Hurry up and wait

We've been working on Thomas' boat every day. Problem is that most of the big jobs involved major wait times. We've finished off the laminated sheer clamp at the rail - fixing the inside panels to the sheer. This is the single biggest job in our build as we opted to skip screws and go with a glued laminate rail. Each 1/4 inch (4mm) piece had to be clamped for hours (basically a day) in place before the next was added. Each side has 10 layers.

Once both rails were done from a laminating stage, we got to know and love my Veritas hand plane. This one-handed wood plane made shaping the rails an absolute pleasure - creating little curly shavings of oak and decorating the garage floor just like the real boat builders. There was a little getting used to regularly adjusting the blade depth depending on where the plane was used, but what a miracle tool. We are really learning how the craftsmen from days gone by did things without power tools - and why there are times doing it by hand is better.

Since we completed the rail, it has been stained and now we've started to put an epoxy layer on top of the stained rail. At least two messy, drippy coats of epoxy are necessary - to be followed by sanding and at least three coats of UV protection varnish. Each coat of epoxy - another day gone. We're using the West System "Special Clear" hardener for the stained rail, and it doesn't kick and harden as fast as the preferred "Fast" hardener.

The epoxy is running down the inner panels as it goes on, so it will necessitate another round of sanding once it is cured to get the inside panels free of drips. We'll be very glad once we get the rails done and masked off so we can get the deck epoxied/filleted down. Once the deck is down, we're almost done. Just cleaning the fillets, perhaps some fairing compound and it will be ready for paint.