Last day of doing butt joints

January 31, 2006 at 11:59 pm · Filed under Tern 14 kayak

I finished the last butt joints tonight. My last 4 or 6 joints were significantly improved over the first ones. The finishes are smoother and I did them with less work. Bearing this in mind, I have a tip. If you have the room in your workspace I would finish all the butt joints on the underside of the panels first (underside being the side with the stickers/labels on them) before doing the top side. This way you will have more practise before starting the upper sides, which will be visiable.

The way I’ve been working is to do two butt joints a night. I then wait 24 hours (6C temp, fast cure hardener) to remove the bricks and mylar and trim the epoxy from the ends. However, I’m not going outside every night, so that’s why it’s taken me 4 weeks just to get this far. I’ve been meaning to record the hours I spend working on the kayak but I haven’t done this yet. I’d better get caught up before I forget.

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“God Bless Canada”

January 31, 2006 at 11:47 pm · Filed under Politics

Much to my dismay, Stephen Harper seems to end his speeches with “God Bless Canada”. Some people think that he is deliberately paying homage to George W Bush. I highly doubt this. It is well-known that Harper is quite religious, being a Presbyterian Christian. I suspect that he truly enjoys uttering those three words.

So what is my beef with this? Read the rest of this entry »

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Thieves take 1-0 lead over sluggo

January 24, 2006 at 1:06 am · Filed under Just Stuff

Goody, more great news. It appears that my garage door opener opted to open on its own last night. Some nice people decided this meant that my two mountain bikes, cordless drill, drill set, and wrench set were free to to pick up. In some respects I guess I was lucky because they left behind things like: three more bikes, a scooter, tablesaw, sanders, box of garbage, vacuum, deepfreeze and a toy drill.

For now I’ve disabled the garage door opener and fastened some wood blocks just above the garage door such that it cannot be raised with completely wrecking the whole thing. I also bought one of those lock shields for the man door, but it didn’t fit. Tomorrow I will try and get one that fits. I also wanted to get an engraver to mark everything of value that is still in the garage. I went to Home Depot and Canadian Tire and they were both out of stock. By then it was 10pm and too late to go anywhere else.

A Vancouver Police Constable recommended the engraving. He said that once an item is visibly engraved, it becomes very difficult for the thieves to sell it.

I guess the good news from the whole thing is that I took some time tonight to fix the man door such that it opens and closes easier. I’d like to have it working properly when the thieves return tonight to smash it in and steal everything that is left in the garage.

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Rethinking temperature

January 21, 2006 at 10:02 pm · Filed under Tern 14 kayak

Upon reading other people’s experiences with building pygmy kayaks, I’m rethinking the heating situation in the garage. It is becoming more and more apparent to me that I will continue to have difficulties working with the epoxy at the cool temperatures that my unheated garage provides (under 10C).

I’ve read other people describe how the epoxy flows nicely when they apply it to their boat. Not so with moi. When I’m applying the epoxy it is quite sticky and thick.

If anyone has experience or advice on heating an non-insulated garage (20′x12), I would like to hear them. Insulating the garage at this point is not really an option, I have way too many things stacked against the walls along with the bikes attached to the wall studs. Not only that, but insulation is really expensive.

By the way, I ended up returning the heater that I bought from Home Depot. It turns out that there was a recall on it.

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