Woodworking, writ large

When Jane and I were building a house back in 1978, we needed two 24 foot long 4x14 timbers to use as heavy hip rafters.  Now, this was before the era of Home Depot, but I assure you, you couldn't then, any more than now, go to a lumber yard and find such timbers.  Rather surprisingly, the tough part was the 24 foot length.  Even in 1978, most lumber mills had carriages only long enough to cut 16 foot logs.

But amazingly, in Chewelah at that time, there were two operating lumber mills with 32 foot carriages.  So I was able to see the logging truck head up into the mountains past my under-construction house, and a few hours later come back down with one enormous log on it.  Two days later, the lumber mill delivered my timbers.

Today of course, you'd use a glue-lam or one of those things made up of glued together wood chips.

But suppose it's today, and you wanted an 80 foot timber to replace one of the C.A. Thayer's masts?  And a glue-lam or woodchip thingy simply wouldn't do?  A century ago, this would not have been a problem...  any number of West Coast mills would have been happy to fill your order. 

But not today.

Amazingly, you'd still have one mill that could handle the order - the Hull-Oakes sawmill, near Corvallis, Or.  The link leads you to Gary Katz's excellent website where he takes you on a tour of this still-steam-powered mill.  

I am gratuitously posting a linked version of one of the pictures from Gary's site here only to whet your appetite.  You really owe it to yourself to take Gary's tour of this mill.

A hat tip to Craft a Craft for pointing out this treasure.

(Somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I am tagging this post "carpentry")

Woodworking, writ large

New crew training: Lesson #1

Our granddaughter Hazel is now 9 months old - certainly old enough to begin training for her crew position on Eolian.

So when Ken and Erica brought her on board recently, we started.  It went something like this:

Me - "Why don't we sit down and learn about the catches that hold the drawers shut in a seaway."

Hazel - "La!  Laoooie."

Me - "The hook, which is made of brass and is attached to the framework gets fitted into the eye on the drawer."

Hazel - "Reeeeee!"

Me - "In this way, the drawer is prevented...  No, wait.  Hazel?  No honey..."

Hazel - "Mummm.  Mmmm..."

Me - "OK, maybe now really is a perfect time to learn what brass tastes like."

We are looking forward to many more crew training sessions.

New crew training: Lesson #1

Heat gun

Speaking of tools... We were speaking of tools weren't we?   Here is one which you should probably have on your boat:

Yep, a heat gun - kind of like a hair dryer on steroids.  This is a serious tool - the air it delivers is so hot that it will set wood on fire - like all serious tools, you should have a care when using it.

And like many tools, when it is needed, it may only be needed for a few seconds, but oh, what a difference those few seconds can make.

Here are some of the things ours has helped with:

• Formica removal (at the nav station) - heat the Formica enough to soften the contact cement holding it to the wood.
• Head hoses - coat the outside of the fitting and the inside of the head hose with silicone and then heat the hose (carefully, slowly) until it is pliable.   The hose then goes on the fittings *so* easily, and the hose clamps are much more effective at compressing the hose against the fitting.
• Heat a piece of 1" head hose enough to get it over a 1 1/4" fitting - this saved our bacon when an engine hose split under way.
• Heat large-bore shrink tubing for battery cables
• Soften varnish for removal.  Every so often the brightwork demands that you start over with bare wood.  There is a slip-on scraper that comes with the tool (it goes right over the air nozzle), but I prefer to use my own scraper.

You know you want one.

Heat gun

Winter green

White livesavers.

Green jellybeans.

White crème de menthe.

....things that the term "wintergreen" brings to mind.  

But here in Seattle "winter green" means something else entirely.  Our nearly constant rain and relatively mild temperatures (recent snow notwithstanding) make for burgeoning cultures of mildew and algae almost everywhere.

Here at the partners, where the mast penetrates the deck, I was clearly remiss in not picking up the end of the coiled jib halyard when it fell to the deck.  Happy algae having a party!

And if that was happy algae, here on the side deck there is nothing if not an algae orgy going on. 

So why is all this here?  Well, it's because no one wants to go out and stand in the cold rain and clean the deck with a brush and a bucket of soapy water.  When it is warm out, this is a satisfying task.

But for the next few months, the algae is going to get a good start at taking over the world, starting right here on our deck.

Winter green