Art and Boat Projects

Last weekend, I came into possession of three sheets of FREE masonite, so I cut it up into useful painting sizes and glued strips of wood to the back like canvas stretcher frames to stiffen it up. Then I gessoed it. The picture above is the new painting surfaces drying in the boatshop (aka-- garage.) The transom of the boat in the background belongs to my GP 14. She's hanging from the ceiling right now, but I hope to get her down and fix the centerboard leak this spring.

I have been editing my blog. I decided that there was too much stuff on the side bar and it was detracting from my images. Also, I noticed that according to my Stat Counter, no one was actually leaving my blog by the blog links in the side bar. So I deleted most of the links, but kept a few and moved them up with the web links. I hope no one takes it personally that the link to their blog or page was removed.

My father's two whitehalls impatiently waiting to lauch!

The companionway hatch boards on my Pearson Triton, Ca Ira, have been too small for the companionway opening for a couple of years, since I tried to strip off old cracked varnish with the belt sander and took off a little too much. I'm too broke to buy new mahogany boards large enough to replace them, so I'm gluing strips of mahogany to the edges with epoxy. The photo above shows the top hatch board clamped and drying.

I only had two clamps long enough to clamp this project together, so my father had the bright idea of joining two smaller clamps together to span the distance, as the above photo shows.

Once the epoxy set, I unclamped the boards and started sawing and sanding to fit.

And that's my excuse for not having any new paintings to post!