my dumplings in tomorrow after I skim out all the bones and other inedible parts. That will keep me fat and happy for a week. And the Kittehs are digging on the ‘other parts’ that they were given. Grizz is especially fond of the livers and did something out of character for him: He growled at Mamakat when she went sniffing at his share.
It’s winter, chicken n dumplin’s are winter food and after a week of Chili, I needed a change-up. (but DAMN that last bowl of Chili was EX-SEE-LANT!!!).
May have a winter paddle forthcoming with B. Watching weather and if things look stable, we are planning on a day trip out in the frosty cold waters of somewhere here local. Maybe my fugly boat will get to make her first trip. Even though the ‘paint job’ is shitte, there were a lot of cool features added in that I really want to try out. That hard deck, the bulkhead foot brace and a slight shift in the hull design. Yeah, I should make one change, try it out then incorporate it into another boat with another change: thats proper protocol when doing things like this, but then, I am anything but a proper kayak designer. I figure if any one of the changes is bad, I will know right up front seeing how this is ‘almost’ the same boat that I started with. (same length and beam, new ribs but same profile other than less rocker, which is a change I do know the results of.)
Ok, Grizz figured out I am seated and not moving, so its lap time for him. I’ll post more soon.
addled mind, addled day
I really need to start working on a full time internet access point here at the homestead. I sat down to write no less than four posts today, and the lack of internet access ruffled my feathers enough that I just gave up. Its later in the day and the signals have settled down enough that I can now write,
Something.
Certainly not any of the posts that I tried to write earlier since they were blown out of the water before leaving the dock,,,
BUT,,,
I wasn’t sitting on my duff doing nuttin’ all day. Been quite busy as you will see. I had that coaming about 2/5ths done last night, and today was spent ‘putting the polish’ on it. Mostly warping wood so that it followed curves.
This isn’t so much woodworking as sculpting. Each piece glued into place, then rough shaped with a flap-disc, a non-orbital sander to follow up and knock down the rough marks, followed by hand sanding of three grits to get baby butt smooth. I even went over it with some double aught steel wool to get that silky feeling to the final surface before a light wetting down with water. Another round with the steel wool when that was dry, wipe down with a dry cloth, and ready for varnish. I am not going to forget that lesson of needing a middle-man with fiberglass/resin.
I even put two of my skirts on it to make sure things were good to go. The XL deck skirt fit best, but the L deck went on too, with only a little bit of a fight.
And here she is in all her glory with linseed oil soaked frame and hard-deck coaming under varnish. I will do the glass later this weekend, or even over the Christmas break (between family events).
I just noticed that there is a plethora of dust on that gunwale and it looks ‘dry’. It isn’t, just looks that way with all the dust on top. Wiped down, it is just as dark as the fore gunwale.
Glass, final coat of varnish when that is cured and sanded, then SKIN TIME.
Ordered my two-part but it looks like it won’t be shipped till after Christmas. That means that I may not have this kayak finished until sometime in the New Year. Depends on when I get that goop. Skinning it won’t be that rough, but I don’t want the skin sitting there getting dirt on it while waiting either. It will be a situation of skin it, shrink it, and goop it up as fast as possible. Don’t want any fish-eyes in this skin like Serena had. (no one ever said anything about them to me, but I saw them EVERY DANGED TIME I was around that boat. kind of irritating.)(and with kittehs running rampant and bored by foul weather, even the best efforts would end up with dirt and gunk on it if I let it sit around for more than 5 minutes. That was my biggest problem making that coaming: Grizz kept wanting to help and with Cyanoacrylate, that was NOT going to be a good thing. yeah, I used quite a bit of superglue putting that coaming together. Better that then the alternative of wood glue and needing days to set up. The bond is tougher than the surrounding wood and I ‘filletted’ the joints with sanding dust to add strength. I can pick up the kayak by the lip and not hear any creaking or warnings of something about to give: She is TOUGH.)
It’s getting dark out there now, and supposedly the temps are going into the basement tonight. (cloud cover usually keeps them steady, but the forecast is near freezing by daybreak. Lovely,,,,). SO, I need to start getting the wood stove ready, just in case. (if temps hover over 45, I leave it alone and dress accordingly, otherwise, I am opening every door and window by 3am to cool the house down and not kill pets or myself.) and now you know where all those little end-cuts and shavings and what not that happen when building a kayak go to (and why I prefer building them at this time of year, besides the fact that the water is witches teat cold,,,)
More tomorrow as I catch up and maybe one or two of those blasted out of the water posts will make a come-back.
Its the details that kill ya
Alternate title: Sunday’s a bust
Spent lots of time energy and resources setting up the cockpit deck on my kayak. The resources being the fiberglass and resin more than the wood. The wood in this case is fine, but little details that I didn’t know, caught me, bit my ass and wasted a several hours of my time and more than a little of my working capital in wasted resources.
I had the kayak in the rafters of the house last night to help with the cure of the fiberglass and the linseed oil I had soaked the frame in. The linseed oil did its thing, and the glass did something else entirely. Oh, it cured, cured good and hard too. But this morning when I took it out, that deck looked as wrinkly as the surface of a peach pit. NOT the surface I was shooting for to say the least. SO, dive into the nets and see if there is something I did, didn’t or need to do. Five minutes of research and I hit the ‘FacePalm’ moment.
First order of business is to get all of that resin and glass off the deck. (interestingly enough, the interior side where i used the Matte, did just fine, and I will tell why as this goes along). Bust out the scaper to get the bigger chunks and keep my glass dust to as low as possible. Then the sander with 40 grit pads to get the rest. Gotta take it all the way down to the wood. Two hours later and several discs of paper, back to ground zero.
So what detail did i miss? Seems that wood and resin are not completely copasetic in bonding; they need a middleman so to speak. That middleman is varnish: Varnish loves wood and soaks in creating a mechanical bond to the wood. Resin loves varnish and ‘mates’ with it to create a chemical bond (stronger). But resin is a larger polymer and can’t absorb into the wood the way the varnish does. Additionally, the resin “gasses off’ and that is what caused the wrinkles, gasses under the glass and the outer surface had cured already so couldn’t vent.
So why did my matte work where the fabric didn’t? Rough surfaces. I didn’t do much prep on the inner side of the wood since it won’t be seen and there were lots of saw marks, grooves and what not that the resin could get into to make a bond. I also used more hardener in it to speed up the cure since it was getting cold and I didn’t want to fart around too much. With the matte being thicker, was able to hold the heat from the reaction better, so cured cleaner, inside to out versus what the fabric side did.
The deck is all sanded now, minimal traces of the old resin (mostly in the joints where the wood comes together. it stuck very well to the glues in the joints) but the whole deck is flat and smooth as a babies butt now. One heavy coat of spar varnish on it and its sitting in the sun letting the heat of daylight drive that varnish into the surface.
I did not know that little detail of the varnish middleman or I would have done that first off. Its those little details that will kill you.
So was it a wasted weekend? Not at all; I revel in my failures as they are the BEST teachers. (so long as they don’t kill ya that is). This is not a mistake I will make again, EVER. So I may be out a little cash on materials, (not in the budget this week, what with a truck in the shop and hours being down,,, I’ll make it happen though.) But my knowledge has grown, and I consider the price paid a minor tuition in the school of hard knocks and busted knuckles.
It’s time to go off and do my domestic duties for the week, Not much I can do on the kayak until that varnish cures, and I need to pick up more glass and resin anyways. Just a little wrinkle in my time loop this round, one that tells me this one has been completely re-written for something better. Looking at the lines of the boat as she sits in the horses all ‘nekid’ without a skin, I see a sleek torpedo of a boat: My itch to get on water will have to wait till she is complete.
More later, probably about the cannibal feast I am witnessing in the EneMedia, with links to others seeing similar.
Dio's Workshop 