And Splash: Rosssport 2009

Major scramble before the scheduled trip to Rossport. Although the location was one of a few possibilities, timing was not! Pre-Flight Check (work): Secure seat and straps for back, Check; Silicone in Bulkheads, Check; Gasket Hatches, Check; Solder and assemble Hatch Turnbuckles, Check; Install Front Tow Loop, Check; Fabricate Foot Peg Slides, Check; Make and install Foot Pegs (scratch that, steal Lloyd's), Check; Attach Rudder Cables, Check; Make Rudder Lift Tee Handle and Install, (Scratch that, we'll lift and secure manually); Pre-Trip paddle and a tweak to the rudder cables, Check; Form one more blade, Form paddle shaft, Epoxy and carbon fiber bond both blades to shaft; Check; Pack for Trip, Check;... Blast Off

---Monday: Late start getting out of town so camp at Judge "Whatever" park NE of Grand Maris. Nice hiking trails. ---Tuesday: Camping Permits and Fishing Licenses for Jan (too damn expensive for me to join on in), Check with Superior Outfitters at Rossport on details of the Islands and pick up his place mat map, His suggestion: Camp at Sand Bay on Wilson Island (great suggestion), and Launch. Winds out of the South so the trip was mostly sheltered from the winds by the islands and ... YES! the bay was unoccupied!. Great sandy beach, bay and camp site. --- Wednesday: Slept in late, Hung around the bay and Jan threw all the lures we had at the fish from shore but not takers. ---Thursday: Head for the Light House on Battle Island. Winds from the west and the storm clouds diverted us to the Harry Island Hilton. Fabulous place. Started raining so we headed in. Played 25 hands of Kings Corners and lit a fire in the stove to warm up and dry off. Wonderful. After about 3 hrs it was time to leave and just like that the rain subsided. Trolled for fish on the way back but again no takers. ---Friday: Jan's back was bothering her from before the trip so we headed home 1/2 day early. Winds were to be out of the North but they were coming at us from the NW by the time we got going late morning they were white caps and had some 2 to 2.5 footer in them. Jan was a real trooper and pushed on to our landing without hesitation. Would have liked to hike the lookout at Quarry Island but that and the light house will give us something to go after next time. Friday Evening was spend at the Shoreline Hotel and Blue Waters Cafe gave me the Blue Cheese Burger and fries that I had a serious hankering for.

Great trip! I'm glad that the new boat and Jan's command of it, went very well. I had a wonderful birthday sipping coffee in the lawn chair on the sandy beach. And my first wife Jan and I are coming up on our 30th, and we are still having fun together.

Pictures: Pre-Trip picture, Having a Happy Birthday, Cards at the Hilton.

QOD: You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. Zig Ziglar

Have a Seat Besides Your Own

The seat and back form was covered with two to three layers of fiberglass and then varnished. Shown is the nylon fabric covering the seat and back. Next up is the foot pegs, cables and rudder detials.

QOD: They can do all because they think they can. Virgil (70 BC - 19 BC)

Back-Up Now.

. I did make a plug for a mold and I intended on making a mold and molding a carbon fiber back rest but I figured that shaping a wood form would be faster. The mold would have been an investment for the next kayak that I will be building but, oh well, Tempus Fugit!

. The before and after pictures of the back rest looks like I'm wasting a lot of wood but it really wasn't that much wood and it was left over wood from the six-quarter rough sawn cedar trim boards that I used as decoration in the stucco on the house. The last picture is of the back rest and the seat form. I will reinforce with fiberglass and cover with ballistic nylon (left over hockey boot fabric).

QOD: After all, it is those who have a deep and real inner life who are best able to deal with the irritating details of outer life. Evelyn Underhill.

Side Job / Labor of Love

One of the many diversions to the yak is the Keleny cabin roof. She be needing some attention for quite some time. The multiple layers covering the multiple layers that get damaged each year as people chop the ice that forms as ice dams, badly needed to be replaced. A new steel roof should do just the trick.

Nobody knows how old the old log cabin is but it was a loggers cabin many moons ago. We did find a set of instructions on how to flash a chimney that might have had a 1932 date code. We pulled off 4 layers of tar paper and rolled roofing and one layer of shingles.

Picture of the roof, down to the boards. Click on the picture to see an enlarged view and more details!

QOD: Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. Thomas A. Edison (1847-1921)

8 x 10 Glossy (Actually 1.66 x 16 Ft that is)

I finally hit a major Milestone last weekend, the first coat of varnish. I was having quite a bit of anguish and was fretting over spraying the varnish (not having done this before), using a new HVLP spray gun (I know what it stands for but what does it mean for my spraying task), working with the 2 part Interlux Perfection, getting the right mix for spraying and working with the weather to avoid spraying during humid condtions (would cause the finish to be foggy). All is well that ends well and it did worked well.

I set the kayak up on a rotissiorie type set up with a crank at one end and a stick with holes in it to hold the crank and kayak at various angles of rotation. This allowed me to coat the entier boat at one time. My first coat was light as I did not want any runs. I increased the volume that I mixed by 12% on the 2nd and another 12% on the 3rd coat. One more coat and that should be it. I wet sanded between coats with a spray bottle and 320 grit sand paper.

Working for a filtration company, it was a natural to set up my own clean room. Much easier than to try to get all of the dust out of my shop and much more successful at keeping dust, Cotton Wood cotton and bugs off of the wet varnish. Keeping dust off of the finish is near inpossible but with a tent and HEPA filters no dust was around to spoil my fun.

QOD: To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

Wired

The detail work continues. I've had to work out all of the details of the rudder lift. As mentioned the rudder will be spring loaded in the down positon. The tube with elastic cord can be seen on the left side of that fuzzy picture. The tube is actually an old aluminum arrow. Also somewhat shown are the 3 cable casings that I routed and secured inside the boat. I needed this all done before I could varnish the inside. I put 2 coats everywhere I could reach inside the boat and 1 extra one in the main hatch and cockpit area to handle the exta wear. I also had to put in 5 other little details like the hatch loops as shown (unfinished).

QOD: It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere. Anges Repplier (1855-1950)

Just Ruddering Around

For the rudder I tired to use the wet sand compression technique to get the carbon fiber to conform to the wood core but it didn't work. Not enough compression and the sand was not even on the bottom. I went back to my previous method of pressing wood core and carbon fiber cloth against an EVA foam. It worked better than the sand.

Next, I need to get the cables and cable guides into the kayak before I can varnish the insides. I'm going to spring load the rudder to the down position and use a cable pull to pull it to the up and stored position.

QOD: The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're ok, then it's you. Rita Mae Brown.